When it comes to morality, one religion's "morality" is another religion's "immorality."

For me, a rational ethics -- free from religion -- is the only ethics worthy of carrying the name "moral."

Aristotle produced a simplistic rational ethics based on virtues visible in respected people, and vices visible in non-respected humans. And teaching Aristotle's non-denominational ethics in public schools would be a great idea, but ... We'd be turning out individuals with the same moral upbringing of Alexander the Great, and that wouldn't do in a socialistic world.

Even better is Ayn Rand's ethics. Her's is an ethics metaphysically based in reality and epistemologically based in reason; making it a clear and concise rational ethics that makes sense. Ayn Rand's ethics is clearly also what America's founding fathers had in mind when writing the founding documents that recognized and moved to preserve individual freedom -- the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

That is the pride that C S Lewis was talking about.

You simply misinterpret what he is saying.

The fact is that Man as a species (nongender specific) is exactly what he said it was. There is thousands of years of evidenciary proof to back that up. The very way in which you yourself brought up the point was mean and spiteful. If you actually read his writings then you would know exactly what he means and exactly what he is talking about. You are either simply throwing out a quote with no undertsanding of its context or you are spitefully misrepresenting his words. Either way you are only living up to his billing of you. Mind you though it isnt just you. It is everyone.

It is Pride itself that is ultimately the worst defeater of man. Pride slays me daily. My greatest failings on earth come because I am to proud to acknowledge my imperfections for what they are.

You yourself suffer from Pride. It is ultmately the source of what causes you to rail against what CS Lewis is saying. You reject that you are nasty and pride filled. because ironically you are to proud to accept it as fact. But you you are nasty to christians. You are derisive and mean spirited. You are condescending, arrogant, and full of anger and spite. That is OK by the way. You arent supposed to be perfect. I suffer from all of the same failings. The difference is that I know that I suffer from them and I beg my God every day to forgive me for my weakness. I am imperfect and I ask that he should forgive me and cleanse me of my unworthiness.

You however deny that you have those imperfections..supposedly because you are too smart and rational and have such a clear cut code of ethics that stems from your rational mind that you have somehow purged yourself of those little imperfections that humans have.

That is CS Lewis point. It is not expected that we should be perfect creatures. We are most demonstrably not. His point is that we need the purification offered only by God to make us pure and whole. Stating fact is not hate. If I said someone was ugly and they actually were ugly it would not be a "hate" comment. It is truth. It is more loving to speak the truth no matter how ugly than to lie to someone to their own detriment. Who are you protecting with the lie? The other person? No. You are protecting yourself from the discomfort of speaking the truth.

If you are an atheist, you get to choose what is right and what is wrong. There is nothing at all limiting your choice.

Growing up in the real world has some real world ethical lessons included -- with or without religious involvement. And reality has some unforgiving moral-story lessons waiting for those attempting to skirt reality.

Not even the best of religions can deny the real world moral limits set by reality.

The time for debunking the religious hammerlock grip on "things moral" has come.

That is an excellent point. Rand (for all that I admire many aspects of her philosophy)had some glaring holes in her philosophy. It is interesting that she heself acknowledges that she leaves as "unanswered" the question of WHY something is right or wrong (or good and bad) she claims that it is derived internally and that no further exploration into the question is needed. Ironaically it comes into a conflict with her ultimate axiom...that there are no contradictions. She refuses to answer the question because it contradicts her testimony. Ayn Rand wanted to believe absolutely in the perfection of man. That man was the highest attainable morality. Her position defies history. Man without a "religious" code of morality is subjected to moral relativism. How ironic that the one aspect of mankind that she despises most is the very thing that would run rampant if her code of rational ethics were practiced by all. It was always amazing to me that in The Fountain Head both the antagonist and protagonist are atheists. How I wonder does she explain in her mind that the one has such a good moral code and the other does not. By her light it would be because teh protaganist is rational and loves Man. While the antagonist is irrational and hates MAN. She is close to being correct..but I think her postion reveales her own flaw. The antagonist is not Irrational. Elsworth is a very intelligent thoughful ration being. He is fully cognizant of the damage he is doing and the depth to which is is bringing people low. He is EVIL. The protagonist on the other hand LOVES man. Admires mans capacity and ability and everything that is good in him....he you see is Good. So built in to Ayn Rands own conceptualization is a pattern that defies her own argument. The bad guy you see is BAD while the good guy is GOOD. it isnt the rationality of their minds that makes them so. It is their capacity to love and do what is right that makes them so. So Even in Ayn Rands world view somewhere is this concept that hating man is evil and loving man is good. Why would that be if morality was only based on rational pursuit of your own self interest.

The time for debunking the religious hammerlock grip on "things moral" has come.

There is no religious hammerlock on morality! I believe that Christian morality is correct, because I believe in God, in Jesus Christ, and the message They delivered to us. If you are an atheist, you can believe whatever you want. But as for real world ethical lessons - they only exist if you ALREADY have an idea of what is right and wrong (a morality). An atheist can choose any morality he wishes.

Thanks for putting it so concisely. I tend at times to get longwinded. But that is the argument in a nutshel. Ayn Rand had a very clear image in her mind about what was good and what was bad. She believed that she gave herself that sense of rightness and wrongness. All of her rational justification of the position stems from that position. The problem with that theory is that there is no true right or wrong. what is right or wrong is no more then what someone thinks it is...and yet she would deny that absolutely which is what is so ironic about her position. She would argue absolutely that the what was right and wrong was relative to the person. She was not a fan of relativism. Somehow this otherwise brilliant lady failed to see that thee is no garantee that given a relative morality that it would be the same for each person. Who then would be to say that she was right. She would say "I say I am right." The problem is that that comment is ultimately meaningless in any context other than as a hypothetical argument. He position was based on the absolute certainty that she was right..without ever explaining WHY she would be right and someone else would be wrong....would we then have to assume she was the only rational person on the plante..everyone must agree with her or else they are an irrational idiot. That is utter nonsense. Someone can be a very intelligent very rational persona and "choose" of the own free will to have a different opinion about whether or not something was right. So now who is right. Still Her? based on what?

You see even in her own argument their is this underlying assumption that there is and ACTUAL RIGHT. She just conveniently refuses to explain where that sense of right and wrong comes from. It must really be nice to be able to say...
"I am right because Isaid I am right and there is no need to explain why I think that way."

It is interesting that she heself acknowledges that she leaves as "unanswered" the question of WHY something is right or wrong (or good and bad)

I'd like to know your source.

Here's what I know Ayn Rand said ...

The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics -- the standard by which one judges what is good and evil -- is man's life ...From The Objectivist Ethics, page 23 in the paperback titled "The virtue of Selfishness."

If some men do not choose to think, but survive by imitating and repeating, like trained animals, the routine of sounds and motions they learned from others, never making an effort to understand their own work, it still remains that thier survival is made possible only by those who did choose to think and discover the motions they are repeating. The survival of such mental parasites depends on blind chance; their unfocused minds are unable to know whom to imitate, whose motions it is safe to follow. Ibid, page 23.

Man must choose his actions, values and goals by the standard of that which is proper to man -- in order to achieve, maintain, fulfill and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in itself, which is his own life. -- Ibid, page 25.

Yes that is an excellent point. I fail to see how Ayn Rand proving that what Ayn Rand said is correct is somehow brilliant. "I thought about it twice" therefor it is correct. What if the premise was wrong..then you could think about it a million times and guess what you would still always be wrong.

Ayn Rand intentionally never answered the question of where the idea that something is desireable versus undesirable (read good versus bad) She left it open.

My ultimate problem with Thintwice is that he (Just like Ayn Rand) Makes these absurd leaps in logic that have no basis in fact. "a self-exam far superior to Christains checking their consciences" I get tired of detailing word by word how what he is saying is utter nonsense and then not getting a reply,unless it is to take something I said out of context and ridicule it, so I wont bother replying to that one but he always makes these outrageous comments such as that and then expects his position to hold water. Why is Ayn Rand verifying for herself that she still thinks the way she thought before somehow vastly superior to how christians think. I would also like for him to explain to me just what it is that he thinks christians think. He demostrates constantly that while he certainly has down some of more obvious anti-christian mantras and while he certainly is capable of pointing out some human failings he nevertheless has not demonstrated even a working knowledge of exactly what the philosophy of christianity actually is. Ayn Rand never understood it either. It was what lay at the root of her problem. She was hypercritical of people whose reasoning she ultimately did not understand. How could she? I dont blame her. She was just wrong about it.

I would argue that Christianity is completely free of those "wrinkles" There are no contradictions in Christs message. It is consistant and whole. Not only in and of itself, as a "stand alone" religion as it were...but also contradiction free as it regards the fulfillment of the prophets visions in the old testament. Now there are plenty of contradictions in the way that MAN practices the religion. That is a different thing altogether. My brother who is a deist but not a "christian per se" and I debate this regularly. Thinktwice I think suffers from the same malady as my brother. They see a contradiction in the way that a christian behaves versus what the bible says a christian should do. That contradiction trips them up. They see the hypocrasy/contradiction as a failing of faith and if the faith fails then what does that say about the religion. What they fail to understand is that that is precisely the point. We as christians are not perfect. No person is. I daresay there has only been and will only ever be one perfect Christian. If the expectation is that some metaphysical mystical tranformation in life so that all of a sudden every human who claims the mantle of christian is now christlike then who is it that believes in fantasies. Christianity recognizes us for the flawed creatures that we are. There is no transformation into a perfect person possible...that is why the price had to be paid in the first place. There is no contradiction in the philosophy. All of Judaeisms past prior to Christ being born pointed at his coming and pointed at exactly the transformation in the Word and the LAW that Christ brought. There is no contradiction in what it lay out and what it fullfils. It is only our inability to be perfect that makes it SEEM imperfect.

But Thinktwice's postions remind me of the man who rails against a god who would allow injustice never accepting that God never performed a single unjust act. It is like the sins of the father. If I stray is that Gods fault. If I behave horribly is that the fault of the Christian message...or is it my fault for not living up to the responsibility. Clearly it is my fault. That does not make Christ to blame. It certainly doesnt make his message a contradiction.

Not even the best of religions can deny the real world moral limits set by reality.

What exaclty are you trying to say here?

Just what real world limits are there on a moral code that has no determining factor other than someones own will.

That is where you have to prove your point thinktwice.. It isnt an easy task. Ayn Rand never could. You think there is some kind of real world limit to morality but there isnt. When you are the arbiter of your own morality there are no limits other than what you choose to percieve as moral.
That you see is the point. If you decide your morality then there are no defining factors other than yourself. By those standards there factually is NO morality. If a man (nongender) is the arbitrating judge of his own moral code then there is no limit short of the sanity level of the individual in question.
The world is full of people who thought that their will determined the scope and size and shape of their own morality. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot (sp?) It is never a pretty exercies and always ends up labeled by the world as Evil. What does that say about "morality" and how individualized it is.

Another ludicrous statement.

Why do you do that? It doesnt prove anything.

So some christians burned some people at the stake.

I suppose I should talk about all of thehorrible things that pagans and athiests did over the centuries. Man is Man and as such is full of failing. It is not a flaw in christianty that Joan of Arc served a political purpose and then had to be disposed of. That is an evil of a man not the evil of a faith. And your contention that only religion drives people to such horrid acts is equally ludicrous.

Hitler was niether and altruist nor was he a religious person. Where does that fit into your equation? You throw out a few examples of mans imperfections and think it indicts religion and proves you point but it doesnt. It doesnt prove anything except that in 1431 France there were corrupt men in the Catholic church who allowed their politics to effect their judgment. The act itself had nothing to do with being a Christian.

Let me add again since I got off point. The burning of Joan of Arc was not coersive christianity. The coersion to proclaim herself as a witch was political. She was representative of a free france and her constant victories over the English made it seem that God was on her side. The attempted coersion was if anything a means of saving her life. Corrupt churchmen detemrined that better she announce herself a sinner and discredit her rather than let the English burn her. In the end she refused to announce she was withc and the church unable to save her had to deliver her to the state...Who burned her. I would wager that the majority of your so called "christian" atrocites over teh ages have similar flavors to them. It is once again the flaw in your reasonsing. It isnt Christians who are evil it is people who are evil. Being a Christian doesnt shelter you from being a bad person and making mistakes. Even horrible ones. that cost people thier lives.

Was it the churches fault that Henry the V used some third aunt five times removed as a flimsy justification for invading France and putting it to the torch. Some would say yes since the Bishop in England gave his blessing to the venture. But it swas the Bishop that led the men over their and it wasnt for Christ that Henry V conquered France. It was for himself and his own power.

There is no religious hammerlock on morality

How many times on this thread alone has it been said --one way or another -- that morality comes only from God, and that a rational ethics is not possible?

Hey there thinktwice. Nobody said morality only comes from God, only that morality must come from outside of reason. Most believe in God and accept His morality (I do.). But anyone can choose any morality (idea of right and wrong) they want. And a rational ethics is possible, as long as it is based on an underlying morality (which Rand's is). Christianity also provides a rational ethics, based on God's morality.

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