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LaVey read Ayn Rand before writing that. He was not impressed with it standing alone, and took on and included "Might Is Right" by a Ragnar Redbeard. LaVey's plagiarism from her and other sources is well established; after a search for it you should be able to find examples of line-by-line borrowings. Another part of it was that he found that people respond on a profound level to symbols, which is what made him believe so strongly that rituals were required.

I really approve of this thread, and am bumping it because I love the idea of it and support it.

You're considering only beings with volitional consciousness. There are entities capable of self-generated action that do not possess faculties of volition. Like all known living things other than human beings. Unless I'm vastly misunderstanding something, your point only applies to volitional agents, and does not apply to instinct or to involuntary actions (such as scab formation).

If confused about what the topic is, see the OP.

Maybe you can stay on topic and not make patronizing suggestions to patient members who let you take the topic this far off onto a tangent of your own creation.

May I also state two things concerning my positions on some subtopics here: 1. I agree with Plasmatic on the issues he discussed just now, and 2. I do not believe that existence as such can be justifiably called an "entity." Perhaps this can be another thread sometime if any of us desire to debate the issue. To state my case briefly I will say: The quote from Peikoff's lecture given is actually in support of my position that the universe is not an entity. It meets none of his requirements for the usage of the term: it is not a single thing, it is the sum of every thing; it has no definite boundary; and it is definitely not perceptual in scale.

Misunderstanding once again. Existence is the sum of all existing things, which includes all entities. "Existence" is not an entity. No one even said so. Also, a rock is an entity. A rock does not have volition. The connection you're trying to make there doesn't make sense. None of us understand your insistence on pointing out that various parts of Objectivism are "nothing new" or "not unique." Why does that matter? Yeah, Ayn Rand wasn't the first atheist ever. Who cares?

Indeed, Objectivism approaches them the same: they are both equally arbitrary. The "arbitrary qua arbitrary," as Peikoff writes, "the kind of claim that cannot by its nature be related to any established fact or context." OPAR, p167 And later: "The true is identified by reference to a body of evidence; it is pronounced 'true' because it can be integrated without contradiction into a total context. The false is identified by the same means; it is pronounced 'false' because it contradicts the evidence and/or some aspect of the wider context. The arbitrary, however, has no relation to evidence or context; neither term, therefore — 'true' or 'false' — can be applied to it." Peikoff, OPAR, p166

Both sides here are talking about proof and disproof in relation to the concept of God. This is an invalid approach to the question. The stance of Objectivism is that the concept of God is arbitrary, meaning outside the realm of proof. All definitions of supernatural entities render them impossible to be proven or disproven. There is no reason to accept the premise that there is a God because not only is there no proof, there never can be. It is definitionally impossible to prove. Arbitrary claims, such as "There is a god" or the claim about Russell's teapot are neither true nor false, because the process of proof cannot be applied to them definitionally. (see Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, pp 163-167 and on to p171 for more details).

Do you mean to tell me that the term "worship" is offensive to a Catholic? I don't simply assume without reasons that theism is irrational. I have given my reasons and you have retreated from them on both occasions. Any hostility on this forum that is shown to be irrational should be corrected; we both agree there. We won't permit that you simply call our arguments "assertions" or "assumptions" when you don't like them.

I didn't assert a single thing. Read the whole sentence in my post rather than only what you think you will respond to. Do I really have to repeat myself so many times? I said "If we accept [your premise], then we also therefore accept [this clearly irrational premise]." That's what I said. There is no reality separate from the universe. Reality is existence. Existence is the universe. If we assert that a supernatural entity creates or has created reality, science (and really all attempt at a use of reason) is useless because any "law" we discover could change tomorrow. Objectivism has plenty to say about your questions, it is merely you who are unwilling to read any of it. (edit: I say this because the information I'm sharing with you is literally in the very first sections of the book Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand) Causality is inherent in the nature of reality. Since all existents are themselves (they have identities), they act in accordance with their natures. The nature of an entity is what causes it to act in accordance with its nature. This is what is meant by causality. All data from observable reality confirm this fact.

@Avila: In all your worship of Aquinas's "use" of logic and of non-contradiction, you have ignored what makes reason effective (or even able to be used) in the first place: stable and objective reality. If the nature of reality is subject to the whim of a consciousness (human or otherwise), then stability is only apparent and therefore logic is not useful. In other words, if some god can alter reality or create new reality, reality becomes subjective (aka subject to this other being's volition). Try re-reading what I said before, as I'm under the impression you willfully misunderstood what I said. To repeat myself, considering you accept the idea that a single existent can have always existed, what is so hard (in your words "not satisfying") about accepting that the sum of all existents can have always existed? @Jacob86: Your complaints about the concept "arbitrary" seem to be rooted in a fundamental ignorance of how it is used in Objectivist literature. By "arbitrary" is meant, roughly, "characteristic of a claim which definitionally lies outside the realm of proof." This is the central reason for rejection of theism. Any claim in support of theism always contains a contradictory and/or unable-to-be-proven tenet. When it does not, we can trace the concept or entity truly being defined to something other than a "god." Please, please, please understand a position before you attack it. It saves a lot of time. ("I think what Objectivism calls arbitrary is a stupid idea." "What does Objectivism mean by arbitrary again?")

The metaphysical basis of Objectivism, as I interpret it, is that reality is not subject to consciousness -- any consciousness. Not subject to consciousness = not subjective = Objective. If we tacitly accept this god hypothesis (for which there is no need, once we recognize that reality has always been and will always be), we must also accept that any semblance of stability or coherence in reality is because this god's consciousness hasn't altered it yet. Which means he is making it look like reality has immutable laws, when under this worldview it doesn't, and he's only made it out to look that way, which is intentionally (you could say volitionally) deceptive. Implicit in this hypothesis is that if this god wanted to make rocks fall up tomorrow, he could. It is the primacy of consciousness, just not a human consciousness. If this is not implicit in the god hypothesis, then what use does he serve? (I echo someone earlier in this thread, Of what use is this entity?) If an entity that has always been is not inconceivable for you, why then cannot the sum of them have always been? Whence comes the need to push the process back one step further as the Branden essay says? Causation doesn't "originate" from anywhere or from anyone. It is inherent in the nature of reality, and of entities and actions as such (see OPAR chapter 1 for review on this topic). "Where did the universe (or its laws, aka governing entites and actions, ie causation) come from?" is not a valid question to start with. When the proposition of god is accepted, I don't see where or why any respect for non-contradiction should come into play. The primacy of (God's) consciousness entails that he can create a contradiction if he wants. After all, in this paradigm, out of "nothing" he created the apparent need to be non-contradictory in order to exist. edited to add: In other words, since you already understand that existence (the universe) exists, what is there for this god to need to have created?

I'm not sure what the reason for thinking it's a continuum is. However I do find it helpful to make sure any moral evaluation of another person is contextual.

We would need to start with a standard of good or bad performance. I still don't know at what point you could call a player a "bad" player.

Feel free to add to any of this or correct it if need be. To help summarize what I've learned for anyone who finds the thread in the future: Answer: Every action you take can be traced back (directly or indirectly) to advancement or detriment to your values, and therefore your life. Answer: I was implicitly looking for an intrinsic/"categorical imperative"-type explanation for the value of a given fact (i.e., I was dropping the context in each evaluation). In the context of my life, I evaluate facts in their relation to my life (as a rational being). Answer: See the Answer to B. In short, directions are meaningless without a destination. (The notion of value carries with it: "of value to whom and for what?") I'm still unsure at what point calling a person evil is warranted, rather than just labeling his actions as evil. Answer: Clearly, what we can know about a man's consciousness is only that which is available to our senses. We can judge a man by the ideas he claims to hold or that he follows with action even if he does not claim to hold them. His honesty in this matter, as borne out by facts, can be evaluated as well, in retrospect. Answer: The discussion is related to the context of men that do have an effect on your life. Answer: "Irrationality is not the same as failing at knowing, it is about evading the facts, lowering your level of awareness, working on not understanding, not connecting." -knast Answer: What he makes evident is (definitionally) all that can be evident to anyone else; for that reason it's an improper question (a la "How can we access the inaccessible?") Answer: Accepting a contradiction is a morally evaluable choice. Answer: Immoral = Evil = Irrational. For his action of arguing for irrational ideas, Kant is morally to blame. "The difference between the philosopher who argues for ideas that implicitly means mass murder and the guy who explicitly thinks about killing somebody but never acts upon it, is that the [former] does ACT to make sure his idea becomes reality by the mere fact that he is arguing for it in public, while the latter made sure that what he was thinking never became reality." -knast Any further elaboration on the pieces for which I provided no answer would be appreciated, as your help thus far is.

For me the issue is about the intention of your post. My position on this issue is this: The nature of the idea of "God" renders it arbitrary; if not then the idea becomes something-other-than-God. This is why I insist on a definition of God. Any definition of God that makes God "God," includes at least one contradictory element. (I hope that came across sensibly.) When all contradictory or arbitrary elements are removed, one is left with something non-God (as well as metaphysically true), such as "the universe" or "consciousness."

1. Here's an argument for the existence of a God. 2. I accept it. 3. I'm presenting it in hopes that you will, or I think that you should accept it over Objectivism. I'd say that's pretty direct.

Warning: This thread is long. If that will upset you, please move on and do not criticize me for its length. I have tried to split it into reasonable sections for those not interested in a huge amount of reading. If any of my questions have been answered before, I welcome links. My apologies for the vastness of my questions and the number of issues problematic for me. I originally planned to make a thread about all the essays relating to the issues (Schwartz's, Kelley's, and Peikoff's), so I hope relative to that prospect it is not that long. I hope none of this counts as overuse of quoting nor abuse of copyright. Let me know about the first, and as for the second, the essay is available online. I bring quotes here for ease of comparison. Quotes can be checked against the actual essay, available here: "Fact and Value" Copyright © 1989 Leonard Peikoff. He states in ¶6 in the sense of either/or, that "a given object [does he mean entity or goal?] or action [either] advances man's life (it is good): or it threatens man's life (it is bad or an evil)." Are there truly not actions that neither act in advancement of man's life nor in threat of it? Examples: Hanging my dress pants up on a hanger, sitting down in a chair. (In ¶16 Peikoff makes his position on this question clear: "An action without effects on man’s life (there are none such) would be outside the realm of evaluation—there would be no standard of value by which to assess it.") In ¶7 we find the following: "In the objective approach, since every fact bears on the choice to live, every truth necessarily entails a value-judgment, and every value-judgment necessarily presupposes a truth. [emphasis added]" Are there truly no facts that in no way bear on my choice to live? That Christian Wulff was elected President of Germany in June 2010 is a fact, yet has no bearing whatsoever on my choice to live (I believe I read somewhere an example using the height of grass in a faraway field as completely unrelated to one's choice to live). I struggle also to see how a value-judgment is entailed about a fact I do not know about and/or that does not influence me. We find in ¶8: "The reason is that every fact of reality which we discover has, directly or indirectly, an implication for man’s self-preservation and thus for his proper course of action." Not intending to be tiresome, I ask again, are there truly no facts which do not have an implication on my life or the choices that objectively advance it? What effect does the viscosity of paint have on my life? Again in ¶8, the author seemingly equivocates on "bad" and "evil." Does he mean to imply that leaping from a plane wearing no parachute is evil? Generally, how can it be called for to judge a man according to contents of his consciousness, when all parties aside from the individual in question have no access to it whatsoever? "All we have to go on" so to speak are actions or expressed beliefs. In ¶11 it is stated: "The virtue of justice is necessary, at root, for the same reason that evaluation in relation to any fact is necessary: the character and behavior of other men are facts, which have effects on one’s own well-being." The character and behavior of a man in Tanzania who lives and dies with no contact whatsoever with me has no effect on my well-being. His life, however, is full of facts that are not metaphysically given. Concerning ¶12*: if irrationality and evil are the same thing, then am I not evil when I err? I may make an irrational choice from lack of focus or from tiredness, etc. My failures make me evil? Peikoff answers this question in ¶21. I left it here but struck-through in case someone wants to elaborate. In ¶14 we find: "How does one reach a moral evaluation of a person? “A man’s moral character,” Miss Rand writes in “The Psychology of Psychologizing,” “must be judged on the basis of his actions, his statements and his conscious convictions...” (The word “statements” here denotes a broad, somewhat overlapping category. All morally revealing statements imply the speaker’s premises or ideas, even if they do not explicitly assert them; but some statements do assert them—just as some statements are themselves actions: e.g., a declaration of war.)" But what access to we have objectively to any other man's conscious convictions? I have no perceptual connection with another individual's consciousness, and therefore no objective basis to claim that I or anyone can judge him based on it. It seems plausible that certain statements or actions can betray characteristics of a consciousness, for example: "I trust Allah." ¶18, which follows this comment, seems to ignore the fact that individuals hold ideas that do not lead to the harmful consequences I may induce that they would. For example, there are religious believers who advocate a limited government and the use of reason (clearly in other areas than religion). ¶18: "Just as every “is” implies an “ought,” so every identification of an idea’s truth or falsehood implies a moral evaluation of the idea and of its advocates. The evaluation, to repeat, comes from the answer to two related questions: what kind of volitional cause led people to this idea? and, to what kind of consequences will this idea lead in practice?" ¶33 in its entirety is at the bottom of the thread** I find myself in disagreement with this evaluation. Kant's writing did not "make" any of the evaluations of his writing by those who read him "possible." Kant simply wrote. Those who enacted his bad ideas (via genocide) seem to me much more at fault. If they are equally culpable or if Kant is moreso, then what reason do we have to respect the rights of a person who advocates Kantian ethics? Is he not "making possible," aka starting a causal chain that will lead to murder? If we would have had grounds to lock up Stalin, would we not have grounds to lock up Kant, who is more evil? Kant's writing of Critiques is not the central agent involved in the evil perpetrated by the killers Peikoff mentions. The evil was perpetrated by the killers. In addition, the sentence "given that climate, none could have been averted" and the similar propositions Mr. Peikoff makes here that "evil ideas inevitably cause evil actions" smack of deterministic thinking, in the sense that it was "bound to happen." ¶34*** simply confuses me. A man who holds an unreasonable idea is indeed blameless when he does not act on it. That makes perfect sense but in the light of the surrounding essay it does not. The example he describes at the start of this paragraph sounds like the same mind-body split he complained about earlier. He held an idea in his mind but did something else in action, and is to be lauded for it? In all of this I seek to understand. I do not make these statements from a position I hold deeply in contrast to Mr. Peikoff's, nor do I claim to know the answers and am simply teasing you into making an argument I am set on attacking. Should you choose to help me understand these ideas A-K, I will be grateful. * ¶12: ** ¶33: *** ¶34: PostScript: This paragraph, ¶46, decisively changed my mind in regard to the status of "Objectivism" as a system and where I stood. It follows, for those interested:

(I realize there is at least one other thread called "Fact and Value" specifically about this essay of Leonard Peikoff's; however, I hope you'll find it doesn't address the same issues the following thread does.) The idea of how objectively to judge fellow individuals and the idea of tolerance of others' philosophies considering the contexts of their current knowledge both interest me. For this reason I took up reading a little about the Kelley-Peikoff split (which as I understand it also has to do with Kelley's association with a somewhat inflammatory biography of Miss Rand written by Barbara Branden, as well as his speaking publicly at a libertarian dinner party). However, this essay seems to be central to the controversy and representative of ARI's and particularly Mr. Peikoff's reasoning behind castigating David Kelley. Note: I do not side with Kelley or Peikoff here, as I made this thread to get feedback from people knowledgeable about the whole thing as well as about the ideas in this essay and to use the new knowledge to eventually reach a conclusion. Also note that something is going on with the search function that only gives a few pages of posts with the search criteria in them, so not all are displayed. My comments on "Fact and Value" will come in the next post.

Sounds fair to me. If you'll agree to move on with me away from this mess we've both contributed to making, I'd gladly participate in a different thread about a specific claim or position of Swinburne's (provided we note the caveats from before). I must remind you if something similar happens in our hypothetical new thread you won't be seeing me. Besides, if I'm going to be a stickler on the rules, I'm pretty sure I nested quotes in this thread. edited to add: Your link is to an index page with multiple links on it.

My apologies for not paying closer attention to the time of the postings. And I admit that psychologizing you to the extent that I did was unwarranted. The trends I noted, however, are visible in the thread we're posting in right now. I combined characteristics of your posts (1-4 years old though they were) that I noticed with those that I noticed here. You must understand that while I hastily made a judgment of you, I was also quite frustrated at having wasted my time. Others have expressed similar frustrations that I would not have known about had I not been curious as to your other threads. That being said, in your posts in this thread you seem to be pitting figures of authority for one side against the other's ("you can't disprove this academic writing with your side's literature," it's like Bible-verse fights). Keep in mind also that I am treating this thread as I would one started by anyone foreign to the ideas. For hasty, unwarranted generalizations I made about you, ctrl y, I apologize. In your thread about Atlas, for example, you demonstrated an admirable desire to understand. Now, in response to your accusations against me: Though I realize you are fed up with being psychologized over and over again, I did not say you were mentally unstable. And I don't need a framed degree on the wall or whatever other qualifications you think I need in order to spot a trend in your posts and link it with other posts you have made. Especially after the last 5 pages of this, which I've attended to closely. I sincerely hope you'll excuse me for the fatal mistake of being my age.

I knew I recognized you. The OP seems to favor determinism (see this thread and this thread) (in spite of the fact that it dooms Christianity's central tenet of man's culpability for sin, since it makes man incapable of volition). The OP also seems to need an "authority's" opinion on something in order to believe it (this thread betrays such thinking, as well as a fear of the Good). So in the case of this thread, it's so-and-so Christian philosopher's word against ours (which he wants to make us read). Nothing to do with the OP's mind or judgment. This case is precisely why we ought to reserve the right to say, "You know what? No. I'm not wasting my time." I don't think it a dangerous prospect to ignore any further threads created by the OP, considering the incomprehensibility of this one combined with the severe lack of basic understanding and inexplicable accompanying stubbornness that are evident in this one. My advice: Read the literature and understand for yourself. Questions, debate, reasoning, about a topic all go here.

OP stands for Original Poster. Yes, I understand how full and vast the influence of religious thought is. My impatience toward ctrl y did not arise from his religious beliefs, but from his refusal to stay on one subject long enough to come to a conclusion on it without bringing up something else, as well as the "Read this book, read this paper, read this essay" attitude, which we resolved earlier. (A satisfactory conclusion for me does not necessitate a "I'm wrong, you guys win" position. I hope that is clear. I would accept as a conclusion something like: "Well, I understand the side I am coming from and the side you are coming from, understand the arguments against it and the formulation of them, and still disagree about X, and am not wavering." Then the thread would be over.) edit: typo