John David Antesberger III

I'm curious then as to why 1) Ayn Rand ever bothered to write FICTION and 2) Rand ever bothered to use Dagny Taggart (and all the rest of the cast) as a symbol, a metaphor for her philosophy. From what I understand she chose to write fiction SPECIFICALLY instead of non-fiction. It would probably do many on this site some good to review the Introduction from the 35th Anniversary Edition of Atlas Shrugged.

On the contrary, I do not believe in God on faith alone. And yes it will sound like I make a huge claim that there is empirical proof of God's existence (note: I do not engender God). My stance is merely that there is either Nothing, or there is Something. If there was Nothing to start out with there wouldn't be Anything (i.e. the universe and the material contained within it). Therefore, there HAD to be Something at what we perceive as the beginning of Time and I find that Something (Existence itself) to be the concept of God. Consequentially, all that we observe around us and above us, from the macro to the micro, from the physical to the mental, derives from that state of Existence. Therefore, I can observe empirically Existence (God). I'm not claiming that you don't fully understand Catholicism (or Christianity in general), but we DO believe in FREE WILL which, last time I checked, was extremely PRO-individualistic. Yes, the Church has its THING with punishment and encouragement to follow and be collective, but leave that choice up to YOU, the individual. And in my mind I don't believe the Pope or the Vatican is Infallible, rather the opposite (as I GREATLY oppose the Vatican II Council). And therefore, I find you are wrong to compare God with Politics. Politics has nothing to do with it, as unfortunate as it is that some have tried to make it so. I don't care if it was ever a State Religion, in America it isn't and I am thankful for that. And I certainly don't need to defend myself on this at all. I wasn't doing so now. It is called CLARIFICATION .

Just to put a few cents in on the subject of Rand's Atheism... I am a Traditional Catholic and openly and devoutly practice my faith. I take Communion, confess my sins, and believe that there is a God. Objectivism works for me well in addition to my religion. As a Catholic, my goal is to reach Heaven, of course, but to do that I must concern myself with my soul and the ways in which I can purify it. Everything a Catholic does is to strive the individual's soul towards Heaven. Now I understand that Rand stressed the importance of Absolute Reality in relation to her philosophy. However, I view "absolute reality" as being God. Sort of the Alchemist's "All from One" theory which makes more sense to me and seems to have been part of the inspiration for the Big Bang. So, because I view Absolute Reality as being God this allows me to make use of Objectionism and devout myself to the model laid out by the philosophy. In Catholicism, to purify our souls we have to perform "works", meaning we have to be productive, not just materially, but spiritually and mentally as well. I find no quarrel with the materialism of Objectionism because it is in the physical world that I am mainly able to carry our my "works".

If we are O'ists how do we even discover the need to defend ourselves against MarcT? Dagny Taggart never defended Rearden Metal in a debate with Scudder; she didn't HAVE to! Ergo, none of us need to waste our efforts on something as trivial as arguing with MarcT the foundations of a philosophy that O'ists subjectively (meaning they express) and objectively (meaning they observe) observe the benefits of. If it works for us, why tell us different? If it works for us, even if we are a minority, then how EXACTLY is Objectivism redundant as he proposes? Quite frankly, I think MarcT's efforts are being wasted as well when he could be so much more productive, and those O'ists who have entertained the need to argue with him and defend O'ism have done nothing but feed a fire that doesn't even offer us efficient warmth. Let this be the end of the argument so we can continue with the things that keep us productive, please!