Tanaka

Acting once to avoid death is not synonymous with choosing to live a moral life, it's only synonymous with acting to survive once. But acting to avoid death all the time, in a logically consistent manner, is absolutely synonymous with choosing to live (this part is immediately obvious), as well as with choosing to live a moral life (although this second part is not immediately obvious, it depends on the Oist tenant that the moral is that which helps further one's life).

Sure. Beauty is the level of harmony in a composition (or object). The source of the object (natural or man made) has nothing to do with any quality it has (be it its beauty or some other quality). That member was biased against the man made (for some reason that has nothing to do with Aesthetics, I bet). Aesthetic judgment (and all other types of judgment, come to think of it) should be left to those who are objective. Depends on the skyscraper and the mountain. But usually no, it's unlikely that a skyscraper will be more beautiful than a mountain. (because mountains tend to be quite pretty, and skyscrapers are not the best canvas for an artist, the primary concern of their creator is functionality not appearance) Oh yeah. (I bet she smelled, too ) Sure, if it's a good artist, who captures all the beauty and leaves out any ugliness.

Death is the opposite of living. Acting to avoid death means acting to live. I don't understand what distinction you're trying to make.

You're bogged down in a semantic argument, and completely missing the point of that phrase in Rand's philosophy. In the real world life is not automatic, it has to be sustained, by choice. Choosing not to sustain it means death.

Yes, he is, both according to Oism and all legal systems I'm familiar with. While you should try to resolve this first, if all else fails you have the right to call the Police.

I don't think it's possible to fully understand and disagree with any Ethics, and stay moral according to that Ethics. That would be a logical contradiction.

Assuming that all this has been proven beyond reasonable doubt, sure. Letting the Earth just turn into living Hell would be stupid. The government has no role in acting on things you believe are happening. First, you would have to prove they are happening. The reality is that instead of AGW advocates offering proof, it's in fact AGW opponents who have offered proof that the whole thing is a lie.

It's not. 'Choice to be born' would be a misnomer. 'Choice to live' makes perfect sense.

Loved the "Thank God for making me an atheist!" line. As for the perceived insults, they weren't insults. They were jokes, not meant to be taken literally. Most of the attendees loved them (Christian Bale and Pacino for instance both said he was great), only a few decided to get upset about it. Some say that this wasn't Gervais' usual style of humor (Tom Hanks lamented about how he used to be a kind comedian). But if he really understood Gervais' humor, he would know that it's usually aimed at making people uncomfortable and causing an emotional reaction. He's never been a sitcom-like, setup-punchline-moving on to the next joke' type comic, he needs to create an unusual, uncomfortable atmosphere for his humor to work. In this case, throwing a few rough jokes around is what it took to achieve that. I didn't get the impression that he hated the people he was joking about, only that he was consciously trying to take everyone out of their comfort zone.