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NIJamesHughes

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About NIJamesHughes

  • Birthday 01/25/1985

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    Philosophy, sales, home cleaning equipment, the new right
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    Van Buren, Arkansas

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    JamesShrugged

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    James Hughes
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    Salesperson; Kirby Company

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  1. This is an article I wrote after my daughter recovered from MRSA. There is also a video for the article if you follow the link. http://wedontneedgod.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/we-dont-need-prayer/ Recently my daughter was in the hospital for a severe case of pneumonia. While she was there, being treated with modern medicine, using the latest advances in science and technology people would tell me an odd thing. They would say “We are praying for her.” While I certainly appreciated the sentiment, which was something like, we feel bad for your situation and wish there was something we could do to help, I couldn’t help thinking, if prayer actually worked, why would she have gotten sick in the first place. Surely there is someone out there praying that innocent children don’t have to suffer needlessly if God can stop it at will. And further, if prayer worked, why did I need to have her at the hospital at all? If god was going to miraculously heal her, you’d think he could do it in my living room, instead of at a state of the art multibillion dollar hospital that specializes in child care. Also, if god has a plan for everything, then it was part of that plan for my daughter to get sick. What makes these people think he would change his plan, god being all powerful and perfect, simply because you asked? God supposedly knows everything anyways; surely he knows you want a baby to recover from an illness. So what is the point of asking? That sentiment in itself didn’t seem too bad until my daughter actually did recover from her illness. Then “God had answered everyone’s prayers.” Never mind the hospital, doctors, nurses, medication, equipment, and the minds of the scientists who had discovered so much about the human body and had invented all these procedures my daughter had undergone to make her well again. To me it seemed that these superstitious people were spitting in the face of the doctors who saved my daughter’s life. It was not their achievement, and an achievement of science that she is alive today. It was because of prayer. It wasn’t because of the people in the hospital who spent a full month working with my daughter, using the scientific method to discover what was wrong with her, and then applying technology developed through scientific discovery. It’s not right that religious people should belittle those doctors by crediting the results of their studies and labor to prayer. The truth is we didn’t need prayer for my daughter to get better. We didn’t need God at all. We needed the power of the human mind and the achievements of science.
  2. So am I. It would have been presumptive and insulting.
  3. Thanks for your reply, but I don't need a lesson in what axiom's are, so I fear your words are wasted, and you have contributed nothing to the list of axioms.
  4. Not true. Volition: http://www.peikoff.com/opar/volition.htm "The principle of volition is a philosophic axiom, with all the features this involves." Validity of the senses: Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff, page 39: "The validity of the senses is an axiom"
  5. I am trying to list all axiomatic concepts. Existence Identity Consciousness Volition Validity of the Senses are there more?
  6. Just wanted to share this article, and perhaps clarify any of the points if folks have any questions.
  7. http://wedontneedgod.wordpress.com/2010/03...gious-concepts/
  8. Your items are no longer listed on ebay... do you still have any for sale?
  9. Just for reference, George Reisman touches on Rothbard's meetings with Miss Rand in the introduction to "Capitalism: A treatise on economics" avaliable for free at capitalism.net
  10. Does that apply to any philosophy as long as the conclusion follows logical from its premises, even if they are wrong premises? Such as if some mistakenly thought that the earth existed for its own sake and became an environmentalist or if they thought men where not smart or moral enough to self-govern and became a statist and logically followed from those premises to level that PETA and Nazis are? What I mean is that I thought an argument couldn't be described as rational unless the premises and the conclusion where correct. "if A is true then B follows, A is true thus B follows" That would be a valid argument. Its logical, because it proceeds from a true premise to a true conclusion and is therefore rational. But I don't under stand how one could say that using a process of non contradictory identification to proceed from an invalid premise to an invalid conclusion is an example of rationality. Unless, the fact that the method of non contradictory identification was used is essential in determining rationality, not the truth of the premise and the conclusion. Is that the case?
  11. The group is called "The Association of Objectivists in Business," here is their web-site http://www.aob.biz/
  12. I would like to commission two essays at the price of $20 per essay. The topic of the first essay is to be the Objectivism's defense of atheism on metaphysical grounds. There should be a focus on the axioms of existence and their incompatibility to the concept of 'god.' The topic of the first essay is to be the Objectivism's defense of atheism on epistemological grounds. There should be an emphasis on the arguement from faith and reason's dismissal of it, as well as a paragraph or so on the nature of reason and mans need of it. Both essays should be written with an audience of atheists in mind, but requiring no prior knowledge of objectivism. The purpose of the essays will be placement on a website that shows that Objectivism is the only consistent basis of atheism and will serve as an Objectivist outreach program to atheists. The essays do not have to come from the same author, feel free to submit articles for one or both catagories. Please send your essay's for consideration to [email protected] Payment: Payment for the selected articles will be made by money-order upon approval PS Feel free to email or PM me with any questions or considerations.
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