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monart

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Everything posted by monart

  1. How would it be dangerous? Yes, it would be rough living, inconvenient and isolated, living a shrugging life, but would it be better than living under your present targeted persecution?
  2. Without reifying the abstracted "self", and acknowledging the current unknowns about the evolutionary or neurological emergence of self-consciousness, one can observe extrospectively the emergence of the self in a child's growth from infancy to adolescence and beyond. And, one can also observe introspectively, the "emergence" or growth of one's own, continually maturing, increasingly distinctive self, as one engages productively with the world in a noble, purposeful way.
  3. Yes, as Bishop Barron says in the video, God is summum bonum, the ultimate good, to be served by serving others. The Bishop also says God is love, and to love is, quoting Aquinas, "to will the good of the other". Christian love is altruistic, unselfish love, thus is self-sacrificial. The end of this "love" is as depicted in their images of Jesus suffering and death on the cross, even if they also celebrate the myth of Jesus' resurrection. What is the essential Christianity: the crucifixion or the resurrection, or both?
  4. Rand's chapter, "Concepts of Consciousness", in her ITOE may help with reducing the perplexity. Is the "self" an abstraction from all that which characterizes a human person, including the mind, senses, feelings, choices, actions, the whole mind-body organism -- and not an actual separate existent? Or is the "self" a real emergent property in the growth of a person's consciousness? Or both and more? What is actually being sacrificed in Christian/theistic self-sacrifice?
  5. Since you can't get police protection, have you tried going off-line, moving elsewhere, and trading by cash-and-barter?
  6. Do you know who, specifically, they are? And, why they are they persecuting you, specifically? If you can't get police protection, can you "disappear" and assume a new identity? Do need financial help?
  7. A comparison of Reality as "Existence Exists" and God as "Being qua Being" may help in understanding how some Christians (and theists in general) would become Objectivsts and how they could recover from their previous Christianity. I estimate that many if not most Objectivists are recovering Christians/theists. Tara Smith and Ben Bayer, of the Ayn Rand Institute, have stated that they, too, are/were recovering Catholics. (I, myself, haven't been a Christian or theist, but was born in a Daoist-Buddhist culture.) Another helpful examination is the esthetic comparison between John Galt and Jesus Christ. (I've read your excerpts of "Existence, We" and am curious but will have to wait until I have access to it. Thanks.)
  8. This is more appropriate for another thread, but. . . In taking you seriously, I've been trying to learn from you, on-and-off forum, what specifically is the threat (existential or psychological) that is targeting you, and what, specifically, is the help you're seeking?
  9. Some Christians, like those referenced in the originating post, try to interpret God in an Objecitivist way, using Ayn Rand's formulations, to make God an egoist and Christianity a life of "reason, rational self-interest, individualism, and individual rights". How well or not they can do this, are these "egoistic" Christians more or less of a threat to Objecivists than altruistic, faithful Christians?
  10. As people like Jordan Peterson interprets it, when it suits their rationalization, "sacrifice" is giving up short-term pain for long-term gains, or giving up petty feelings for higher ones, and so on, but avoid acknowledging that "self-sacrifice" can only mean giving up one's life to serve the other (God, Society, Nation, Environment, etc.)
  11. It's not "entirely immoral", if loving yourself is in order to better love God and serve others.
  12. I see how you regard "self" as that which thinks (and that which chooses). Do you include any aspect of the body as part of the self? Or is the self strictly a consciousness? Is there "consciousness as such", apart from the objects of its consciousness?
  13. As Bishop Baron voices it (referenced in my previous post "speaking of God"): "We are all sinners". Christians don't believe they can live in perfect selflessness. Guilt from their unavoidable selfishness is their proof of their devoutness. So in practice, they strike a "balance" between selfishness and selflessness, moralizing that their selfishness is in the service of selflessness, as reason is placed in the service of faith.
  14. Could Mr. Brunton be trying to maintain his balance on his unstable platform by regarding "God", like some Christians sometimes do, as if it were like "Existence", the axiomatic concept of Objectivism, but personalized (esthetically) into a "Galt-like" figure? His belief in Jesus Christ (and his sacrifice) as the incarnation of God is another part of his unstable hemisphere. Yes, the radiance of "nonsacrificial agape" love has its source and meaning in the human self's striving for joyful life, and not in God, as the Christians believe. Christians believe in sacrificial ,which they call agape, as theologically and morally superior to eros, the love of oneself.
  15. The local university library has a copy of the Norton 2021 book, so I'll do a reading of it. I'll also read your "Induction on Identity" paper. Thanks.
  16. Christians are many, Objectivists are few. But a very few Christians are friendly to Ayn Rand, studying and citing her work, along with Peikoff's. Are they the better or the worse Christians? Are they to be scoffed away as deluded walking contradictions and exploitive hypocrites, or be regarded with some serious respect and be shown how to go all the way? Selfish Christians Citing Ayn Rand Apparently, not all Christians are altruistic. There are the very few who advocate rational egoism, studying and citing Ayn Rand’s proofs and formulations as justification and corroboration of “the Classical Christian principles of reason, rational self-interest, individualism, and individual rights” [!] – yet, not accepting full autonomy, believe in the need for God, “the Galt-Like…Egoist God”. As an example of Christian Egoism, the following excerpts are from a website, For the New Christian Intellectual (the name adapted from the title of an early essay of Ayn Rand's and the Atlas logo refers to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged). ======= Why Christians Should Reconsider Ayn Rand https://christianintellectual.com/reconsider/ Everyone loves to hate Ayn Rand—even, and sometimes especially, Christians. … Whatever the cause of the animosity, I want to suggest that it is unwarranted. In fact, I want to present 6 reasons that Christians should reconsider Ayn Rand. 1. She Had a High View of the Mind . . . 2. She Promoted Spiritual Values—Even Above Material Ones . . . 3. She Worked Hard at Integrating the Spiritual & the Physical . . . 4. She’s Had a Lasting & Growing Influence on the Culture . . . 5. She Is Our Best Ally Against the Rising Tides of Postmodernism & Marxism . . . 6. She Will Help You Worship God More Fully . . . It’s no secret that Rand raged against the morality of altruism. It’s one of the primary reasons she is so maligned—especially by Christians, who think that the Bible teaches the morality of altruism unequivocally. While I think a closer reading of both Rand and the Bible would reveal more similarity on this issue than most expect, I don’t think you have to be convinced about Rand’s morality of rational self-interest—for human beings—in order to see the value of it when it comes to thinking about God. Scripture is absolutely unambiguous when it comes to God’s ultimate motivation for everything He does: “For my name’s sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.” —Isaiah 48:9-11 (emphasis added) There’s simply no getting around the fact that the God of the Bible is an unabashed egoist. But when egoism is seen as the prime example of evil, that causes problems for Christians. Is God evil for being an egoist? Is the God of the Bible a moral monster? Many have concluded that He is, and have rejected Christianity as a result. Most Christians, however, find themselves with a severe case of cognitive dissonance. They want to affirm that God can do whatever He pleases (that sort of comes with the territory of being God), but they avoid like the plague the follow up question: why is God pleased by the things He is pleased by—namely, His glory? And is it morally right for Him to have His pleasure rooted in such a self-oriented, egoistic, fashion? Most Christians do not have a satisfactory answer to this question, because they believe that self-interest, as such, is inherently evil. The result is a hesitation to look too closely at the nature and character of God, in order not to discover how much of a moral monster He really is—or, a hesitation to think too consistently about moral principles, in order not to discover that it really is one or the other: either God is a moral monster, or egoism—as such—is not inherently evil. The good news is that egoism is not inherently evil, and Ayn Rand is the best resource for seeing how and why that is so. More than explaining, philosophically, why egoism is moral, she painted vivid portraits of the beauty and glory of egoism in the characters of her novels. I challenge any Christian to read Anthem, The Fountainhead, or Atlas Shrugged, and not to see glorious pictures of the moral character of the God of the Bible reflected through the heroes of those stories. Our culture is overrun with reasons to think that God’s egoistic moral character is ugly, twisted, and evil. In order to look at God in full, worshipful, adoration, Christians must learn to see the staggering glory of God’s moral character—of His egoism. And the writings of Ayn Rand—particularly her novels—are the best resources available to help the Christian do just that. Join Us in Reconsidering Rand Believe it or not, there are a lot of Christians who have benefited from reconsidering Rand—but many of them feel the need to hide it. We’re working to change that. And we’re working to help Christians understand Rand’s thought in order to take full advantage of the potential value hinted at above. In fact, we’re starting a course to explore Rand’s ideas from a Christian perspective. ------ Jacob Brunton: Bachelor of Theology, Bethlehem College & Seminary in Minneapolis, MN. M.A. in Philosophy, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, TX. ----------------- Ayn Rand and Christianity? https://christianintellectual.com/ayn-rand/ … So we want to be very clear: Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, as an integrated philosophy, is not compatible with Christianity. We do not call ourselves “Christian Objectivists.” We do not believe that such a thing is possible. Nor do we select which parts of her philosophy we accept by arbitrary whim. Our commitment is first and foremost to the truth, discovered and validated by reason. We are convinced, on the basis of reason, that historically orthodox, Protestant, Christianity is true. We are also convinced, on the basis of the same reason, that Ayn Rand got a lot of really important things right about the nature of Man and his life on earth. We don’t think those things are in conflict. We are fully convinced that those ideas in Rand’s philosophy which are truly incompatible with Christianity are also incompatible with reason. The things which we embrace in her philosophy, we embrace both because we are rationally convinced of their validity and because they are taught (or assumed) by Scripture. In summary: We are orthodox, Protestant Christians with a great appreciation for Ayn Rand’s thought. Rand has done more than any other philosopher (Christian or otherwise) to point out key categories, questions, and concepts needed for a rational philosophy. We do not agree with all of Rand’s ideas. But we believe Rand was onto something important. (See John Piper’s article The Ethics of Ayn Rand.) To make our own viewpoint clear, we found it helpful to title our project For the New Christian Intellectual. This is a reference to Rand’s first non-fiction book. Anyone familiar with Rand’s work will also recognize the Atlas figure in our logo. It is a nod to Rand’s masterpiece, Atlas Shrugged. While we believe that our perspective is fully Christian, we give credit to Ayn Rand for her role in helping us develop our own philosophical perspective. While there are some similarities, the views we express are not the same as Rand’s. We speak only for ourselves. We encourage our readers to explore Ayn Rand in her own words, starting with her novels. Rand did not invent political freedom. But she has been its best defender. The same is true for other topics of importance, including the four ideals we explicitly advocate: Reason—Rational Self-interest—Individualism—Individual Rights … Many within the Christian tradition will view our project with skepticism. That can be a good thing. Let the skepticism lead to careful questions of discernment. Find out why we believe as we do. If we are mistaken, make sure you know why. If you find dissonance within your own ideas, do the work. Do the thinking. As Ayn Rand would say, “Check your premises.” Cody Libolt: M.A. in Worship Leadership, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville KY. Marketing Consultant & Copywriter (For business inquiries, email [email protected])
  17. How close does Harriman's book come to validating induction (for Physics)? How close does it come to validating induction in other fields like Psychology or Ethics? What would be a complete, successful validation of any method of induction? Do you know of "someone yet-to-come" who could extend Rand's "measurement structure"? Do you yourself have some ideas about how to go about it? Have you written any overview of your philosophy, how it complements or expands Objectivism, or generally the ways in which Objectivism as a philosophy (or as an intellectual movement) could be developed further?
  18. Thanks. I can follow much of what you're saying, mainly because of my previous readings of Rand's, Peikoff's, Kelley's, and Harriman's writings, even if I don't have any comments to offer now. And I assume I'm being prepared for your upcoming explanation of "necessity-for' and necessity-that"
  19. Who are they, who are so many? They, who are all around us. They, of whom some of us may still be recovering from having been one of them. Who are they? What do they believe? How is it false? Know your enemy, know yourself. Speaking of God Most of the world's population, 85%, reportedly believe in a God, over 6 billion people –- including 2.4 billion Christian (1.4B Catholic), 2 billion Islamic, and1.1 billion Hindu – all preaching and practicing selfless service to God and the needs of others. Why? Why so many? For an overview of the beliefs of the largest and most influential of the Christian group, the Roman Catholic Church, here is an interview of Bishop Robert Baron, a Catholic prelate, author and popular speaker, interviewed by Lex Fridman, a popular podcaster. Some quotation/paraphrasing from the interview: …… God is everything and no thing, everywhere and nowhere. God is immensity and infinity: immeasurable and undefinable. God is pure being, whose essence is being itself. God is existence with no identity. God exists not in reality and reason. God exists in heaven and faith. Faith in God is not infra-reason. Faith in God is supra-reason. --- Why so much evil and suffering, if God exists and is infinite goodness and love, all-knowing and all-powerful? God gave humanity freewill for good and evil, and his purpose is beyond our understanding. That there is evil and suffering is not proof of God’s malevolence, indifference, or non-existence. It just shows we don’t know God’s greater plan and how the evil and suffering is for a higher good. --- Christ is God incarnate. Christ is he who is perfectly pleasing to God. Christ and God are each the other’s perfect love. God through Christ redeems the sins of humanity. Christ through his love, suffering, crucifixion, and resurrection shows humanity the way to Heaven. ----- The meaning of life is to seek a purposive, loving friendship with God by following his incarnate son Jesus Christ – to act like Christ, to be Christian. To be Christian is to devote one’s life to God, Christ, and the needs of others. To love is to will the good of the other, for the other. Pride for oneself is the source, and the worst of all sins. We are all sinners, some more than others. ----- Equality and rights are grounded in and given by God. Without God, there are no rights and tyranny reigns. Freedom is not self-determination. Freedom is the choice to love God. ---
  20. They are many, we are few -- so? They control us through the welfare state. So? We can refute and resist them. We know truly and can speak clearly of this: Self-Defense in a Welfare State You the welfare statist government say you are here to “help” and “serve” us with “welfare” by taxing, licensing, and regulating us. We the individualists are here to repudiate you the welfare statist government and your electors. . . . . . To reject and remove from you the power to violate our rights and so restrict you to your proper role of just protecting individual rights. We do not need or want your false help. We choose to truly help and live for and by own selves. We are self-sufficient, self-respecting, autonomous individuals. We own and support our lives by thinking and working for our own purpose and profit. We defend our rights to our property, liberty, and the pursuit of our happiness. We reject your welfare statist tyranny and refute the self-sacrifice and self-immolation of the altruism that spawned you. We recognize and uphold the supremacy of reason and reality, not the faith or force of the rights-violating State. We trade and associate with each other freely, without coercion, for mutual benefit with mutual consent. We don’t violate anyone’s rights and won’t accept any violation of ours. If we help each other in times of misfortune, we do so voluntarily, based on value not force. We value each other as individual free agents, as fellow humane, reasoning beings, living productive and proud lives. We seek each other’s benevolent company and appreciate each other’s unique, singular sovereignty. And we stand together against any tyranny with the full moral, rational certainty of our individual rights. So, we neither want nor need your welfare statism, your taxing and regulating our conversation and commerce. While we may comply when we are forced by law, we will not be martyrs or willing victims. We will resist, protest, and seek restitution where provided by law. You tax, license, and regulate, but you must also grant subsidies, relief, insurance, pensions, exemptions, deductions, and all such “welfare services and entitlements” so as to maintain the pretext for your statist tyranny. Where we could and care to, we will make claims on such “welfare” as a form of restitution, in self-defense, but without either agreeing or supporting your welfare statism. We will not vote for any member of any of your welfare parties of any color. We will vote only for legislators who stand for individual rights, and for the ethics of reason and reality that’s its foundation. These individualist politicians will oppose and seek to repeal all welfare statist laws and reform the constitution to affirm explicitly, definitively, the supremacy of individual rights, and to remove the government’s power to violate them, in anyone’s name, not the State, Society, or God. Meanwhile, we will continue to live and let live, to make the best of what’s possible to us, even in this welfare statist tyranny. There are and have been other worst states of tyranny than here now in the US-Canadian America, where it's still, overall, the freest in the world. But being the freest is not yet being all free. There's still a long way to go, but it will be soon enough. The legacy of Aristotelian Enlightenment is still a strong source of philosophy against any tyranny, especially when fortified by the rational individualist philosophy in our own times formulated by Ayn Rand. That the Ayn Rand Institute teaching her ideas of Objectivism continues to grow, 35 years after her death, and that her books continue to be bestsellers, is a positive cultural barometer of the progress of a rational, romantic civilization. More and more, there are politicians who acknowledge Ayn Rand’s positive influence on them. As we live on in the frontiers of freedom, we will avoid, as best we can, your welfare statist interference and distraction from our pursuit of our noble purpose, which, ultimately, is our own happiness. We will keep strengthening our understanding of the philosophy of reality, reason, rights, and romance – seeking continuous self-realization and self-betterment. There’s always a better way, as we’ll teach our children, a better and benevolent way through self-knowledge, self-sufficiency, and self-defense. Our children of liberty are the mothers and fathers of freedom’s future. With truth, courage, and love, we cheer them on. You, Welfare State, your days are numbered!
  21. Thank you for your comparisons between Rand-Peikoff's and the others' rejection of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, the latter of which I knew little about before. I'm just beginning to browse through your prolific work on philosophy llisted on your profile. And I'm looking forward to further postings from you on this topic of necessary truths, and to your explanation of necessity as "a compound of necessity-for of life and of living mind in grasping fact, the realm of necessity-that".
  22. Motivation is a key to human action, to its initiation, sustenance, and completion. Based on one’s values, motivation comes in many forms, such as financial, legal, ethical, promissory, logical, intellectual, and esthetic. At its core, motivation is emotive, i.e., e-motion: that which “-moves out”, that which is the motive power of action. An example of esthetic motivation is the following. Motive Power The motive power of life is the engine of directed motion, the generator and creator of life’s ambition, driving actions forward in life’s continuous sustenance and realization. In music, as in life, there’s a motive power that pulls music outward, a keynote that carries the flow of melody in harmony on a constant beat toward resolution and arrival. In literature, as in music and in life, there is a motive power that draws out the words and names the concepts that inform and inspire thought onward to envision real ideals. The source of motive power, in literature, music, and life, is: integration – it’s choosing to clarify and unify words, tones, and actions with integrity and purpose, all aiming for the climax, crescendo, and ecstasy that await. As three models of motive power, behold: In real life is the person and character of genius and benefactor Ayn Rand (see 100 voices: An Oral History of Ayn Rand and The Letters of Ayn Rand, In music and literature, are the following two complementary works: one a motion-picture in sounds, the other, a motion-picture in words; the music “Collision” may be heard as a short prelude to the scene from Atlas Shrugged. All models are worth repeated visits for reflection and re-motivation. ===== “Collision”, by John Mills-Cockell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiIe3PjiYp4 And his other similar earlier works from 1970s, such as “Melina’s Torch”. “Tillicum”, “Aurora Spinray”, “December Angel”, "Appaloosa and Pegasus" – all can be heard on Youtube. Also, especially noteworthy is his 2004 Concerto of Deliverance, commissioned as a tribute to Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged. http://www.starshipaurora.com/concertoofdeliverance.html ===== Dagny riding the John Galt Line (especially p. 245-246, Atlas Shrugged😞 She felt the sweep of an emotion which she could not contain, as of something bursting upward. She turned to the door of the motor units, she threw it open to a screaming jet of sound and escaped into the pounding of the engine's heart. For a moment, it was as if she were reduced to a single sense, the sense of hearing, and what remained of her hearing was only a long, rising, falling, rising scream. She stood in a swaying, sealed chamber of metal, looking at the giant generators. She had wanted to see them, because the sense of triumph within her was bound to them, to her love for them, to the reason of the life-work she had chosen. In the abnormal clarity of a violent emotion, she felt as if she were about to grasp something she had never known and had to know. She laughed aloud, but heard no sound of it; nothing could be heard through the continuous explosion. "The John Galt Line!" she shouted, for the amusement of feeling her voice swept away from her lips. She moved slowly along the length of the motor units, down a narrow passage between the engines and the wall. She felt the immodesty of an intruder, as if she had slipped inside a living creature, under its silver skin, and were watching its life beating in gray metal cylinders, in twisted coils, in sealed tubes, in 'the convulsive whirl of blades in wire cages. The enormous complexity of the shape above her was drained by invisible channels, and the violence raging within it was led to fragile needles on glass dials, to green and red beads winking on panels, to tall, thin cabinets stenciled "High Voltage." Why had she always felt that joyous sense of confidence when looking at machines? -- she thought. In these giant shapes, two aspects pertaining to the inhuman were radiantly absent: the causeless and the purposeless. Every part of the motors was an embodied answer to "Why?" and "What for?" -- like the steps of a life-course chosen by the sort of mind she worshipped. The motors were a moral code cast in steel. They are alive, she thought, because they are the physical shape of the action of a living power -- of the mind that had been able to grasp the whole of this complexity, to set its purpose, to give it form. For an instant, it seemed to her that the motors were transparent and she was seeing the net of their nervous system. It was a net of connections, more intricate, more crucial than all of their wires and circuits: the rational connections made by that human mind which had fashioned any one part of them for the first time. They are alive, she thought, but their soul operates them by remote control. Their soul is in every man who has the capacity to equal this achievement. Should the soul vanish from the earth, the motors would stop, because that is the power which keeps them going -- not the oil under the floor under her feet, the oil that would then become primeval ooze again -- not the steel cylinders that would become stains of rust on the walls of the caves of shivering savages -- the power of a living mind -- the power of thought and choice and purpose. She was making her way back toward the cab, feeling that she wanted to laugh, to kneel or to lift her arms, wishing she were able to release the thing she felt . . . . =======
  23. Note the etymologically, mutually related synonyms of "starship", "astronaut", "photon", and "light-being" or "being of light". For those interested in further reading and reflection on aspects of "Project Starship", one philosophic, the other poetic, here are: Starship Astronaut as Rational Egoist Starship Being Light
  24. The doom-criers of "overpopulation" are still going strong (moving among the carbon-neutral crowd) and rebuttals of nonsense are always valuable.
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