[My Favorite Bible Stories]

Any chance of this post continuing? So far it has been quite entertaining.

[atheism, article from a friend]

Ok, thank you. Sorry about the link not working.Thanks for providing one that does work.

[atheism, article from a friend]

http://www.darrellepp.com

I was wondering if I could post this article from a friend of mine, who does not accept the arguement for atheism. I was interested in seeing the comments of others. It is the essay from feb 22

["full capacity" causing "inflation"]

so basically what is happening is that during the 90's the dollar was strong. Therefore when the money supply was increased, the money stayed in the stock market and led to an increase in production which nulified the increase in the quantity of money. This led policymakers to conclude that monetary inflation had nothing to do with price increases. However now that the dollar is weak, the newly printed money isn't staying in places that increase productivity and instead going into hard assets. As a result the govt is increasing the money supply thinking their will be no price inflationary consequesces. So monetary inflaton has different consequences depending on the context of the currency's perceived strength or reputation. This is why gold went down in the 90's but is now going up, even though the govt was increasing the money supply the whole time. Is this correct?

[Two Different Types of Certainty?]

>Before I deal with the substantive issues raised by noumenalself, I want to address his opening paragraph.

QUOTE(noumenalself @ Aug 2 2007, 11:51 AM)

Betsy's view that there are two kinds of certainty is completely wrong, and also philosophically dangerous. Her views are almost indistinguishable from mainstream philosophical ideas about certainty, and are inconsistent with the Objectivist view. The reasons she cites for her views have also been refuted countless times in the Objectivist literature, particularly in Dr. Peikoff's lecture courses.

The above charge, even if true (which it isn't), constitutes the fallacy of Poisoning the Well.>

I am trying to understand what is wrong with the above quote, is it the claim of 2 different types of certainty's or the fact that having two could be dangerous. Betsy, is the concept of absolute certainty different from contextual certainty. I though the point of contextual certainty was to allow man to claim knowledge with certainty within a given context, but at the same time allow for the fact that humans can be in error. Thus the genius of objectivist thought is once again shown to be in how its concepts refer to reality and therefore are useful in reality. How would the idea of an absolute certainty be useful in anyway that contextual certainty does not cover. How can man actually acheive absolute certainty in the way you mean it. If absolute certainty were accepted, it would take over the contextual meaning used by objectivists( there is no way they would be allowed to exist together), people would then believe(rightly) that certainty is imposible, and then start writing books about the"pursuit of pure certainty" to be acheived by some allegedly non-imposible means (ie) faith. Absolute certainty leaves an opening(which I think we should shut by refusing to use the word) for someone(religious or other) to take over the word. Is absolute certainty an anti-concept that if used will leave the real certainty without a name?

PS the purpose of me asking is because to me it seems like an important question, I'm not trying to poison any well.

[The Money Masters]

An interesting book on central banking is "A Creature fron Jeckyl Island", by G Edward Griffin anybody read/ have an opinion on it. It I think does a pretty good job of telling the story of banking throughout the history of the US and before.

[Authorized OPAR]

I never demanded anything. All I said was, "Before one can "agree" with it in its entirety one would have to understand it in its entirety." I think that is a true statement.

She says that in order to consider oneself an objectivist you have to agree with it in its entirety, but that doesn't mean that when you choose to call yourself an objectivist, that that decision in itself is a declaration of complete understanding. You can say,"I'm an objectivist, to the extent of my knowledge, it is true, even though I may have a lot more to understand". I know that sounds like I am saying you should agree without understanding but note this quote from the Amy Peikoff comment above-"Does the person live by those essentials, to the extent possible to him?". You don't have to know everything right away. You can call yourself an objectivist up until the point where you conclude, honestly that you disagree with some part of it, even if you know you don't understand it all.It isn't nescesarily about leaning x,y,z but more about agreeing with the method.What it comes down to is how serious do you take the ideas by which you go by, hopefully serious enough not to call yourself objectivist lightly, but at the same time not to be so afraid of making a mistake that you never decide on anything.

jay

[Morality of visiting Strip Clubs]

I think I will take a shot at this as criticizm is welcome for me.

Instead of debating whether strip club are good or bad, lets accept for a moment that the reality of this situation that is that he likes to go and she doesn't want him too. Given that she claims that they are both objectivists, she should say to him, "I don't approve for these reasons... "and explain why these reasons are rational according to your rational judgement. They say to him "While I feel strongly about my position, it is posible that your reasoning might be different, so I would appreciate if you tell me why YOU value going to strip clubs" Then listen carefully to what he says and ask yourself if he is being rational or not. You should be able to tell if your differences are over 2 different rational conclusions or 1 or more conclusions based in irrationalism or evasion.

people can disagree on whether a strip club is a value or not. But either way, rationality is a much more important value because it makes it possible to go back and check lesser values later and fix your errors. If he can't give you a good reason, or acts like he shouldn't have too you might have a problem.

Remember the 04 elections where objectivists disagreed over kerry vs bush. Its not so important to judge a persons conclusion as it is to judge the reasoning behind it. Truth is important but ONLY within the context of a reasoning mind because it is what makes truth possible.

jay