Scribulus

This makes more sense to me than anything else I've heard. I'm sure many things played a role, including entitlement and mysticism, but the atrophy of the leadership because of faulty policies at a time of need sounds like the critical factor. (And probably orgies didn't have a whole lot to do with it.)

Thanks, everyone, I think the answer is clear: capitalism does not need reining in, but people do. On the subject of greed, there are two parts of the definition in my dictionary; one is wanting unduly more than one should, and the other is wanting that more especially at others' expense. Split that way, we can say that greed is good if it means wanting more, because that is the motivating force of all improvement in the world. If we only wanted what everyone else had, progress would not occur. But if it is wanting it at someone else's expense clearly is wrong, since it requires one person to live for another's sake. The real problem with the word greed is that those two defintions are conflated. Why should they even both be a part of the same word? That they are thought of this way is precisely the problem: it is assumed that one cannot have more than another WITHOUT it being at someone else's expense.

I am having this discussion with someone, and I wanted to get some feedback from you guys on where he is going with this idea. What is the rational explanation for laissez faire policies in light of the reality that people do cause harm to others?

Thank you for making that connection. Those words were inspiring already, but much more so under the supposition that they were from Frank, and that they inspired her.

Is there any record of what he said to encourage her?

Thanks for your replies. I was just wondering what the secular consensus is. I was just sure the presence or absence of orgies did not have the significance of inflation and political alliances and so forth. Gibbon will have to go on my reading list; OPAR is already occupying my full attention.

In Christian circles, it is commonly heard that the reason for the fall of the Roman Empire was that they came to accept practices that were fundamentally immoral by Christian standards, such as sexual promiscuity and cultivated gluttony. What is an Objectivist explanation for the fall of the Roman Empire?

Not necessarily. If your value is having a world where you know you would be taken care of should you ever come to the state of disability, then it would be in your self-interest to create a world where people were able to be taken care of. And if someone has the skills to do this, it is in their self-interest to exercise them, and becomes an exchange of value with people who also want to know they would be taken care of if they were disabled, but did not have the skills to improve the world in that way.

Weren't the Founding Fathers mostly deists? Except there is that one incident with Benjamin Franklin that religionists are so fond of quoting, when he spoke up during the writing of the Constitution to ask for prayer, and said, "The older I grow, the more convincing proofs I see that god governs in the affairs of men." I've always wondered what those proofs were.

You INVENTED the technique? Who are you, John Galt? I am so inspired!

http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/

I think the nonfiction is going to be the thing for me. I am reading FTNI right now, and I am savoring every word. I was marking in pen, then switched to pencil because I'm marking every other line, lol. I think OPAR is probably just right for me. I need something systematic because I need to get my ducks all lined up in my mind. AS was a great place for me to start. I didn't even skip Galt's speech. I don't think I could handle a couple of years of feeling like I"m living a double life. I feel now a drive to study and think and get myself straightened out and then face what needs to be done. I keep thinking of Dagny when she was going to school--that was all she wanted to do. Oh, he was brilliant. A total waste of a good specimen of humanity. It never hurts to ask again, but I think a judgment is the best we could get. But I appreciate your outrage on my behalf. The greatest irony is that he was a very articulate exponent of Objectivism. All fraud hides behind a face of truth, so it had to be something. He used both religion and Objectivism as his front, astutely judging what I could tolerate. Now that I'm starting to get over it, it's actually kind of fascinating, like reading your own medical chart after the surgery is long over. Just imagine this. He had said, "No matter how much people say against me, I know that my conscience is clean before God and I will always be on his side. If you want to know the truth, take it to God, because he is the source of all truth." When he said that two years ago, I was moved and wanted to befriend him. Umpty thousand dollars later, when I had factual, first-hand knowledge of his lies and he said it again, it was a slap in the face. And then the moment of connection: he's using the words of religion to avoid the evidence of reality...could that be what religion does too?

It's like knowing where you were when Kennedy was shot, or on 9/11, isn't it? You have this historical transition from whatever you believed before to this view of reality, and it is so dramatic, you never forget what brought you here.

<whistling> makes me glad I noticed. Your list, and your assertion that you want to keep them all, reminds me of a guy in the Salt Lake area who was not a sculptor, but loved his religion so much that he built these huge sculptures in his backyard. They were odd kinda quirky things like a sphinx with the head of Joseph Smith. This audience won't appreciate his subject matter, lol, but people now pay money to go see this guy's backyard sculptures. By which I mean...your work is an art form, and regardless of when and where, people will appreciate it. Like Rand said, good art moves us to be our best. I LOVE your comment that it doesn't take patience, that you do it because you love it. Now THAT inspires me!

Ah, you have it right there. That is precisely what I am afraid of. Ultimately I know I will cope, and they will cope. But between here and there is a path I am not looking forward to. It's a necessary surgery...but at least I have the comfort of knowing it is an elective and not an emergency one. I like this one: "be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you." But if we're going to cite scripture in the service of Objectivism, I can't miss this one from the Book of Mormon: "Cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves." Perhaps. The slope may be slippery, but it is gentle enough to still feel like being on the mountain. Asking the question "have you considered the possibility that god does not exist?" feels like falling off a very large cliff. At that point you can no longer pretend that the forms of your life are correct and you can just alter the path a little; you have to admit to yourself that everything that came before was a lie. And there are no ski lifts. You have to hike back to the top, and when you get there, the trails are all different and you find yourself on an entirely different mountain. But what a run! I find this deeply moving. I've written several responses and abandoned them. I'm still at a loss for words.

The handmade feature is part of what you would be selling. Lots of people can appreciate hand work, as evidenced by the response on this thread. I think they are gorgeous. Genuis is knowing that what resides in your own heart also resides in another. It is just a matter of time before you sell one, unless you wouldn't want to. I think it was Thoreau who said that in every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts brought back to us. How many years have you been doing this? How many boats do you have? Questions about the pictures; in the first picture, there is some kind of image to the left of the (prow? I don't remember the terms for sure) front of the boat. It looks like the water, only the image is clearer and sharper just in that place, like a satellite view of the earth where different images are superimposed on each other, or maybe where there is some glass or something. What is that? And on the second one, the inside of the boat is shiney as if there is water inside it? Just wondering what's up with that.

I am moved by your responses. It validates that the questions I have been asking myself for a long time demonstrate something worthwhile about myself, rather than something that needs to be feared. I was terrified when I first grasped the connection between the awful lies told me by a sheister and the doctrines I have heard at church. The responses I have gotten to this thread have helped me sort out that changes happen, some people will weather them, and some will not. I still have said nothing to any of my friends or family. But my thinking is changing. For example, one of my closest friends is having a moral dilemma. She has some debts that she feels burdened by, so, with great difficulty, she has gotten a job that is out of her comfort zone. Among other things it requires her to work on Sunday. Meanwhile she is the teacher of a high school religion program, and in choosing the material for a certain lesson found herself with a video that demonstrated the role of faith in following the commandments. She now feels that she has to wrestle with whether she can teach that lesson and keep her job! There was a time when I would have thought that her question showed integrity. In her own way, it does; she wants to be true to her values. But what an absurd contradiction of values! I just pointed out to her that it is also a commandment to fulfill her financial obligations. It will be interesting to see what she chooses. But I am just so aghast! To think that I ever entertained such an absurd way of living! I don't have time at the moment to respond more, but some of you have said things I find profound and I intend to respond further.

Unfortunately, filing charges is unlikely to result in getting any money back, since he has chosen to waste his productive capacity with crack addiction. At this point, we are just happy to have him gone and leave us alone so we can explore new ways to be productive, to cover the debts he left us with. Meanwhile, I've been advised that reading Peikoff's book about Objectivism is like reading the cliff's notes to reality, so I'm all over that one. Thanks to everyone for your support.

I have written several replies, and also considered writing one by way of introduction, but I am still sufficiently unsure of where I stand that I keep changing it. Changing one's worldview is a form of rebirth but also of death; sometimes it feels like liberation, sometimes like a funeral. Maybe I will share this. I was recently scammed by someone I loved deeply and trusted. We will be hurting financially for some time as a result, until we figure out new ways to be productive. The blow has been almost unbearable at times, not just because of the sense of betrayal, and the financial burden, but because of self-reproach for lack of rationality. It's also raised all kinds of questions in my mind about my own beliefs and vulnerabilities, as well as about how to tell what to trust. And this is the person who introduced me to Objectivism, with a powerful dose of religion mixed in, if you can fathom that. Sorting out truth from fiction is at times overwhelming. I feel like I'm at a funeral, but I keep changing my mind whose funeral it is. Yet I have hope that I will sort it out in time.

Thank you to everyone who has responded. If you haven't heard from me yet, you will shortly. One thing I am running into is that if I send a private message, I can't send another one for a couple of hours, so I would prefer to switch to email. My address is [email protected]. Everyone has been most kind, and I appreciate your welcome. I must say, I am a little curious, however. I've gotten such a good response that it belies the notion that atheists are not helpful. What self-interest do you find in offering to help me reconcile my personal philosophy? I'm just a stranger on the internet.

I'm interested to hear how you made the intellectual journey to Objectivism, and where you were coming from, especially if you began as a religious person. Where did you first encounter Objectivism, how did it clash with what you believed before that, how has it changed the direction of your thinking? How has it impacted the way you live your life, your self-esteem, your productive capacity, and the quality of your relationships? Did you abandon some relationships and form new ones, or did your existing ones weather the change? I am relatively new to Objectivism, but my initial observation is that it feels liberating. I'm just beginning to explore how it can affect other aspects of my life.

I'm relatively new to Objectivism and it is turning my life around. But what I am reading is so contrary to my previous worldview and that of those around me that I have no one to talk to while I figure it out. I'm looking for an objectivist who would be willing to hear my story and help me process. I feel great anguish about it because I come from a very religious family, so I would prefer to keep the discussion private for now; so I am looking for an exchange via private message. On a side note, I recently ran across a book called Mistakes Were Made But Not By Me, about the reasons people cling to false ideas even after they have been presented with evidence to the contrary. This seems like the kind of forum where that topic would be appreciated.