tommyedison

My favorites Back to the Future I, II and III National Treasure Dr. No Movies I find enjoyable but are not favorites Harry Potter and Philosopher's Stone Harry Potter and Chamber of Secrets Rocky I, II, III Pirates of Caribbean I, III Kate & Leopold Project A, Part I

Just read the essay. Very Nice Mimpy! Congrats on the award. You deserve it.

Well that's just it! One of the values of Christianity is to love the enemy. So "turn the other cheek" is a part of the values you are fighting for.

Yes I have. Not Les Miserables though I've seen the film. I've read "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". That is not a coincidence. Ms. Rand is setting up a situation. If you call that a coincidence, you can call pretty much the whole book a coincidence. Infact, in Atlas Shrugged, every situation relevant to the plot is solved by the ACTIONS taken by the heroes, NOT by random chance or coincidence. For example, you don't see John Galt and others quitting because of divine inspiration or random decisions, do you? For example, you don't see John quitting because he is angry at the way the poli

It's not just the explicit ideas but the characterization, the actions and the psychology I'm criticizing. You don't get that sense of elation, the feeling of intelligent action, the reverence for man in this novel as you day in say Victor Hugo (whose explicit ideas are very bad but whose sense of life was great). Everything just happens by chance and coincidence, the events in the novels are not directed by the heroes' choices but by chance and luck. As for fighting for your own values, even Christianity tells you to fight for your values but it's hardly a selfish philosophy.

The new novel is a Christian tract. Right from the explicit ideas which to the characterization of Harry and his gang. And the Christian philosophy is really consistent throughout the book ? The psychology of the characters is totally off. The novel is profoundly unromantic.

The "text of the bill" link points to a bill introduced in 2005, not this year's bill.

What evidence do you have that IQ is innate?

True and I think it is being manifested given the popularity of faith-based books ("Left Behind", "Purpose driven Life", etc.), faith based movies ("Passion of the Christ"), faith based music (some evidence of this provided by Dr. Peikoff in his '04 statement), Bible Camps, etc. I agree. What I meant was that it is wrong to base one's conclusions only on statistics or some out-of-context anecdotes. For instance a lot of arguments, both for and against Dr. Peikoff's statement, have consisted of something like this: or or or Such out of context arguments are not any evide

Hugo and Republicans are complete opposites - at least in terms of sense of life. Victor Hugo, had he become president, would never have implemented a full-fledged dictatorship. I don't think the comparison between Hugo and the Republicans is very apt.

Oops! Sorry. It's just that I read Mrs. Hsieh's post last so that stayed in my mind. But thanks for your help too. This was what I posted on NoodleFood I think it is a philosophical error. It is ideas which determine the course of history, of a country - not the exact approval rating of a born-again president at some point of time, or the exact percentage of people supporting Bible-based laws at a given time, or the number of people supporting censorship of obscenity at a given time (not implying that you are basing your judgment on such facts). These are mere concretes which

True enough. In regard to the environmentalism of the Democrats, I would like to point out that their environmentalism has not been integrated into an explicit philosophy the way Christianity has been in regards to the Republicans. By this I mean that the Democrats don't have an explicit epistemological base for their environmentalism. The Republicans do propound an explicit epistemological base for their Christianity - faith. This is why the Republicans can do much more harm in the long run - because they are advocating a fundamental idea while the Democrats are quibbling over some concretes

I previously in this thread interpreted Dr. Peikoff's statement as implying that those who do not vote for Democrats are immoral. After thinking it through, and reading Dr. Peikoff's post again as well as Mrs. Hsieh's excellent post, I would apologize for my previous statements. Although I still think that Dr. Peikoff's statement could have been better worded, given the amount of work he has done in Objectivism and his understanding of it, I should have examined his statement more thoroughly and given him the benefit of doubt.

While I think that many O'ists are taking a short term view of the situation, don't you think this could simply be an honest mistake? Why does it have to be NECESSARILY immoral? It is not easy to predict how much will the vote this November push this country towards theocracy.

Although I agree with Dr. Peikoff's analysis of the current political scenario, I think that his charges of immorality and "no understanding of O'ism" should have required some serious justification. It wouldn't have been a problem if these strong statements had been backed up with some reasoning i.e. an explanation as to why one is necessary immoral and/or has no understanding of O'ism if one disagrees with Dr. Peikoff. But as presented, these charges are wrong and if taken literally, do imply that if you do not agree with Dr. Peikoff, you are not an Objectivist (O'ist being someone who un