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Steve Weiss

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Everything posted by Steve Weiss

  1. Porn is entertainment, and one may have an interest in it or not. Many people like movies about vampires and with gratuitous violence, explosions and endless car chases. That's fantasy. Most porn is equally borning. There are issues of free speech, the right to earn a living, as well as child pornography, but what consenting adults do is their own business, and if people find that interesting they have a right to observe human procreative behavior. The state and churches should butt out of this matter, expecially since a fair number of homosexual priests have been taking advantage of little boys for centuries. Let them cast the first stone.
  2. I put it to you that you have no grasp of either Catholicism or Objectivism. You seem to be quite comfortable in holding contradictory views, so I must encourage your to recognize that A=A. Or am I taking you too seriously?
  3. I like to point out to altruists that the alternative to selfishness is selflessness, the destruction of self, death. So, the choice becomes crystal clear and "self"-evident. Either one chooses to be (exist) or not to be. That, indeed, is the question. If there are to be values, what must of necessity be one's primary value? One's self is the answer because without the self no values are possible as all values are either for or against the self. Now contemporary philosophy denies that there actually is a self and that it is just a figment of one's imagination, so in that context there isn't even a need to discuss selfishness, but apart from that construction the major issue is how one should think and act. Acting for one's self interest requires that one must determine what one's self-interest is over the long run. Religious people assume that self-interest means egotism (which they equate with egoism) and exploitation of others for one's own gain. They seem to have no concept of a win-win, value for value relationship that Rand termed the "trader principal." For religionists the choice is self-sacrifice to others or to a deity or brutal, immoral actions takes to enrich one's self at the expense of others. That false dichotomy is what must be identified and rejected by rational people if one is to act in support of one's own existence. The religious view is that humans are the equivalent of the cartoon character the shmoo that loves to be eaten and used for the benefit of others perhaps with some reward in a fictional afterlife. It should be unnecessary to point out that that is not a morality appropriate for man. Religionists are death worshippers, and if only they would have the courage of their convictions their viewpoint would be "self" limiting.
  4. Bravo! Now you've got years ahead of you acquiring and applying firsthand knowledge. Unfortunately, you will find yourself in the smallest of minorities, and that's why there is so little to be found about Objectivism on internet discussion sites. There are just very few Objectivists out there. Someday, decades from now, that may change, and perhaps you will be one of those who make it so.
  5. Steve Weiss

    Tattoos

    Graffiti is defacing property in the name of would-be art. One's body is not a piece of paper to be sribbled upon. The origin of marking up one's body goes back to the time when humans inhabited caves and attached mystical significance to drawing on cave walls and upon themselves. Aboringinal people are the ones that started inking up their skins, and one finds the majority of long term prison populations covering themselves in religious and gang related drawings. I associate tattoos with people who have low self-esteem and with ugliness.
  6. If you can get a copy of the 1977 Dutch film 'Soldier of Orange" you will be impressed by the heroic resistance fighters in Holland during the Second World War. The writer lived the story. One can truly appreciate freedom after seeing that film.
  7. Steve Weiss

    Tattoos

    I personally find tattoos to be like graffiti and repulsive. When I see tattoos I think of primitive cultures and ugliness. Sorry, you asked.
  8. Sexual attraction is problematic. Even heterosexual men do not agree on what is sexually attractive. One often sees some of the oddest couples. I've seen guys that weight 300 pounds with beautiful young women who weigh 100 pounds. Or very tall guys with petite girls. Who can explain the attraction? In my view, most women are bi-sexual. Women do things that "straight men" would be very reluctant to do, like kissing, holding hands, sleeping in the same bed, trying on each others clothes and shoes, etc. Women consider this touchy-feely stuff to be normal, and many experiment with doing lots more. At the same time, many men who are in declared heterosexual relationships are messing around with gay men, and even gay prostitutes. Sexuality, like most behaviors, falls along a continuum. I think that there are blatant male homosexuals that one can identify as they walk by and who are open about their lifestyle, while others are more subtle. My tennis partner is gay, but not blantantly so, and I have had meals with his partner and his friends some of whom are real screamers. I wondered what the gay guys were thinking about me being the only straight guy at the table. I don't think that it is valid to generalize about lifestyles and roles. I don't have firsthand knowledge of what gays do, and I'm not in the least bit curious about it either. I also don't go to clubs and pick up women because night life doesn't appeal to me, and I don't drink alcohol. Different strokes for different folks. If the act of male homosexual behavior is perverted, why then are so many men and women into anal sex? They are doing what male homosexuals are doing, just with different gender partners. Homeosexuality: what is it? Is anyone who ever had a same sex experience a homosexual or a latent one? Personally, I think that if one experiments that way one is bi-sexual, and I wouldn't even think that that might be something interesting to try. I also wouldn't climb a mountain or visit underdeveloped countries. Those experiences do not appeal to me. So, who is the normal one? Most people like to go to the beach. I don't. Most people drink alcohol. I don't. Most people wants kids and pets. Not me. So, do we say that the norm is just a statistic? The answers are not readily evident.
  9. One must always validate one's premises. Following a logical progression is necessary but insuffient in arriving at truth. That is one of the many problems with religion.
  10. Sam Harris is a mystic, and one should expect nothing of substance from him. He attacks Abrahamic religion at the same time that he accepts the religious premise.
  11. Socialism is rational and self-evident if one holds theft to be moral. If property itself is defined as theft, as it is in Marxism, then Marxism is rational. Since the premise is false, the conclusion is false, but entirely rational.
  12. The question is an invalid question. What is an "x?" There is no comprehensible definition of a deity (an x). An "infinite being" is an oxymoron. Any being would be limited; that's what makes it x and not y. "God" is a floating abstraction, an empty term with no referent in reality. To speak of an x as if it were known or knowable requires evidence, and what could qualify as evidence for the supernatural? "Where did the universe (existence) come from" is also an invalid question. Existence exists and only existence exists. All definitions and evidence are within existence and is in terms of existence. Existence is an axiom, the starting point and depends upon nothing more fundamental. It is.
  13. Ayn Rand wrote an essay "The Simplest Thing in the World," and in a superficial sense Objectivism is just that. A=A. What you see is what you get. The senses are valid, and man's mind is competent to perceive and manage reality. If everyone stuck to this axiom and refused to deviate from it, religions and dictatorships would disappear. Of course, if everyone did that many people would be out of a job, so it isn't in the short run interests of political and religious leaders to admit the obvious. But the facts of reality can't be successfully denied in the long run. It is only the vain attempt to alter reality in order to put across an irrational viewpoint that convinces some people to conform to dangerous nonsense. So, if one opens one's eyes and deals with existence with common sense, one is a long way towards being an Objectivist. The more sophisticated among us view this approach as naive realism, but what is the alternative?
  14. Rand indicated that psychology is in its very early stages of development, and psychiatry, one branch of it, is heavily influenced by the concepts of Sigmund Freud, who is often credited as being the father of psychiatry. Freudianism is another form of mythology and is far from being scientific. Freud draws upon religous and secular mythology, and his methodology is exceedingly prolonged and may be counter-productive. His colleagues, which he later denounced, such as Jung and Adler are variations on a theme, and concepts like Jung's of the so-called "collective unconscious" would have been rejected out of hand by Rand. I also find that many people in psychology use the term "unconscious" when they should be using the concept "subconscious." There is an important distinction between the two that has philosphical as well as medical implications.
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