Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

How Do Men of Faith, Who Consider Themselves Objectivists, Reconcile t

Rate this topic


Recommended Posts

...still want a logical framework in which to approach systems beyond my comprehension.

This must be Greek, because it makes no sense in English.

The completeness theorem laid that framework for me.

You should throw the theorem out as being either inconsistent or incomplete.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You should throw the theorem out as being either inconsistent or incomplete.

Lol, I was just googling this theorem, since I'd never heard of it -- I vaguely understand the joke :D. I included the word "layman," and the laymen explanations aren't. Thus, I'm skeptical.

 

Skylab, adding an extra concept ("god") on top of "the unknown" is pointless. By your definition of God, humans are each gods themselves. There is no apparent limit on our ability to understand. We are the "unary system", each in our brains.

Edited by JASKN
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Using oneself as the standard for ethical evaluations is necessary to determine whether ones rights are secure or in jeopardy.

With a rational code of ethics, one doesn't use oneself as the standard for ethical evaluations.

Determining whether ones rights are secure or in jeopardy is done by applying moral principles validated by a metaphysics based on objective reality.

I asked an egoistic moral subjectivist why "looking inward" is a valid standard for ethical evaluations.

She said, "Because I said so."

That's the kind of morality that leads to robbery and bloodshed because somebody felt it was for a good cause.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

With a rational code of ethics, one doesn't use oneself as the standard for ethical evaluations.

Determining whether ones rights are secure or in jeopardy is done by applying moral principles validated by a metaphysics based on objective reality.

I asked an egoistic moral subjectivist why "looking inward" is a valid standard for ethical evaluations.

She said, "Because I said so."

That's the kind of morality that leads to robbery and bloodshed because somebody felt it was for a good cause.

 

"Hickman said 'I am like the state: what is good for me is right.' This is the boy's psychology. (The best and strongest expression of a real man's psychology I ever heard). The model for the boy is Hickman. Very far from him, of course. The outside of Hickman, not the inside. Much deeper and much more. A Hickman with a purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more exact to say that the model is not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested to me."

http://objectivistanswers.com/questions/3001/so-whats-the-truth-about-william-hickman

Edited by Devil's Advocate
Link to comment
Share on other sites

DA

Would you agree that ethical reciprocity is a principle of politics, but not the foundation of moral politics?

Because this is the idea I was trying to point to prior. The 'golden rule' is consistent with a political philosophy based on ratinal egoism but not the foundation of a moral politics. Morality precedes politics. No?

 

The ethical precedes the political, yes.  My position is that ethical reciprocity is self evident for all intents and purposes, and leads to the concept of rights.  As I stated earlier, self awareness leads to the awareness of other selves and considerations about how to interact with them.  Individual rights is an obvious solution to a perpetual state of war.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My position is that ethical reciprocity is self evident for all intents and purposes, and leads to the concept of rights. As I stated earlier, self awareness leads to the awareness of other selves and considerations about how to interact with them. Individual rights is an obvious solution to a perpetual state of war.

Reciprocity is at best a pragmatic solution without much reasoned support. Rand defines rights first by defining men. If you're doing that, too, you've gone beyond reciprocity. I'm not sure why you're giving so much weight to reciprocity, when, as has been pointed out, it doesn't define an ethical standard.

Rights aren't so obvious, either. It took a good long while before they were adopted, and still today they're not understood by most people. In fact, most people only make it to a vague notion of reciprocity in their thinking on human interaction.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On a side note, to point out I welcome discussion with good-willed, thoughtful and articulate RationalChristians trying to reconcile some areas in politics and ethics with Objectivism. After all, where better for them to go?

:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reciprocity is at best a pragmatic solution without much reasoned support. Rand defines rights first by defining men. If you're doing that, too, you've gone beyond reciprocity. I'm not sure why you're giving so much weight to reciprocity, when, as has been pointed out, it doesn't define an ethical standard.

...

 

You have not argued that the meaning of Ayn Rand's statement is altered by reason, only that she speaks with the authority of reason, rather than the Divine.  "Dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations" * is a more convenient 1st step than requiring others to read the Lexicon, Bible, whatever, prior to interacting with them.  Life is practical; learning to enjoy it is complicated.

* https://www.google.com/#q=pragmatic

 

...

Rights aren't so obvious, either. It took a good long while before they were adopted, and still today they're not understood by most people. In fact, most people only make it to a vague notion of reciprocity in their thinking on human interaction.

 

I believe rights as a reflection of what is correct and proper to human interaction and survival are fairly straight forward; ask someone you know, someone dense like me, if they have a right to live.  I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that most (if not all) will respond in the affirmative. That in itself doesn't identify them as an Objectivist, but it does give them a common frame of reference when discussing rights with an Objectivist, or a priest, or the tax man; specifically the preservation of ones own life.

 

There's more to say on the subject, but I think 3 pages is enough for this topic.  Thank you JASKN, I have profited from your patient feedback.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations"

I believe rights as a reflection of what is correct and proper to human interaction and survival are fairly straight forward;

Dearest Devil's Ad,

AR's ethics is a practical theory. It's not either or. Only irrational theories can't be applied to reality.

And without a way to validate the rights you call fairly straight forward, they can crumble to the first evil philosophy to proclaim the morality of rights baseless. What happens when a dictator insists that all property should belong to the state? Do you have an argument reducible to the axioms? Or do you say, "Everybody knows it's wrong to have to give your property to serve the "greater good."?

The "self-evident truths" of the Declaration are still in dispute, & losing ground, because they never did the work needed to prove why rights are right. Those great men left the concept of rights undefended, because they failed to validate it.

Miss Rand did.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So my god became God, defined as, That System which is Infinite.

Dearest SLab, thanks to you and Devil's Ad, for "coming out" on this forum. You both made a superb effort to defend faith.

God is a specific concept. Men throughout history have been able to smuggle in to the realm of ideas, invalid (arbitrary) concepts, by use of the stolen-concept. This includes defining it by non-essentials or redefining it without explicitly dropping the essentials.

You said you believe in God, but you had to redefine it. That's not fair to your concept or to people who take definitions seriously.

Pick a new name for It.

AR wanted to call her philosophy Existentialism, but it was taken.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In regard to any "reconciliation" of personal or public faith with Objectivism, the results show that our theist allies wish to re-issue God as something other than what God, or the plurality of polytheistic Gods, was every conceived to be. The God of the theists lies somewhere in their imaginations; it will do no harm, nor will it be motivated to action through any prayer. It is not possessed of an independent conscience. Its power is merely that of nature. I have no trouble with folks who wish to rely on their imaginations to help them through problems. Their faith is a personal matter. But it does not reconcile with objective reality, and therefore does not reconcile with Objectivism. The convenient abstraction many believe to be God may have a place in other philosophical or traditional practices, meditation or cursing, but the fact remains: god is a fantasy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is not clear to me whether the concept of "god" described above ("nature's god") implies a consciousness or not. A traditional deist like Jefferson does not simply define "god" as all the stuff about nature that we do not yet know. No; to him, "god" is still a consciousness, and -- most importantly --man's reason can discover what this "god" considers to be right and wrong.

 

Using the concept of God to mean something that is of nature and is also not a consciousness describes a concept that has no actionable prescriptions for man (except the meta-prescription to try to discover more about nature).

 

If the "nature's god" described above is an attempt to remove even the little bit of consciousness from "Jefferson's god", it seems like a pretty useless concept. Worse still, it would be to use the term in a non-standard way, causing unnecessary confusion.

IMO: god in most cases, I have found to imply not conscious. God however, by my definition and convention (the capital letter) which I in no way am attempting to sell, as the infinite set/meta-set would have to. I like Jefferson's writings because they seem most consistent among theists of the era.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dearest SLab, thanks to you and Devil's Ad, for "coming out" on this forum. You both made a superb effort to defend faith.

God is a specific concept. Men throughout history have been able to smuggle in to the realm of ideas, invalid (arbitrary) concepts, by use of the stolen-concept. This includes defining it by non-essentials or redefining it without explicitly dropping the essentials.

You said you believe in God, but you had to redefine it. That's not fair to your concept or to people who take definitions seriously.

Pick a new name for It.

AR wanted to call her philosophy Existentialism, but it was taken.

Thank you, excellent point! There exists an adjective oft combined with theist that comes close, but it too is 'taken'. Omnitheist, which has it's own intellectual baggage. I will ponder that at length, and post if I come up with something I think useful. As always suggestions welcome. I can clearly see being pedantic about capitalization confuses people. In my defense I found it so useful to indicate the domain of a word used in the Infinite-Meta sense with a capital letter, hoping the monotheists had pretty well sold the convention. Meta-Meta...-Super-Set Monotheism is awkward, M-theism might tie it to a huge body of physics that might have huge chunks repudiated, there has to be a useful semi-descriptive term, but thank you, I will ponder this at length.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In regard to any "reconciliation" of personal or public faith with Objectivism, the results show that our theist allies wish to re-issue God as something other than what God, or the plurality of polytheistic Gods, was every conceived to be. The God of the theists lies somewhere in their imaginations; it will do no harm, nor will it be motivated to action through any prayer. It is not possessed of an independent conscience. Its power is merely that of nature. I have no trouble with folks who wish to rely on their imaginations to help them through problems. Their faith is a personal matter. But it does not reconcile with objective reality, and therefore does not reconcile with Objectivism. The convenient abstraction many believe to be God may have a place in other philosophical or traditional practices, meditation or cursing, but the fact remains: god is a fantasy.

Thank you, you have swayed me, sorry not wholly to your point of view, rather to a better name than calling myself a theist. See post above. I agree god is a fantasy. My God, however is a mathematical concept... Mmm perhaps M-theism would work, M for Math, however that would invite the under educated to assume it was impractical theory, when practical life affirming practice, is what should be the goal. Needs more pondering.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually Skylab 72, I'm not trying to persuade you of anything. You have a working solution for tangible problems, and a metaphysical answer, which I may not entirely understand, but it works for you. I simply don't associate mathematical formulas with faith. And I cannot concede that objective reality can be a matter of faith. The function and image of YOUR god is drastically different from those of conventional religions, ancient mysticism, or cults. I doubt if anyone else has exactly the identical concept of god as you do, which is to your advantage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Rand didn't emphasize atheism, and even said she wasn't arguing against atheism as much as arguing for her principles. So, it kind of makes sense that it passed your radar undetected. Still, she did elaborate about her views on religion. So, it also makes sense that her "followers" would bring those views to your attention if you're discussing her philosophy with them, and bringing up your faith. "That" message being brought to your attention, not being obvious to you personally beforehand, doesn't imply the validity of an ObjectiChristianty.

 

Just because you can dream it up doesn't mean it's true. Also, mass acceptance doesn't imply truth.

ObjectiChristianty sounds like an oxymoron. Christianity is only a contemporary subset of religion that seems to have a large following, while embracing a huge population of hypocritical bigots, Not Christian does not imply not bigoted.

 

In order to prove one's finite logical system, one has to define it in such a way as to include the statement  "I cannot prove P. Where P is a proposition outside the domain of the system. Similarly one must be able to say, "I cannot prove NOT P". Same reasoning. But I MUST be able to talk about P outside my finite system in order to remain consistent. If I define P as a religion based in (not on) the need to talk about P in order to derive useful questions and answers  including unknowable components, sub(P) or P, then I think I can offer it as consistent with Objectivism where Objectivism is a consistent P inside my consistent philosophical system. QED for the original post.

 

​Sincere Thanks to all participants who have helped me clarify my verbiage. And that. is all I have to say about that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Skylab, I'm fairly sure "deism" as opposed to theism is what you have in mind. Unless I've confused the two, that is.

You are right that is a valid distinction, however I was hoping to convey both. The deism part is the assertion "I believe in a deity." The theism part is the whole logical chain by which I link my ethics to that assertion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tsk, tsk, tsk...

 

"Absence of proof is not proof of absence." ~ William Cowper

 

Much of my respect for Ayn Rand comes from listening to her interact with various interviewers and audiences.  An interview with Phil Donahue comes to mind, in which he pressed her on the issue of atheism by saying that you can't know God doesn't exist.  She replied that you can know, but that it's a logical fallacy to prove a negative.  I have to wonder how you can know without proving it, but I suppose it's enough to say that faith is unfounded.

 

"It is important to distinguish between belief and knowledge. What one believes, one cannot know. What one knows, one cannot believe. To believe something means that its perceived veracity depends upon the subjective loyalty of the believer, based upon reason, personal experience, or some other compelling catalyst to such faith; to know something depends upon its being provable as fact." ~ Rabbi Irving Greenberg

 

I entered this topic in order to respond to, "How Do Men of Faith, Who Consider Themselves Objectivists, Reconcile t(he two?)".  Unfortunalely the title and the OP are at odds in the terms reconcile* and compatible**.  I attempted to clarify this in my initial post #49, and my responses thereafter were efforts to demonstrate the former rather than the latter.  That Objectivism defines all faith as blind faith only highlights the error of acting on faith in lieu of reason, which those of faith who know the difference wouldn't argue to begin with.  Aquinas provided 5 "proofs" which Ayn Rand appreciated as an effort, but dismissed as unpersuasive.  It would appear that contemporary atheists have overcome the fallacy of proving a negative, which I appreciate as an effort, but dismiss as unpersuasive... thus far...

 

"If faith depends upon the measure of doubt left available to us when knowledge eludes us, then faith in God seems to me to be the far superior option to faith in no God." ~ Rabbi Jeret

 

--
* "restore friendly relations between."

https://www.google.com/#q=reconcile

 

** "(of two things) able to exist or occur together without conflict."
https://www.google.com/#q=compatible

 

Edited for spelling

Edited by Devil's Advocate
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What are you talking about?

If you are talking to me. Philosophy. Where P is being used to refer to any coherent philosophical Proposition.  Objectivism is a logical proposition. Existence of a deity is a proposition. My observable outlook is a finite logical system (be it logical or illogical), AND can be referred to as a proposition(P).  I therefore began "In order to prove one's finite logical system(my personal philosophy), one has to define it in such a way as to include the statement  "I cannot prove P. Where P is a proposition outside the domain of the system. Similarly one must be able to say, "I cannot prove NOT P". Same reasoning." Which is english for the conclusion of the postulate section of Gödel's Proof. I then continue "But I MUST be able to talk about P outside my finite system in order to remain consistent." which is a paraphrase of the conclusion of Gödel's completeness theorem. At that point I attempted to explain why I lean toward the proposition(P) where "God exists as kind of an über Reality." rather than "not God". Succinct does not always make clearer, sorry.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...