Posted on 04/22/2003 5:25:25 PM PDT by RJCogburn
My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute. — Ayn Rand, Appendix to Atlas Shrugged
In her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and in nonfiction works such as Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Ayn Rand forged a systematic philosophy of reason and freedom.
Rand was a passionate individualist. She wrote in praise of "the men of unborrowed vision," who live by the judgment of their own minds, willing to stand alone against tradition and popular opinion.
Her philosophy of Objectivism rejects the ethics of self-sacrifice and renunciation. She urged men to hold themselves and their lives as their highest values, and to live by the code of the free individual: self-reliance, integrity, rationality, productive effort.
Objectivism celebrates the power of man's mind, defending reason and science against every form of irrationalism. It provides an intellectual foundation for objective standards of truth and value.
Upholding the use of reason to transform nature and create wealth, Objectivism honors the businessman and the banker, no less than the philosopher and artist, as creators and as benefactors of mankind.
Ayn Rand was a champion of individual rights, which protect the sovereignty of the individual as an end in himself; and of capitalism, which is the only social system that allows people to live together peaceably, by voluntary trade, as independent equals.
Millions of readers have been inspired by the vision of life in Ayn Rand's novels. Scholars are exploring the trails she blazed in philosophy and other fields. Her principled defense of capitalism has drawn new adherents to the cause of economic and political liberty.
I'm not the one saying that human reason and acknowledgement of God are incompatible; you are. I'm saying that they are in fact, compatible.
Make your argument or get off the pot. Are you arguing that the existence of guilty feelings somehow demonstrates that the tendency to morals couldn't arise from natural causes? If so, make your case with an intellectually honest and scientifically satisfying response.
Oh, indeed. You can reason up a storm about what it says in the bible. And reasonable men can believe in God. However, that doesn't make much of a dent in the argument about whether or not morality exists in humans because of God or nature. It is, in fact, kind of irrelevant.
I am not saying that this is a reason that morals can't arise from natural causes. (God says that they did not arise from some inexplicable phenomena of self generation.) I am saying that guilt clearly demonstrates the sense of re-spons-i-bil-ity, i.e., being responsible beyond either a reason or rational sense of earthly survival.
Yet, it exists and is critically important for our understanding.
Daffy old woman [does not equal] demonic medium.
Prove it.
Again, Mideanite babies or anyone else is appointed to die at the hand of the Lord, at any method of His choosing.
Again, therefore, it would be pretty brain-damaged of me to consider this obviously dangerously psychopathic God a god of Good who deserved human worship, or whose Law should be accepted without critical question, if I want to safeguard my children from harm in a responsible, adult manner.
Why do you attribute the framing of moral thought to people who would have been lying through their teeth in a mass conspiracy of making up the myths by which they agree to lie as to the very foundation of their developed moral thought?
Could you make an effort to speak more clearly? Assuming I understand this, I doubt that they thought they were lying, per se. Generating stories with morals is an all too human trait. So is venerating them beyond their merit.
What is your proof that guilt did not arise from natural causes? I've seen my dog clearly suffering remorse, and I've seen elephants weep when they've inadvertantly hurt one of their fellows.
We do. Men don't tend to say, "wow, look at the morals on that babe!". But women do. In good times, when monogamy prevails and woman can make choices. Woman are extremely selective breeders, who, in good times, want men who show overt signs of such moral traits as loyalty and responsibility, so that the big genetic gamble they make with their few select eggs can pay off better, due to the men's contributions to rearing offspring.
Oh, indeed. You can reason up a storm about what it says in the bible. And reasonable men can believe in God. However, that doesn't make much of a dent in the argument about whether or not morality exists in humans because of God or nature. It is, in fact, kind of irrelevant.
I am saying in agreement with God's revelation and common sense, that reason is based upon presuppositions (or there would be nothing to reason with, at the base of it all). This fact supports one's honest availability to acknowledge God, with whom one's relation is prime, and by which we receive everything including our deeply spontaneous moral sense.
It does not, however, support that moral validiy is to be found by means of choosing our own presuppositions by means of reason only and then passing this along genetically and verbally with only one's existence to refer to, when there is no evidence of any man who has reasoned it out accurately and thoroughly on his own, for every contingency, in the first place, nor who could have.
If we are programmed, as it were, with a conscience, there exists no man nor group of men whose experience has demonstrably done this programming, nor any way known of even beginning to get the job done.
I'll let you have the last word, at least for tonight, while I drive home and eat what I may find at the hand of the Lord.
betty b. I suppose some of the statements I've made have names, it would be interesting to know what they are. ;-) Any correction would be appreciated, too.
Speak for yourself! But then, I'm still single at 43... hm.... :-`
I have no problem with ways of *preserving* goodness through generations, not even with demonstrable kinds of adaptability (of goodness).
Because I have the sense to, I do have a problem with minds from nothing (and with people choosing to be offended with the revealed God).
There, now you can have the last word, for tonight if not longer.
I'd have responded earlier, but apparently questioning the existence of God is grounds for suspension and ultimately banishment.
Can't have people questioning dogma or anything.
Might make 'em uncomfortable.
Best Regards.
Ultimately, in all the theories concerning the brain and the physics involved, there is no pointer to what is orchestrating the wave function collapse. IOW, the most science can do (including the most recent article about stimulating 'religious' experience directly in the brain)- is to associate physical brain function to the physical realm.
I chuckled when I read one Freeper’s reply (paraphrased) – well if you stimulate the brain to make the hand feel like it's on fire, I guess that proves there’s no such thing as fire.
In effect, there can be no evidence which proves the brain as any more than a transmitter/receiver for the consciousness. To believers such as you and I, that is the spirit.
Lurkers wanting to stay on top on the subject online might find this link interesting: PSYCHE An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Consciousness.
But we aren't questioning dogma, OWK. Apparently you must think God exists, for you said He does "horrible" things. There isn't a smidgeon of dogma in this observation, and my interest in finding out why you think that isn't related to dogma. Actually, the fact is I'm not all that interested in dogma per se. But I am interested in God, and how people relate to Him.
Did you have to go "cool your heels" or something -- as your post seems to suggest?
Yes, people restrain themselves, but they don't necessarily decide to do it based upon what the community conveys - as you have suggested! People make selfish moral decisions most of the time and it has nothing to do with culture, community, history, blah blah blah. That is my point and it pretty much destroys your system of morality. Your system does not take the individual into account, or the sense of "ought".
Over the long haul, that is exactly what happens. We educate, we socialize, we propagandize, we provide sanctions where we can to weed out the breeding capacity of the immoral. If we're smart, we make good choices as to what morals we choose to implement by this process. If we aren't, we let some numbskull who thinks murdering daffy old woman and Mideanite babies are just as good moral laws as "thou shalt not steal". Make these decisions for us. But we do make these decisions, no matter how loudly you think otherwise.
You have not yet explained how an INDIVIDUAL can make "good choices" because you have not provided a moral standard? You say "we educate, we propagandize, etc." - who is "we"? Is "we" the majority community values? Who represents "we" in your statement?
Huh? "...weed out the breeding capacity of the immoral"?? - they did that in Nazi Germany - it's called eugenics and it's EVIL. Who decides what is immoral? The ruling authority? The majority? Who? Also, each culture has different values - you need to tell me how we adjudicate which culture is correct in its moral approach - all are different. Were the Nazis moral? If not, on what basis do you say they weren't? The ONLY way you can say Nazis were immoral is to use a universal standard - WHICH YOU DON'T HAVE.
You are starting to bore me to tears - your arguments have no foundation whatsoever - they are from your head. I have said all along that individuals are the ones who make moral decisions. You are the one who has totally ignored the sense of "ought".
If there are no transcendant values, then "what is, is right" - no way around it. There is nothing to restrain a Marquis de Sade from being sadistic morally speaking. He clearly saw this and took it to it logical and practical conclusion! An individual can only DISAGREE with another individual or a community can only DISAGREE with another community as to which moral values are best, but none of them can be authoritative unless they have the brute force to enforce their brand of morals. That is just a plain logical fact.
That's funny - the founders of America based our rights and laws on the bible and moral absolutes. And they established the most free and successful system in the history of mankind. How di they do that? They didn't follow your prescription at all! They believed morals flow from God! Egad! Is America an anomoly in your system?
It is because God "is such a big fan of free will" that He has written the moral law into human nature. Ultimately free will is about making choices. Ultimately, there must be some standard by which to make reasonable judgments as to whether one potential choice/action is better than another.
We humans are creatures, participating in creation. Both have their source in God. Just as nature is subject to physical laws, man is subject (in addition) to the moral law.
And I do think the moral law has been written into human nature itself. For people at all times, from all cultures, from all over the planet have produced literatures that demonstrate a universal moral sense. There have been different formulations of the Golden Rule throughout history, as articulated by different geographically and temporally dispersed cultures, yet all these are recognizable as the Golden Rule. The Rule, thus, is demonstrably a universal moral law. If you doubt this, then I refer you to the Appendix of C.S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man, which documents this point (and other shared moral values) cross-culturally.
What is striking to me is that, if there is a universal moral law such that peoples of all times and cultures have acknowledged it, it must be something fundamental to human nature itself. Which I don't find terribly surprising, for God created man and his nature, just as He created all the natural things of the world and their specific natures, all of which are dependent on universal laws.
All of creation is lawful: There is the natural law, and there is the moral law. If there were no laws, then the universe could not have come into being in its given form, or persist as what it is over time. Without law, there is no well-ordered universe -- and no well-ordered man.
Man is subject to both the natural and the moral law, where other creatures are subject only to the former. The reason for this is, only man among creatures has been granted the attributes of reason and free will as his essential nature. Free will means that man, although subject to the moral law, can refuse to be bound by it.
If man could not refuse, then there would be no such thing as free will.
Because He invested man with reason and free will, God knows that he has given His creature all that he needs to provide food and water for himself: Man is not dependent on God for things that are easily within his capabilities.
But man is dependent on God for those things which are not within his capabilities: He cannot create himself; he cannot make or order a universe; he cannot, by his own means, attain the fullness of being that God intends for him. He cannot become what he was truly made to be without assenting to God's moral law -- which is designed to be the most efficient and sufficient help to man in the promotion of human well-being, personal and social -- and the source of genuine self-realization.
But man can refuse to become what he truly is, in his essential nature, simply by denying God and his moral law. When this happens, then disorder and violence and suffering increases, in the human person and in the world.
Yes...
Apparently even further discussion of the subject is taboo.
I guess it scares people.
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