Posted on 06/22/2013 9:02:59 AM PDT by ReformationFan
Here in Kentucky Pastor Storm now, he wasn’t a Pastor at the time he visited our Catholic Parish told his story of being an atheist,it was compelling because you could feel his emotions of coming from what was someone who denied God and becoming a man of God who now preaches the Christian faith. We are all on a journey of faith rather we believe or not. For me growing up as a child I was always asking about God/Jesus now my family were not church going people but they had a sense of faith in Jesus as the son of God but could not find time to read the Bible or go to church. But for me as a kid, young child, I always talked to the Lord in my own way and sought him out,I went to so many different churches but until as an adult came into the Catholic faith I truly felt at home within the Sacred Liturgy. Many people today in this secular cultural find believing in Jesus/God as they perceive as a myth is degrading in their thinking process, they do not need anyone to tell them how or what to do with their life. While the church now or in the History of the church you will find people of sin along with great pious men and women, that is the nature of mankind. Saint Francis came into the church at a time when the Lord needed someone to rebuild his church, not the material building as Francis thought in the beginning but the spiritual life because while the spirit is willing the flesh is weak.
I don’t have the time for a long response but I don’t want you to think that I ignored your post as it seems you spent a lot of time on it.
If I get the gist of what you are saying, it is that all reason is subjective and there is no objective standard to go by. What’s moral for one man different from what is moral for another. I went to great length to explain that there is an objective standard and that standard is man’s life. Man’s nature is a fact of reality and requires certain things. One of the most fundamental requirements is the right to produce, own and dispose of property. Without property rights man cannot operate. So it is wrong to steal because it violates a man’s right to property. I took the fact that the $8,000 was the property of the man who dropped it because your example would not make much sense otherwise. So if I read your example right, the ownership of the money is not a moral rule but a fact of reality.
As far as where I got my ideas, what does it matter. You seem to think the validity of an idea depends on the authority of the person speaking it. I went to great lengths to show you why honesty is always a virtue but you seem to think that it is a subjective matter, that lying can sometimes be a virtue. Don’t you understand that Whether I got caught or not has no bearing on the immorality of fraud or stealing. The good is not about what you can cheat and get away with when no one is looking. Its not about what is beneficial in the short term but what is the best action to take long term.
Bernie Madoff was undoubtedly one of of the most successful con artists in history. He got a lot of money from fraud. He got away with it for a time but the truth came out and he went to jail. I read that he has said that he is happier now in jail than he was when he was free and was able to spend all that money and I believe he is telling the truth.
I base all of my reason on the fact that reality exists independent of my thoughts and feelings. Reality is the objective standard by which I judge everything. No I don’t know everything but I don’t need to know everything in order to live life on Earth. What I need to know to decide right from wrong is readily available to me by observation of reality. Of course I can make mistakes and then it is my responsibility to make amends for them to the best of my ability.
So many religious people I have run into are so committed to the idea that morality has to come from some authority that they reject the idea that a rational morality is even possible. But reason is all we have.
No my ideas about man’s nature and about the standard of morality have to pass the same test as every other: correspondence to reality. That is there may be many different ideas about the nature of things but There is only one set that corresponds to reality. That is what man’s reason is for, to discover what is right and what is wrong based on his standard of value. Notice I didn’t say decide. One standard is right and all the others are wrong. I don’t expect anyone to accept mine on my say so. I expect them to think. If we disagree then reality will be the judge.
Yes there have been many philosophers who have put forward ideas about the nature of the universe and many of them are completely wrong and their ideas are destructive. Many are partially right and partially wrong. A few were mostly right and only partially wrong. No one is 100 % right because no one is omniscient. What every man must do is look at all the ideas from the past and his own ideas and validate them using reason and logic. The more correct a man’s ideas are the more enjoyable and successful his life will be. Since all knowledge is hierarchical, what man must not do is just take things on faith because it sounds good or it makes him feel good or most especially because others believe, no matter how many others believe. Man must integrate every new idea into his mind without contradiction. If a man holds contradictory ideas he should stop and root out the error in thinking because there always is one since a contradiction can’t exist in an objective universe. The law of identity forbids it.
Man does not have to hold his life as the standard of value and the fact is that the vast majority don’t. Christians certainly don’t. Christianity holds self sacrifice for the good of others as its standard of value. That is the complete opposite from mine so that is why I am not a christian.
It is reality that makes all ideas invalid except the right ones.
Not only should everyone hold life as their standard of value, but their own life as their highest moral purpose.
Ok, I took the time to look around at various philosophers. Could not quite place the selfishness coupled with the atheism.
After that, I looked around at other things, and then came upon it - would you be one who subscribes to the views of Ayn Rand’s objectivism ?
Oh, never mind, I see you are.
Interesting that throughout all my asking for what you were basing your morality on you kept mum on Ayn Rand and objectivism.
Why hide it ? Just say it, “I’m an objectivist”.
Just point me here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_%28Ayn_Rand%29
Yes I am an Objectivist. So what? Does that invalidate the ideas? I didn’t mention Ayn Rand because I wanted you to address the ideas themselves. Now why don’t you show me with logic and reason why the ideas I proposed are wrong. You tell me why it is wrong to steal, to lie, to commit fraud and don’t say because the Bible says so. That is a fallacious argument, the argument from authority. Give me a reasoned argument. Give me the base principles that underlie your position.
And by the way, I don’t accept Objectivism as true because of Ayn Rand, but because I see in reason that it is true. I don’t really care what you think of Her, I never met the woman.
No, No, No. Man’s happiness is not the basis of property rights. Are you serious? The basis of property rights is the fact that no one can exist without them. This is really basic stuff. I would say that happiness rests on property rights and not the other way around.
The founders said “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” were inalienable rights. Property rights are implicit in all three.
Man has to take care of his own needs first before he can help anyone else. To do that he has to be the beneficiary of his actions.
Yes, Objectivism holds that every man’s life is an end in itself, that happiness is his highest moral purpose and that he must achieve his happiness through rational means neither sacrificing himself for others nor sacrificing OTHERS TO HIMSELF but that is an ethic. Ethics is not a primary. It rests on metaphysics and epistemology.
Perhaps all your talk of a “man’s life” was about that basic point that objectivism kind of rests on ? You know it’s wrong if someone steals from you because it takes away from your happiness. You lost your nice thing, whatever was stolen. Is that it ?
“Perhaps all your talk of a “man’s life” was about that basic point that objectivism kind of rests on ? You know it’s wrong if someone steals from you because it takes away from your happiness. You lost your nice thing, whatever was stolen. Is that it ?”
Now I already gave you the principle involved for why it would be wrong to keep the money from your example so why are you asking me this?
Now I’ve answered your questions. I’d like you to answer mine.
Sorry, itself was supposed to be himself.
Yes that’s right. I’d like to hear why you think it is wrong to steal, as in your example of the $8,000, even if you knew you would not be caught. I’ve given you mine, that honesty is a requirement of man’s life as a RATIONAL being. What is the essence of that action and why is it wrong. I want you to tell me the principles involved, not an argument from authority.
There are principles, but they’re all Scriptural. Yes, you’re right, my entire worldview is rooted in the revealed Word of God, the Bible. Since you reject the Bible, perhaps we’ve debated about as much as we can.
Perhaps we have but why don’t you tell them to me anyway and maybe we can identify where our principles overlap. That might be useful.
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