We are in agreement. It is good when Objectivists choose an ethic of life over death. It is good when they apply reason to reality. But I am firmly of the opinion that, sans a creator, there is no syllogistic reason to choose one or the other. In other words, I believe that the only logically consistent athiest philosophy is deconstructionism--any athiest philosophy that introduces notions that one set of actions is better or worse than another has imported a back-door form of mysticism (so long as the philosophy purports to be right, rather than probably right), as such notions posit morals that cannot be derived solely by reason and observation. Why? For an action to be good or bad requires a standard by which to judge goodness and badness. A Godless universe provides no such standard as any such standard can based only on the inclinations and subjective preferences of the judger. Once the standard is set, reason can then be applied. But the judgment of what is good and what is evil is pre-reason, if you will.
Thus, my argument earlier was that athiesm logically drives you to deconstructionism if you demand syllogistic certainty, which Rand claimed to have produced. Once you relax that requirement and realize you are dealing in probabilities greater than zero and less than one, a consistent athiest philosophy is possible, although it is, necessarily based on unproven moral judgments (either explicitly or implicitly).
But I did not intend to say that Objectivism articulated the "meat" argument. Only that athiesm inexorably drives you there so long as you are looking for a provable philosophy that is logically consistent.
If you recognize that “there is good reason to favor certain actions and morality in other people”, then you’ve already acknowledged someone’s ability to define what is valuable to him, with or without the concept of God
This is true. But the ability to define that "for yourself" is inherently subjective unless that knowledge comes from some higher place (hence the backdoor mysticism argument above). In other words, defining morality by internal standards makes man into God and, in Christian terms, that is the sin of Adam, eating of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil."
And that's where I parted ways with Rand many years ago. She attempted an enormous task, objectifying philosophy, creating a philosophy that was provably true. She believed she had done so. But imho, she failed in this great attempt, as will anyone else who tries.
This has been an interesting exchange. Thanks for your time. Should you ever find yourself looking for more than athiesm can provide, you will find many smart, good folks who have already been to the foot of the cross ready to welcome you. It's certainly the best thing that ever happened to me, although, to be honest, I only arrived after much kicking, screaming, and grabbing on to door jambs as I was on my way.
I now see the premise with which Objectivism lost you, not that I’m recruiting. The standard of life over death is established from the first cell division. That’s the threshold of life. That process naturally builds upon itself with successive cooperative and specialized levels through more complex organisms. It continues through our nature, and that which promotes it we call good. That's it, no complex syllogisms.
Objectivism’s justification picks up in my last post regarding our ability to identify what’s in our rational self interests, leading to social contracts. I forget who said something like, “The question of ‘Is life worth living’ is one for an ameba, not a man”
Like you said, "it's good that Objectivists choose an ethic of life over death" and it’s good that Christians “choose” the same. Just because it’s a choice does not mean it’s arbitrary. If there’s no reason to choose an atheistic ideology promoting life, there’s no a reason to chose a theistic one. (That radial view’s probably why Islamists don’t consider choice important.)
"I believe that the only logically consistent atheist philosophy is deconstructionism"
Deconstructionism’s premise itself is the epitome of logical inconsistency. From the 7th sentences in the link I passed you: "… if all language systems are conventional, then so is the statement that all language systems are conventional. To claim that all language systems are conventional is a self-contradictory statement. Therefore, it is a false statement. " If nevertheless a belief in deconstructionism is a reason to distrust your perceptions of Objectivism, it’s a reason to distrust your perceptions of Christianity.