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OTOH, perhaps he was comparing the TT slogan to the Bible because he considers the Bible holy. If the TT slogan is more holy than the Bible, and the Bible is holy, then the TT slogan is really holy. It makes more sense to me literarily to compare the TT slogan to something that Eddie already considers holy, than to compare it to something he does not consider holy. And yes, it is only mentioned that he attended church when he was young, but nowhere does it say that he stopped. (It is, so far as I recall, never mentioned that Dagny attended church.) It's enough to base a speculation on.

The central Objectivist works are full of odes to thought and exhortations to think, or "focus." It is, indeed, the central Objectivist virtue: "Rationality is man’s basic virtue, the source of all his other virtues. Man’s basic vice, the source of all his evils, is the act of unfocusing his mind." Further, this is to be one's sole source of guidance: "The virtue of Rationality means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one’s only source of knowledge, one’s only judge of values and one’s only guide to action." But is that (choosing all actions and values by one's own thought) actually a good idea? Rand says some things that might be taken to indicate that she herself did not actually think that it was necessary for everyone to establish all of his values first hand. Eddie Willers seems to be a Christian: it is established fairly early in Atlas Shrugged that he goes to church and holds the Bible in high regard. Perhaps this is Rand's way of saying that not everyone needs to establish all of their values by means of thought. This is, of course, mere speculation. Rand might even deny it. But it makes sense, either way. Going against popular culture would involve difficult, abstract work that a person who lacks greatness is, by definition, unable to do. There are, after all, at least some values to be found in popular culture. This would explain the picture we have from popular culture of the stereotypical Objectivist. What better to explain this than that most people crash and burn when they attempt to define their own values? Unless you're brilliant, it seems advisable to consider restricting the topics about which you think accordingly, and trust someone else to fill in the gaps. Another reason why a person who thinks for himself in all areas might crash and burn would be the opposition of other people. Those who think for themselves quickly become annoying to the conventional, who seek their downfall as a result. This last point should need no argument for an Objectivist audience, and it is a reason to consider restricting the areas to which one applies one's mind. (Note: I would appreciate being spared the baseless psychologizing that, for no apparent reason, goes on in every single thread I start. Thank you.)

Did you not read The Romantic Manifesto? Atlas concretized Objectivism, and in so doing, showed me what it actually means. I cannot embrace this philosophy, though I do still think that some of its ideas are good.

Let me clarify. Many of you take offense to this: It should be obvious that "this book was about you" above means that you are or will be a Randian hero. I was not saying that everyone who likes the book is necessarily a fourteen year old ("stupid" was used affectionately, btw, as I have nothing against fourteen year olds). I just could not, at that time, come up with another explanation for someone's liking the book than extreme youth. I'm impressed by Marc's energy. He evidently went through every single post I made during my time here to find evidence against my having any self esteem. In spite of that, most of Marc's post does not require response from me. But, he does point out that "at one point had a different view of AS." Yes, I took it on testimony that this was a very uplifting book, and greatly looked forward to reading it. I was disappointed. His thesis is corroded, in any event. A person of low self esteem does not defend Objectivism to outsiders, his baseless denial that I ever did so notwithstanding. Disliking Atlas Shrugged is not, in and of itself, evidence supporting the claim that I weave elaborate webs of lies to make other people think I debate against non-Objectivists, to no apparent end.

Mr. Odden et al. have been accusing me of having low self esteem, feelings of inadequacy, etc. which color my interpretation of Atlas. I would say that yes, I do feel inadequate - if "inadequate" is taken to mean "not a Randian hero." I would add that anyone who does not feel inadequate in this sense is probably deluded.

After reading your criticisms, I am a changed man. I would have written a different OP had I read your criticisms first. That is, the word "WOW" would have been in lower case, and italicized. Seriously, I did not make this post to defend a position on Atlas Shrugged. My intent was simply to ask a question, which is represented in the title of this thread. I presented my impression of Atlas Shrugged to provide context to this question. It is unfortunate that so many of you are offended by my honest impression of Atlas Shrugged. If it helps at all, I am probably as distressed by the book as you are about my comments regarding it.

I have been reading Objectivism for a few years. I read OPAR first, then the rest of it, and I've finally gotten to Atlas Shrugged (yes, I'm reading it last). Until now, I found Objectivism to be a great, brilliant, inspiring philosophy; I could not see how anyone could take issue with it, or denounce Rand so loudly as she is denounced. Then I started reading Atlas. All the denunciations make sense now. I mean, WOW. It's like between The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, Rand magically went from inspiring to the opposite of inspiring. On nearly every page, there is some touch that whispers "even if you reach your highest ambitions, you are nothing but a maggot and a parasite on the truly moral." Needless to say, I am done with this philosophy. (Though I will keep reading the parts of Rand that aren't actually dangerous to my mental health.) But, I do want to ask how anyone can not be done with this philosophy after reading Atlas. Do you systematically misinterpret every single page of Atlas? Impossible. Do you think you can be like John Galt? I would wager that you do not. Do you think that the message of Atlas is true, and are so strongly committed to the truth that, for the sake of obtaining it, you are willing to sacrifice all self love? I refuse to believe that anyone is capable of such a thing. So, help me to understand your mindset, here on OO.net, please. This is baffling to me. No, wait, actually, perhaps if you were fourteen, and stupid, then you could think that this book was about you; that may be why the young find this book inspiring. But most of the people on this forum should be past the point in life where that is a plausible explanation for their liking Atlas.

No proposition is a "logical fallacy." Logical fallacies, by definition, only occur in arguments.

This is not a fallacy. If you believe that heterosexual men and women may not use the same showers in the military, and you believe that heterosexual men and homosexual men may use the same showers in the military, then there should be some distinction between women and homosexual men sufficent to justify that the former may not share showers with heterosexual men and the latter may. Otherwise, you're just being irrational. It is empirical evidence. However, you may ignore all anecdotal claims, on the grounds that they are anecdotal. If a claim is anecdotal, then you have no way of verifying that it is true. That sounds good.

This seems to be a form of what is called the evolutionary argument against naturalism, which originated with Plantinga. You probably will not get many good critiques from an Objectivist audience, as they will tend to interpret it in terms of skepticism or determinism and attack it by means of the retortive arguments that they have been taught to use against those doctrines. In fact, of course, these tactics fail. No Christian is a determinist, and most Christians are not skeptics (certainly Plantinga is not). The people who use the evolutionary argument against naturalism are not advocating these doctrines, they are saying that naturalism implies these doctrines. Against that sort of argument, pointing out that skepticism and determinism lead to contradiction will just lead the theist to say "yes, and so therefore naturalism leads to contradiction as well." So, the Standard Objectivist Responses to determinism and skepticism do not work against this argument. If you want good criticism of the argument, there is, of course, all sorts on the internet. Google http://www.google.com/search?q=evolutionar...;rlz=1I7ADRA_en Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_...inst_naturalism Book on the argument http://www.amazon.com/Naturalism-Defeated-...t/dp/0801487633 etc.

As bizarre as this is going to sound to an Objectivist audience, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview by Moreland and Craig is a really good work of philosophy. It introduces one to the issues and vocabulary of modern philosophy in some depth and is written very clearly. Speaking for myself, the fact that I knew from the beginning that I would end up disagreeing with the authors made me think more carefully about what they were saying.

A life lived just by Eros seems comically one dimensional, because Eros makes its object a thing to be pursued. In that life others are only objects for your lust, which means you cannot have brothers and sisters. We need Agape to fill out our relationships with things like friendly banter and exchange of ideas. Agape alone is too weak, and Eros alone is too strong. Neither, alone, seems capable of producing much happiness. This reminds me of the mind-body dichotomy... would a ghost or a corpse be happier?

I suspect that the center of Objectivism is the source of more conflict than its frontiers. The center conflicts with everyone in the world, except orthodox Objectivists; the frontiers probably consists of relatively minor conflicts. Personally, I barely even get the basics of Objectivism. It is such a hard philosophy that I am going to stay in the center. I don't think I could handle the frontiers, and I doubt many non-philosophers could either.

Maybe they need to have their emotions manipulated before they see the light. No, some people can be disturbed by implications of their own moral code that they did not see.

You can just point out that your opponent is begging the question. He may not accept that he is begging the question, of course, in which case he may just be irrational. (If it is not mistaken for a valid form of argument, pointing out disturbing instances of a moral code is a useful tool. It can produce a suspicion that a particular moral code is wrong, which may encourage the other person to check his premises or reinforce your rejection of another moral code.)

Despite the dismissive tone, there is an obvious logical chain here. Atheism is [etc]; so, it is not the case that atheism. It is an immediate inference from the definition to the denial that this definition is instantiated in reality. The only way to get around this sort of argument is to point out that it would not persuade an atheist, and then work to make atheism more plausible to the person presenting the argument. You would do that by presenting scientific evidence and arguments from authority to lend credibility to atheism. That would break down the other person's tendency to make the inference, and strip the argument of its power.

Hmm. If that's true then I should stop conversing with this Christian. I should probably also stop believing that self esteem is important, since I do not have ten years of rational living behind me and am therefore, by your standards, unjustified in my belief. That seems implausible to me. Right. Ah, but this Christian believes that the self is something to be celebrated, not something to be surrendered. They don't even believe in a higher supernatural realm. No, he wouldn't say that. He would just ask for strong evidence for my contentions. No, I don't think so. This seems like a caricature of religion. True. Good point.

Most people who have only partly rejected reason can be reasoned with, in my experience. The exact nature of their rejection of reason is relevant. For example, most Christians, in my experience, have rejected reason only in that they accept a particular emotional experience as evidence that the Bible is true. This leaves them open to discussion of a logical, evidential case against the Bible. Or maybe they have rejected reason only in that they haven't properly examined the ontological argument. In that case, it's open to the atheist to force them to really scrutinize that argument. I suspect that your problem may be that your contact with religious people has been very limited. You seem to think you can split everyone into A. faith-havers who are completely closed to reason and B. non-faith-havers who are completely open to reason, but it doesn't work like that in real life.

You are skilled in rhetoric but that's not going to help me out. I think my opponent is reasonable to ask for some evidence to verify the claim that his religion is lowering his self esteem. I'll go back over the relevant parts of Galt's Speech, but I don't expect to find any evidence there in the typical sense. Galt's Speech is based on the premise that failing to live by the mind lowers your self esteem, which is an empirical claim that my opponent would ask me to support with studies and so on.

Atlas Shrugged, while a very enjoyable book, does not prove the proposition that self esteem drops when a person becomes religious. Nor does presenting a slanted view of Christianity prove that proposition. You need empirical evidence to say that self esteem goes up or down when you do something, as my debate opponent knows. I'm a little disappointed by this response. Isn't there anybody here who bases their beliefs on serious study of the Facts?

I appreciate the responses people have given me so far but, while they have plenty of theory in them, I see little Hard Evidence for the claims being made. Man lives by the mind. But how do you know? How do you know you can't live by faith or emotion? How do you know he can't live by brute force? Where are the statistics on the relative survival rates of people who are and are not emotionalists? Or failing that, where are the statistics on how happy people are as emotionalists and rationalists? How would you even determine, objectively, whether someone was an emotionalist or a rationalist? And so on. Maybe most of the people you know have done worse as religious people than they did as atheists. But how do you actually know they were doing worse as religious people? And how do you know this is true in general? My family is religious, and they've done fine. All the Mormons I've spoken with seem happy with their religion, as do all the evangelicals. My point is, this isn't going to fly with the person I'm speaking with. I would like solid logic, and solid facts, studies, statistics, and authoritative sources illustrating the Objectivist position on these issues.

Hi. I'm arguing with a Christian. They derive enormous utility from their religion, and want to know how they would be better off as an atheist. I responded that they would have more self esteem. They didn't buy that, and started critically examining that claim. Consequently, these questions have become relevant to our debate: Why is self esteem important, at all? In what specific respects does having high self esteem make life better? How do we know religion lowers a person's self esteem? How do we know that having faith and believing without evidence lowers a person's self esteem? I would like serious answers to these questions. By serious, I mean the quality of answer you would give if you were handing it in to a particularly demanding professor for a grade. Good logic, and good support for all factual claims, please (primary sources are preferred for factual claims). If you know of an *authoritative* book that addresses these issues, I would appreciate it if you pointed me to that book. Thanks in advance to anyone who responds.

Wow. Thanks. I don't get that either. Got it.

Say John believes that the CI is the right starting point for ethics. When it comes time to choose the principles he will practice, John will be inclined to choose principles that follow from the CI. He will then act on those principles, since he's chosen them as his principles. I'm presupposing, I suppose, that we can act on any set of moral principles, just because we've chosen them as moral principles. You could rightly say that we don't know that, and you might even have an argument against that presupposition (which seems to be the case). Could you spell this out a little more? You seem to be saying that our motivational setup, our "wiring", does not allow us to act on arbitrary claims we've accepted. That's plausible to me. You then claim that acceptance of the CI is arbitrary like your imperative that I give you all my money is arbitrary. I'm not so sure about that. The Kantian accepts the CI because it fills him with awe, so his acceptance of the CI is not arbitrary like your imperative that I give you all my money is arbitrary. If the idea of giving you all of my money filled me with awe, I think I would have some motivation to do it.

It's only maybe because I'm not sure that was what SN was after.