“Atheist:
as the word philosophy would apply:
the rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics”

Atheism itself implies none of that, though it may be a common occurrence among atheists. But if theism is the belief in a god, then its negation, atheism, is “not ‘the belief in a god’”–i.e. the absence of belief in a deity. As I said, atheism correlates with rational investigation, but the latter is not an element or prerequisite of the former.

“Then it doesn’t have the same meaning. And its not the same ‘word’, big huge quotes there. And im sorry for not adding this into what I said earlier, I guess I just
assume its a fact and take it for granted:

Context: It’s real. Ill not dwell further on this and write it up to a misunderstanding between us.”

A word is, according to dictionary.com, “a unit of language, consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation, that functions as a principal carrier of meaning.”

The words in your post were “cult” and “religion”, the meanings are their definitions. “Gay” was my example word, and it has at least two meanings. Which meaning is intended depends on context. Words have specific meanings determined by the context, yes, but without that context qualifier, the statement is false.

Rand’s equivocations indicate that she forgot that words have specific meanings depending on the context. And the context includes her previous usage of the word.

“But do you actually mean to tell me that ‘torque’ and ‘gay’ can mean the same thing because I WANT it to?”

Meaning is subjective. What a word means to you may be different than what it means to someone else. Maybe you did grow up in a place where “gay” meant “torque”, but the words mean different things to others. That is, the uttered sounds make other people have different ideas than they make you have. If you want to be understood by others, which is one of the primary functions of language, then you’re going to have to use words that have the meanings you intend to convey. Dictionaries just record what is supposedly common usage. What something means is an empirically determinable fact that can be ascertained by studying people’s usage, it’s not something eternal and “out there” like Platonic forms.

Ad hominem? Yeah, that’s what it looked like, unless I’m forgetting parts of the conversation that came before. My interpretation was that you were trying to dismiss allegations that Objectivism is a cult or religion by accusing db0 of something that was logically unrelated to the supposed cult- or religion-like aspects of the philosophy, movement, and/or practitioners. Is this assessment incorrect?

“If your honestly scared someones to weak to resist joining a cult then you obviously have a very LOW opinion of a person.”

Non sequitur. Pointing out the human mind’s susceptibility to certain things is not necessarily claiming that whoever has those susceptibilities is a weak person or whatever. It is not necessarily indicative of having a low opinion of that person. As long as it’s not a necessary implication, your charge is a non sequitur.

“Heres the problem Teachers, philosophers and amatuer whatever have with her:

Her philosophy strips previous political and social thoughts bare and beats it vicously with reason.”

Have you interviewed those people? I’ve read plenty of critiques of Objectivism and Rand that don’t have that problem. Or at least, if they do have that problem, they think that the fact that the idea is bare is the entire problem. Theory is often limited due to our brain’s capacity–limited in ways that reality isn’t.

“Try what on for size?
Objectivism ABSOLUTELY makes assertions about physical reality.
I made them in the post above…how did any of those NOT apply to that definition of science?”

Again, here’s what Wikipedia says:
“Science is the effort to discover, understand, or to understand better, how the physical world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding. It is done through observation of existing phenomena, and/or through experimentation that tries to simulate phenomena under controlled conditions. Knowledge in science is gained through research.”

Objectivism is not an effort to discover, understand, or understand better, how the physical world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding. It certainly makes assertions about the world, but that in no way constitutes an effort to discover or understand how the world works.

“Apparently you haven’t been aquainted with the US education system. I vaguely remember taking ritilan in high school…thats about it.

Did someone have to tell you that gravity is the force that pulls objects ‘down’? Ya, basically the same principle. I never stated that all knowldge we have is not just a continuance of things other people determined or discovered..

But I can honestly say without shame that I was not taught the law of Identity until like 3 years into college…a sad but true fact. And as a matter of fact I was more interested at first in political philosophers than those dealing with this type of subject.”

The U.S. educational system does not need to tell people that A=A and that reality exists because everyone knows that already. You and Rand lump too many assumptions into those two statements. All they say is that if X, then X, and if something exists, then it exists. Well, heck, that’s being generous, since there are narrower definitions of “reality” and “exists” that may make “reality exists” meaningless or incorrect (e.g. if the verb “exist” is used only for individual objects, making “reality exists” nonsensical).

“Reason: Its probably the most important word in human laugnuage and you expect me to not throw it around like a wrecking ball? Ill pass on that suggestion.”

It’s hardly the most important word in language. What it is is one of the most important uses of language. Using reason does not require that you use the word “reason”, so no, you don’t have to throw the word around like a wrecking ball. If anything, throwing it around like that makes it easy to abuse, just like Rand did: bludgeoning people with fudge words instead of reasonably taking on their arguments.

“So you do not think that rational thought is paramount, then to what is it paramount to? Irrational thought? Your emotions?”

What I’m talking about is mainly the abuse of “reason” that I mentioned above. Believe me, I’m no advocate of faith.

“Reasoning with the use of reality is the only arguement ill be persuaded by. Id hope you also.”

Yeah, sure. The problem is that the word “reality” is one that Rand abused about as heavily and in the same ways as “reason”. What’s important is what constitutes reality and what goes on in one’s reasoning, because using the words themselves is nigh futile when you’re actually trying to reach a conclusion. If I say that X is correct and you say that it isn’t, do more than just throw the words “reason” and “reality” at me. Give me something substantial that has a bearing on the actual situation at hand.

“Also, Marc, if i misunderstood something you said as is stated in one of your replies I apologize, I attempted to read your links on ‘ An Inconsistent Triad’ and the other site, but i was to tired to concentrate. Ill try again in the morning…”

Just be sure to read more than that essay. What I’ve found with one Objectivist blogger I know is that he only attempted to rebut the first essay, which isn’t even a critique of the philosophy, and then ignored the rest. “An Inconsistent Triad” is by FAR not the most important essay, and I don’t base any of my own objections to the philosophy on the content of that essay. So if you want to rebut it, you have no beef with me.

Barely…
——

“Not everyone defines words the same way.”

Then it doesn’t have the same meaning. And its not the same “word”, big huge quotes there. And im sorry for not adding this into what I said earlier, I guess I just
assume its a fact and take it for granted:

Context: It’s real. Ill not dwell further on this and write it up to a misunderstanding between us.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=opera&rls=en&q=define%3A+context&btnG=Search

Lets take gay for instance. Lets say your working on a car and you have a mechanic assisting you. You are talking about its power output and you say, “Man! This car has alot of GAY!” The mechanic looks at you and says “Gay?” You would next look at him and say, “yah, you know. The force required to turn a shaft multiplied by the radius at which the force is applied.” He would then look at you for a moment, question whether or not your mentally ill and answer, “You mean torque…right?”.

And if you would like to get VERY VERY technical. Every uttered sound we have ever associated with physical reality and abstract principles was created by humans, and definitions are applied to them, big deal…why would I deny that. But do you actually mean to tell me that “torque” and “gay” can mean the same thing because I WANT it to? I guess they could be used in the same sentence like if i said,

“Wow that GAY man twisted his shaft in the other GAY mans ass with alot of TORQUE!”

But that doesnt mean im not making it up…

Wow, the last thing i need to or want to discuss is Wittenstein.
———————————-
Ad Hominem? LOL…
I tore apart what you said and laid out the contradictions bare before you. And then you expect me to say something NICE about it? Sorry, I guess im supposed to respect someone that says things like..

“Seriously I don’t want to see another mind ruined by that bullshit.” (apparently my mind is ruined, no reasons given…)
or
“People get sucked into Objectivism either because they find its statements appealing, with or without examining the reasoning behind them, or they are not very good at critical thought from the outset.” (here you basically call me a fool…thats fine. can you please give some examples or retract this?)
or
““inoculate” him against your cult, the same way that I would do for Scientology or any other dangerous belief system.” (apparently im dangerous…and a cultist.)
or
“If you are going to read Rand, please do it out of curiosity and don’t join her cult.

Quick! I must inoculate you:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html
http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/
”

LOL…what the fuck…seriously. If your honestly scared someones to weak to resist joining a cult then you obviously have a very LOW opinion of a person. Heres the problem Teachers, philosophers and amatuer whatever have with her:

Her philosophy strips previous political and social thoughts bare and beats it vicously with reason. Some people dont like this. Also I see alot of this as just over exagerated indirect bullying…not in a overtly aggressive way. But still…sad. I dont even pull that shit when talking about religion let alone philosphy.
———————————-

Try what on for size?
Objectivism ABSOLUTELY makes assertions about physical reality.
I made them in the post above…how did any of those NOT apply to that definition of science?
—————————————–

“Someone actually had to TELL you that?! No one disagrees, at least under common understandings of the words “reality” and “exists”!”

Apparently you haven’t been aquainted with the US education system. I vaguely remember taking ritilan in high school…thats about it.

Did someone have to tell you that gravity is the force that pulls objects “down”? Ya, basically the same principle. I never stated that all knowldge we have is not just a continuance of things other people determined or discovered..

But I can honestly say without shame that I was not taught the law of Identity until like 3 years into college…a sad but true fact. And as a matter of fact I was more interested at first in political philosophers than those dealing with this type of subject.
—————————————–
Reason: Its probably the most important word in human laugnuage and you expect me to not throw it around like a wrecking ball? Ill pass on that suggestion.
———–

“By “deify rationality” I meant that Rand and Objectivists make rationality into pretty much a thing to be worshiped. ”
-10 jul 08 @ 5:39am

Worship? If you mean:
idolize: love unquestioningly and uncritically or to excess; venerate as an idol; “Many teenagers idolized the Beatles”
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

You sure better believe I worship rational thought. Thats one thing I didnt need Ayn Rand to tell me to do. Just like any other human, I may stumble on my emotions from time to time, but I understand what I may have done/said/thought was irrational afterwards and kick myself for it.

So you do not think that rational thought is paramount, then to what is it paramount to? Irrational thought? Your emotions?

“Giving it such a supremely high status often masks the term’s use as a fudge to dismiss opposing ideas. For clarity, Rand calls many things irrational that one may be able to perfectly well reason to.”
-same as first

Picture or it didnt happen.

If you use rational discourse to prove a person wrong, purposefully, with almost ‘religous fervor’. Id thank you. Reasoning with the use of reality is the only arguement ill be persuaded by. Id hope you also.

But I could go further….Dismiss rational thought from your life for as long as you want and attempt to go about your nomal business(please make a book about this, ill gaurentte it will be the most entertaining thing to be written since the dicrovery of LSD). Kill people if they get in your way, take a shit while sitting at your desk at work because you didnt want to get up, eat tree bark because it looked tastey, throw your mail out the window because itll make it to the recipient sooner or later, then sleep in a tiny cupboard or something. Tell me how that works out.

@fry
“You’ve never heard of Ayn Rand before? What are you, 14? Maybe you should read about religion and philosophy before starting a blog about it.”

Seriously dude…are you like hitler or something? I didnt hear about her until I was 24. Its not exactly something popular to talk about if you can’t tell. Her philosophy gets more hate than the jews from muslims!

@fabrulana
I highly reccomend “Anthem.” and if you want a very good (but very LOOONG story) read Atlas Shrugged. If you can get past the part where wyatt leaves the scene youll not want to stop…not giving anything away.

I “found” Ayn rand because my first philosophy teacher said:
“If you ever want to read stories by an inhuman bitch who has no emotions and hates humanity, read Ayn Rand, no wait, in fact dont read Ayn Rand, shes just a bitch.” Then went on to teach us neitchze, all fine and dandy I guess….But thank you Dr.vince.

The next day i went to the library and read anthem from front to finish…best spent three hours of my life. All i remember afterwards is thinking…what the fuck have I been told, and realizing I had a LOT to think about.

I dont worship Ayn Rand. But I do find her philosophy enlightening and respect her greatly. I find her stories FULL of emotion, truth and strong words and beliefs that are well articulated. Shes an Atheist, which is a plus, and she valued reason as much as myself, Thomas Paine, David Hume, Jhon Staurt Mill and many many other philosophers I could write down. Call me a ‘Randroid’ if you wish or say im brainwashed. I can live with that, how her philosphy came to be and could come to be is entirely different from a cult or religion…but thats another giant post at another time.

By the time I was done writing this I recieved about 2 more responses..I cant get back tonight. I need to relax a bit, my brain hurts. TTYL.

Also, Marc, if i misunderstood something you said as is stated in one of your replies I apologize, I attempted to read your links on ” An Inconsistent Triad” and the other site, but i was to tired to concentrate. Ill try again in the morning…

hopefully the spelling/grammar errors arent to terible. Its late, im tired.

After discussing my concerns with some Randians, I was attacked and called as a subjectivist, a collectivist, a bolshevik, even an “ignorant buffoon” for not seeing clearly the inherent truth in her philosphy. Wow, I can see why Shermer called it the unlikeliest cult of all.

Oh, and one time, when I attended a local atheist gathering, they had a Philosophy instructor speaking. He started out ok when he was talking about how wrong religion was, but then he got sidetracked and started discussing how he discovered Rand, and then he began ranting out some really ignorant garbage, eventually alienating some of the attendees. To top it off, he credits Randian philosophy to justify his misogyny (how his sexual and abusive treatment of women was both good for him and good for the women). Maybe he was taking cues from The Fountainhead (the rape/sex scene).

You can read more about that here: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/2178/misuse.html

(BTW, how do I quote in this blog without doing it the way I\u2019ve been doing?)

As with anywhere other than blogger, just use the blockquote tag. ;)

“Whats so wrong about thinking individual men are capable of being heroic, the highest state of being?”

Nothing’s wrong with being heroic, but that does not imply that some other being can’t best us. Nor does it imply that there is no such other being. And I don’t agree that being heroic is the “highest state of being”. I don’t have one in mind, but I’m not going to take your claim for granted.

“i feel sorry that you must have a low opinion of yourself.”

Have you stopped beating your wife? Seriously, what I said has no bearing on issues related to my opinion of myself. Stop putting premises in my mouth that I don’t agree to use in the argument.

Regarding value, I used a definition from the Ayn Rand Lexicon, but I had known the definition previously, having been somewhat of an Objectivist for about a year or so, myself.

“Value:
the quality (positive or negative) that renders something desirable or valuable”

First of all, the definition I provided seems to be the most widespread one in Objectivism. I don’t recall ever hearing the one you gave–maybe it was in a book I haven’t read. But how, exactly, is “valuable” defined? Is it in terms of “value”? If so, there’s a problem.

“1.) You cant ‘unintentionally’ keep your life. Either you EAT, BREATH & DEFICATE or you DIE and cease to be.”

Acts which are unintentional, yet result in prolonging the condition of being alive, are engaged in all the time. I don’t think about breathing most of the time… I just do it. It’s practically automatic. Hence, most of the time, breathing is unintentional. Please read and interpret more carefully, unless you’re arguing that bacteria are conscious of what they’re doing.

“2.)Do you honestly not believe that your desire to live is not of your conscious free will?”

Don’t bring the issue of free will into this. Leave it to theology and the determinism debate.

Here’s the deal, with the scenarios simplified (these are not mutually exclusive, but each can occur by itself):
1. We can gain or keep something without that act being the result of intent or subconscious biological urges.
2. We can gain or keep something with “subconscious intentionality”, i.e. we have subconscious biological drives that drive us to gain or keep something.
3. We can gain or keep something with conscious intentionality, i.e. we know we’re gaining or keeping something, we know we want to do so, and we’ve done so through a conscious decision.

Now apply “the condition of being alive” and think about time as it applies to the definition of value that I posted. Reread the post you were responding to, because I’m not going to clarify further in this post, though I will go through this in a more systematic manner in my next post.

“Your formula states this…
Life = X and x = value
death = Y and y = value
therefore, x=y”

Give me the specific statements I made that apply here.

“Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”

Funny. A contradiction is a logical incompatibility between two or more propositions, according to Wikipedia. So apparently there is no such thing as irrationality in your and Rand’s world, since contradictions do not exist! Wait… that’s not right! I think what she meant is that contradictions do not represent reality, since some of the statements uttered are false. That is true. Remember what you, yourself, said: WORDS HAVE A SPECIFIC MEANING. You should be ashamed of Rand, then.

“3.)I assume by ‘depends on time’ you mean by our degree of consciousness at a certain age?”

No, I mean nothing of the sort, although it would throw a monkey wrench into your claim in your item 1.

Reread the part of my post where I use the variables X, Y, and Z. I seriously can’t make it much simpler or more general than that.

“Reality is the final arbiter in all your conclusions”

That’s a given. What is NOT a given is what elements constitute the set we call “reality” and what relationships they have with each other.

(BTW, how do I quote in this blog without doing it the way I’ve been doing?)

then the kind of person who accepts her philosophy is obviously just a loony and is too far gone.

PS: I don’t say that either. People who embrace Objectivism tend to be quite smart. I mostly get annoyed at their attitude.