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Bold Standard

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  1. If we did assume that he was a mythical or fictitious character, would it really change anything, though? It seems to me that the actual "story" and events in the life of Jesus are of minor or secondary importance to the teachings of Jesus, such as "The Sermon on the Mount." Who do we ascribe these teachings to, if not to "Jesus"? Someone had to have originated those things. But I don't mind assuming that Jesus' early followers exaggerated (or possibly originated) any claims to deity that Jesus might have made. It seems clear to me, from reading the New Testament, that Paul took this idea much further than the authors of the Gospels. My understanding is that the claim to deity was almost a cliche among Mystery Religions at the time, and that the Roman authorities didn't mind, as long as you were willing to acknowledge Caesar as the principal god, which was more a political gesture than a religious one. The exclusivity claimed by Christianity was one of the aspects that made it unique among Mystery Cults, and I've heard it conjectured that that might have been one of the tactical factors that led to its success and eventual dominance. People thought, if they're so sure they're right that they won't take a chance with any other religion (because many people belonged to multiple cults at once, so as not to put all their eggs in a basket), then maybe there was something to it.
  2. I'm not sure if each of the specific claims made in that video are true or not (several of them I've heard before), but I do know that there are many myths in many different cultures prior to Christianity that share many resemblances with the Christian mythology. In fact, the entire philosophy of early Christianity was in almost every conceivable way identical to countless other popular cults at the time in Rome, and previously in Greece, referred to as the "Mystery Religions." Informed Christians make no denial about this, but for some reason*, it just doesn't bother them. *not literally. Well, of course, Jesus wasn't actually a prophet. But in fact, his followers considered him to be more than that from the beginning. His earliest disciples thought that he was the Messiah, who was supposed to be a political liberator of the Jews, foretold in prophecy-- in addition to being a prophet. The Apostle Paul is usually credited with being the first to deify Jesus, and, heavily influenced by the Mystery Cults, elevating Jesus' status from liberator and prophet to full-on God. By the time of Constantine, Christianity had already achieved a high status among the various Mystery Cults in Rome. Constantine just made it official. But, I haven't read The Da Vinci Code-- maybe you learned something in that that I don't know. I haven't seen this particular movie, but I've seen claims like this about Jesus before. I've also seen claims that Socrates wasn't a real person, but was invented by Plato. I think it's kind of silly. If Jesus wasn't real, then it was someone else who lived at the same time and taught the same things. Might as well just assume he was a real person. And Socrates, too. What difference does it make whether it was a guy named Jesus or a guy named Bill Smith, if the resulting philosophy and historical impact is the same?
  3. My respect for and opinion of certain Mythology is very high. My favorites are the Greek and Norse myths. I might remind you of the name of Ayn Rand's most famous novel, Atlas Shrugged (in which she does make explicit reference to the myths of Atlas, Prometheus, Atlantis, and even Robin Hood-- just to name several off the top of my head).
  4. I use Firefox, and I'm getting popups now.
  5. I'm not sure what you meant here; but just for the record, Yaron Brook is opposed to Just War Theory, which holds that civilian casualties should be avoided at all costs in a war.
  6. Did you know that you can listen to other people's stations, and let other people listen to your stations and look at your profile on Pandora? I haven't really tried it yet, but that might be a fun way for people to share the music they like with others on the forum. I'm assuming that the ratings you choose will affect what plays when someone else listens to your station, but I don't know if that person can then make additional ratings of his own or not, or if that effects what plays when you listen to your own station afterwards. My profile is www.pandora.com/people/phifltrigy. But I'll warn anyone who tries to listen to my stations that most aren't very good yet-- and that's assuming that my ratings will affect what you hear when you listen. In fact, I'd say that my Paul Whiteman station and my Edith Piaf are the only ones that don't play 90% ultra crappy music. But they're all gradually getting better the more I listen. Somehow, though, they keep managing to find new trash that has no relation that I can understand to the music I rate positively. Then sometimes they'll surprise me and play something that I do like, that's unusual, and that still doesn't have much that I can understand to do with my station.. Oh well, it's an interesting concept, though.
  7. Wow.. I wonder how even a severely confused person could arrive at the conclusion that altruism is "quite the opposite of the Nazi requirements for a dedicated Aryan citizen"!
  8. You can e-mail HOS at [email protected], or, if you don't hear back from them fast enough, PM me for more information and directions.
  9. I read this sentence, and immediately scrolled down and clicked on the link. What a great description-- I agree! Not only that, but the animation is really advanced and 3-d looking. Did you (or anyone) notice any digs in the cartoons you linked to? I thought maybe the diversity of the bugs playing the record was one? Also in that one, maybe the scenario of nature discovering civilization was a subtle jab at or at least inversion of the Nazi ideal of civilization "returning" to Nature?
  10. You phrase this as though I'm advocating hedonism, but I don't advocate that. The status of the self-destructive behaviors you mentioned is that they are a pursuit of short-term (but presumably real) pleasure at the expense of eudaimonia. I think it is conceivable that a pleasure obtained as a result of an evasion could actually turn out to be in one's rational, long term self-interest. It's only, if one is evading, he can not be sure that it will be, because he has closed off his awareness in that area.
  11. Dr. Tara Smith is going to speak at the Houston Objectivism Society, on October 14th!! It's going to be 35$ for adults, and 25$ for full time students to get in. Here's the blurb from the HOS webpage: [edited to add student admission price]
  12. Yes they would-- if you read the first sentence, " If you are truly defending your homeland (against a real aggressor) then you have a right to do whatever is necessary in order to defend your homeland including the killing of civilians," he says "whatever is necessary." So that implies that in the hypothetical, it would have been determined necessary, ie, would result in a clear military advantage, to bomb the Ayn Rand Institute. Of course, it is merely a hypothetical. I don't interpret his statement as meaning a necessarily discriminate targeting of the Ayn Rand Institute either-- it could be part of a carpet bombing campaign on California. But I'm pretty sure his hypothetical is merely, if it can be shown to be necessary to bomb ARI, then that would be the only moral choice for Mexico at that point, regardless of the innocence of its intended target.
  13. I was only quoting her to help determine what her view was. That's a separate issue from whether I agree with her or whether what she said was true or not, and whether it is consistent with the rest of her philosophy. But I understand your concern.
  14. Collective Soul is a pretty offensive name. But, hey, even the Red Army Chorus had some good songs ("The Internationale," for example).
  15. This is a good example of what I mean by people falsely attributing things to Ayn Rand in this discussion. And it's not something I can remember seeing you do, Inspector, on any other topic. "Physical-only sex" is not a term that Ayn Rand used-- not in any of the quotes on this thread, anyway: I used my search feature on Firefox to double check! But I have trouble seeing how even the concept of physical-only sex as you've defined it could be possible on her premises. How do you reconcile that with Francisco's statements on sex from pg 456 in Atlas Shrugged, such as, "...in fact, a man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions." Is it even possible to divorce all of a person's values, character, and all mental attributes from his physical appearance? Even if it is possible, I don't see how you derive a concept like that from anything Ayn Rand said, especially the posts on this thread and especially the quote from post #17. Although I feel like I've already read endless volumes of posts and threads on this topic, I'll put that on my list and read it eventually. It is an interesting topic, but it does seem to get very repetitive at times. It makes sense to say that it's wrong to have sex for the purpose of pleasure if it's a situation in which pleasure isn't a possible result of the actions you're taking. But in some posts, you've implied that even if you do experience pleasure, that pleasure is somehow immoral if it's experienced with someone who doesn't correspond to the ideal of the highest possible to you ever. That's where I start to get totally baffled. Even the Christian argument against sex* makes more sense to me than that-- at least they usually admit that you can experience the pleasure on Earth; they just say you'll be punished in the afterlife. They don't say that the pleasure you actually experience wasn't really pleasure.. *[edit: I meant, against (what they would call) "premarital" sex.]
  16. Hello. Congrats on the job! Here is an inspiring (to me, anyway) quote from Ayn Rand, expressing her views on not merely accepting the culture. Of course, economics and politics are specific products of the culture, which she deals with more specifically in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal and Atlas Shrugged, but this is from a book she did on art:
  17. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It's kind of hard for me to imagine a desire devoid of love, but if I think about it in that context, I can. Still, it seems like there are those in this discussion who condemn more than merely a desire devoid of love (and I'm assuming that she means love in the same sense that she defines the concept on pages 34-35 of Introduction To Objectivist Epistemology, "an emotion proceeding from the evaluation of an existent as a positive value and as a source of pleasure"). Some insist that deriving sexual gratification from anything other than sex with one's life partner and romantic ideal is depraved. The way I see it, it's fine to hold a view like that, but don't attribute it to Objectivism. There is nothing in the Playboy interview with Ayn Rand, or anywhere else in her writings as far as I'm aware, to confirm that Ayn Rand held that view-- and, the way I read her words, I think there are passages that are strong evidence that she did not hold that view. There are many passages in which she comes out very clearly and persuasively against promiscuity in sex, and against hedonism as a general approach to ethics. But the burden of proof is on whoever claims that anything other than sex with one's ideal automatically falls into this category... And.. Sorry if I'm getting a couple of these threads confused. There are so many on this or a very similar topic right now! From reading the original post, I thought the topic of this thread was "Why is sex for physical gratification wrong, according to Objectivism." In which case, my response is that it's not-- sex should be for physical gratification, and spiritual gratification, too. But maybe I was taking that wording too literally. If the question is: why is sex for physical gratification to the exclusion of spiritual gratification, or even with negative spiritual consequences wrong; then I would say, for the same reason that spiritual gratification to the exclusion of physical gratification, or with negative physical consequences is wrong-- and to the same degree. Because there is no split between mind and body. [edited grammar]
  18. But the original topic of this thread was not addressing "sex for mere physical pleasure" (emphasis mine), but rather "sex for physical gratification" in general, which is one of the many alternatives some people seem to be equivocating on. When does Ayn Rand ever even address the issue of "physical-only sex," and what does that phrase mean?
  19. Thanks for that. That's the clearest, most concise and precise definition of "perfection" I've ever seen. In fact, it's perfect! I'm going to have to memorize that, because that issue comes up in discussions I have all the time.
  20. Actually, Ayn Rand was in the habit of frequently using the term "soul" as well [edit: as, for intstance, in her famous aphorism, "Man is a being of self-made soul"], usually stating something like, "By 'soul' I mean: 'consciousness.'" I think she liked using words like "spiritual" and "soul," because they conjure a more uplifted, "reverent" conception of the mind, as opposed to a materialistic interpretation of the mind. I think it's mostly an aesthetic choice.
  21. Why do you assume that it is? I have seen Ayn Rand and other prominent Objectivists give strong arguments that promiscuity and indiscriminate or degrading sexuality is wrong. But I've never heard any of them say that "sex for physical gratification [is] wrong." In fact, there are many statements from Ayn Rand and others to the contrary. I will provide just a couple of examples: From her notes on the character of Howard Roark, that she made while writing the Fountainhead-- This is an excerpt from a letter Ayn Rand wrote to Gerald Loeb on June 3, 1944. Mr. Loeb is writing a novel in which his protagonist is struggling with conflicts between sex as a physical need, and his mind and ideals, and Ayn Rand is giving him advice on how his character should resolve the conflict. [editted to add page number]
  22. Don't confuse views discussed on this message board with the official stance of Objectivism on any issue. I do not believe that this is the Objectivist stance, and I think a case can be made against this being Ayn Rand's position. However, I have noticed that it is the position of many on this message board. I'm not wanting to argue one point or the other; I just wanted to make the distinction between the stance of Objectivism (which nobody here can speak for, officially) as apart from the stance of particular Objectivists or students of Objectivism.
  23. On the issue of when should a person be considered an Objectivist, there was an interesting post by Amy Peikoff on the thread, "Who are the true Objectivists?"
  24. If I agreed, and if the claim made by Ayn Rand was not itself a statement of a fundamental, then I would say that Miss Rand was wrong about that claim, but not about what Objectivism was (because Objectivism was/is the fundamentals of Ayn Rand's philosophy, and not every claim ever made by Ayn Rand). If I agreed, and if the claim made by Ayn Rand was a statement of a fundamental, then I would concede that you've shown Objectivism to be flawed. (But, of course, that hypothetical is impossible, because I am familiar with her fundamentals, and know that they are consistent).
  25. That's beyond amazing. Thanks! I love youtube, too.
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