Superman123

I merely used it as an example of a way to keep news sources honest. I prefer to have more than one news source.

There is a whole site foxnewslies.net dedicated to sniffing out lies on fox news. You may not like it but it is worth taking a look at. I think in an Objectivist society we would have sites like these. It would be a good idea to keep people honest.

As a newbie I prefer to stick to books by Ayn Rand herself. Especially after reading horrific terms like Kelleyites. And I think Ayn Rand explains thing the best and I like her style. My faviourate books right now are 'Philosophy who needs it' and 'For the New Intellectual'.

Mike Meltzer’s work is awesome but very badly misunderstood it seems. Myself I learn more every day. There are some things I disagree with Mike but I still have not come across a better system. The biggest misunderstanding of Mike’s work I see is that of individual recovery ability. Mike stressed that recovery ability is individual for every person and that some people can train more often than others. If you see good gains training three times a week, I say congratulations on your great genetics. Although I cannot think you will keep that up forever without anabolic steroids. Other people like me who is genetically lacking can only train at most twice a week but get good results with once a week. Mike advises that you can even reduce you training frequency even more but for now I disagree with him there. It does not help taking out one of Mike’s workouts and just running with it e.g. train once a week doing his consolidated routine. That is a sure way for not getting results especially for a beginner. I actually would advise someone new to weight training (contrary to what Mike advises) to first train three times or twice a week for at least a year. Why? Because so much of the success with Mike work depends on experience. I have seen so many beginners not knowing how to train with intensity and making so many dangerous mistakes. It takes a while for people to learn how to get the most out of their workouts. Lifting heavy weights is not easy and the learning to do so esp. if you don’t have a trainer to teach you how. I sometimes think if I could get a trainer in weight lifting to guide me my results would be so much faster. HDers or as we are often called HIT Jedi are often accused of being dogmatic. But that is simply not true. I tried the volume approach but I never saw any results. Just because we are not as pragmatic as the Volume guys does not mean we are dogmatic.

<p> This is interesting in that it reminded me of somehting I have been wondering about that I read on wiki.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand) I was thinking what would be the correct answer to this criticism.Of course I think it is obsurd that anybody that is psychologically healthy would prefer dying and having no values. But I think that would not be a proper answer in philosophy. Perhaps some one has a concise answer for me.EDIT: Or perhaps what you are saying is the correct answer to this?

An epic like Atlas Shrugged would be hard to put into film format. It would have been better to have produced a series. Some series today are exceptional and far better than most of the movies appearing on screen today.

Well I was reading the tramp's speech from Atlas Shrugged, "From Each According to His Ability, To Each According to His Need" and it immediately came to mind. The apostles remind me of Ivy Starnes.

I have a question, something I have been thinking about. I once came on this verse in the Bible: If I take this literally would one be able to say that the bible promotes communism?

I think that I will have to try and keep myself knowledgeble on how consistently Objectivists keeps to individual rights for everybody on a political level. I know from experience how religious minded individuals can turn black to white and white to black. Tell them about individual rights and they will only think of individual rights for straight people. You have to be really vocal that it is for everybody, if you can convince them of that! And when you have finally convinced them, tomorrow you will find that they have reverted back i.e. that you where wrong and that it should only be applied to straight people. Rights for gay people will always be challenged and will always have to be consistently protected and guarded. We are the minority.

No I did not assume so, I was reffering specifically to the Tea Party not Objectivism. Pointing out how would any Objectivist would want to support a party that would want to do so? Yes your posts where very interesting bluecherry, very much so

Thank you for all the lovely responses. Especially Eioul and bluecherry yours where really awesome. What I still do not understand is what purpose it would be to limit Federal government but promote State regulations and controls. I think that would only serve to shift the power of government form the Federal level to the state level. Perhaps even alienate the states from each other. @Nicky look at my posts carefully and perhaps you will fugure out what the purpose of my posts are. I won't tell you outright but if you think a bit perhaps you could figure it out

Please look at the following article: http://richarddawkins.net/articles/643710-tea-party-taboo-the-atheism-of-ayn-rand and This is what I know about the Tea Party: a) Believes in god Seems to want to limit Federal government but is very much ok with it on state level. c) Says that they do not want to get involved in social issues. But they obviously do want to on state level. d) Basically conservative and anti-gay. Here is my issue why would an Objectivist association want to basically leave their philosophical base behind and join a Tea Party group. In seems like the Tea Party is at odds with the Objectivism. Lucky that the Tea Party movement wasn't prepared to just let go of their "philosophical" base. This made me thinking Objectivist go on about individual rights and so on and how they are ok with homosexuality. But what happens when it is not convenient to do so. Perhaps they will be will to sacrifice some group’s individual rights for the sake of some political power. I once saw a movie one of the actors said basically "Ha! the constitution! that is only for straight people!" Ha individual rights that is only for straight people?

I know all about them rationalizing business. I think think JASKN said it very succinctly and helped me understand the concept very well: But I am still not satisfied yet I still have one 'issue'.

@Nicky, Are you accusing me of trolling? I do not understand just because I have a different opinion than you. I recall the other day that a lot of christians came on this forum and everybody showed them more tolerance than that. In fact I have seen a lot of homophobic, hurtful comments on this forum and they have not been accused of trolling. Why would I want to troll bad things like this? It would be in my own interest for homosexuality to be moral in terms of Objectivism. Well it seems your conclusions are very different from Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff, and Nathaniel Branden. Firstly Ayn Rand, we can only speculate on what her views on homosexuality would be today. People say she would change her views looking at the scientific evidence today. But she did not change her views on smoking after knowing about the evidence. In fact she only stopped smoking when she got cancer as I understand. So we do not know what she will think today. And she is the writer of Objectivism or is it an open system now?Leonard Peikoff doesn't say it’s immoral but I do not buy his argument when he clearly says that homosexuality is the result of a faulty premise. And those words 'aberration is ineradicable' how can he say that when Objectivism seems to say that we are volitional beings.It seems like Nathaniel Branden does think that homosexuals can become straight. If he really thought homosexuality is moral he would not want to "help" people change their sexuality. Would it not then be immoral to do so.And how do you know what I know. I want to ask you, ‘do you know what causes any kind of sexuality?’ I would say nobody really knows. I do not want to promote agnosticism but nobody can really answer that today. Well for someone like me with my concrete minded mentality perhaps I cannot know. Some of these abstract concepts are very hard or perhaps I just don't want to understand them.

Ok Tony, tell me then how should I understand the following statements I have read on the internet. These are the ones I can find now: "Leonard Peikoff thinks (male) homosexuality represents a desire for the approval of other men by little boys who didn't get picked for football. But being gay is still OK because the aberration is ineradicable." "Nathaniel Branden says he would still be willing to help a homosexual patient "convert" to heterosexuality if the patient "insists that he or she genuinely wants to change." "'Or the adolescent who flees into homosexuality because he has been taught that sex is evil and that women are to be worshiped, but not desired?'" – The virtue of selfishness, Chapter 2 Mental Health versus Mysticism and Self-Sacrifice. Perhaps Nathaniel Branden is not considered an ARI intelectual anymore. I don't know the history. Thing is I can't keep on trying to 'defend' my sexuality. I feel like I am the one rationalizing.

After reading all the posts by the so-called convervatives I am now really conviced. The thing is the more I read the more I realize that according to Objectivism homosexuality is immoral. This is really sad 'cause I very much consider myself a Capitalist. I think it is best that most gay men and woman stay far away from Objectivism. I am considering the works by Adam Smith and Friedrich Nietzsche. I think if Objectivists really knew me they would anyway consider me a second hander. I know some great Objectivists and I hope they will still consider me a friend. Luckly that I did not tell my other gay friends about Objectivism. I still think Ayn Rand was dead wrong about homosexuality.

Regarding low carb diets I think this is controversial I quote wiki: http://en.wikipedia....rbohydrate_diet "American Heart Association The official statement from the AHA regarding these diets states categorically that the association "doesn't recommend high-protein diets."[107] A science advisory from the association further states the associations belief that these diets are "associated with increased risk for coronary heart disease."[33] The AHA has been one of the most adamant opponents of low-carbohydrate diets. Dr. Robert Eckel, past president, noted that the association supported low-fat and low-saturated-fat diets, but that a low-carbohydrate diet could potentially meet AHA guidelines.[108]" If you have to follow a low carb diet I could suggest the slow carb diet by Tim Ferriss.</p>

Carbs have had a bad rep for a long time. But a low-carb diet is not healthy. It will be ok to loose weight on a low-carb diet but for health you will eventually have to return to a normal diet. Any diet that demonizes a certain food usually is not supported by the evidence. *In fact you do not really get unhealthy food.* You can have a cola every now and again. But if you drink 2litres a day you are looking for trouble.

@dream_weaver, A rational skeptic told me that he is not mentioning that Quantum Mechanics. It is one of the most thoroughly tested theories around and that he thinks that this quote is a hankering back to the Renaissance Man and an oversimplified view of science. I do think that I agree. He is rejecting hard earned knowledge and trying to say we do not know much. Isn't this cynicism? Then he wants to poor syrup on it all by implying we can do anything because we know so little. It is interesting. These things are motivating me to read up more about it. I really want to study up Occam's razor and the Philosophy of Science. I think wiki is the best but sometimes their explanations can sometimes become a bit dull. I will see what my local library has.

I am wondering what is his purpose for listing these few things as 'true'. Does somebody have an idea why? You cannot be 100% sure of anything in scientific thinking.

“Don’t tell me it’s impossible; tell me you can’t do it. Tell me it’s never been done… the only things we really know are Maxwell’s equations, the three laws of Newton, the two postulates of relativity, and the periodic table. That’s all we know that’s true. All the rest are man’s laws.” – Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway and recipient of the National Medal of Technology and Lemelson-MIT Prize. This quote really struck me. It really got me wondering if this is true? I presume he is talking of Physics and Chemistry. Is everything else, except these things he mentions, we know theories we ourselves have developed with our own experience and thought?

What I really find annoying is that christians find it perfectly acceptable to spread their faith around, even going to the ends of the earth to ‘preach the gospel’. When atheists try and at least promote some rationality suddenly atheism is a faith and now I see anti-theist. Well I am not ignorant of religiosity and its threat to me. @SapereAude I am very much convinced now that you meant exactly just what you said. Sorry for the knee jerk reaction. My sincere apologies.

Yes your words were well chosen but implied behind the words are that most non-Objectivist atheists are socialists or anarchists. You could say unless you said so you are not saying anything of the sort. Yes there are many roundabout ways to say something without actually saying it and I am sure the more you are educated in logic the more ways you will find to do so.

@SapereAude, I dare you, In fact I double dare you to post this on a skeptics website. Here is a good one in case you cannot find one: http://www.skepticforum.com/ You will find many non-objectivist atheists here.

@Agrippa1 if god is your only objective reality does that mean this physical world you and I live in is non A e.g. a dream or something you have to take as faith. Only a sincere question.