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Selfish Christians Citing Ayn Rand

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This group is an underground unit of domestic terrorists destroying and threatening the lives of not just myself but of all Americans right now,  and this is the most massive National Security threat in existence.  Everyone needs to immediately protect themselves and the country.  Start by sending a tip on what is occurring to the FBI.  We need to all act right now and get the government to do its job.  This is an immediate existential threat against not only myself but every American and the republic itself.  Or they will start destroying and passively murdering every one of us,  and who knows when this domestic terrorist unit will turn to active murder? At this rate they could start this at any moment. Again, this is an immediate National Security threat of largest scale in the history of the nation, this isn't just directed at myself,  but all good moral intelligent people.  This needs to occur right now to save ourselves.  Contact the FBI. 

Edited by EC
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9 hours ago, Boydstun said:

This is incorrect and a very dangerous idea many have taken away from reading Rand. (A related incorrect take-away, which Rand later, correctly, denounced and clarified, is the idea that evil is impotent.) Evil is not always dependent on a sanction, and when it is, sanction from most anyone will do. Sanction from the (forum-shopped) witch doctor is common. Navalny did not sanction the evil of Putin, and he was brutalized and murdered by Putin all the same. Realistically, sanction from the victim is generally not a worthy sanction to the evil doer. To the evil doer, the sanction of the victim is generally as irrelevant as the sanction, were such possible, of a rat or insect.

(Aside: Stalin fooled people into the "sanction" of not realizing that he was the reason they were forced onto a train to Siberia. They wrote him letters thinking that if he knew what was happening he would intervene.)

Ayn Rand introduced the idea of the sanction of the victim and the dependence of evil on it in a situation in which evil was an ongoing parasitism on the victim. I'd leave validity of the idea to that sort of situation, nothing broader.

One bad idea some readers take away from Atlas Shrugged is that they and their philosophical comrades are the Atlases holding up the world as in the book (kind of an iffy metaphor of the book, really, because of our modern conception of gravity) and that everyone else is significantly a parasite on them. No, our philosophical circle is not in that role. There are other real people who are in that role in this the real world.

The point I and Miss Rand made is that one must never give moral sanction to evil not that not supplying this sanction "protects" one from evil physically, which is the job of a proper government (outside of emergency situations). Kira is a perfect example and died a hero via a bullet from an evil government while never sanctioning evil and always staying true to the good in every possible manner.  Providing even the slightest sanction to evil in such a circumstance would be the worst possible sacrifice,  the sacrifice of one's mind to evil and those attempting to destroy and enslave one's highest value. Good recognizes the good, and it's true not everyone that knows the good is in a position to be Atlas (which is an obvious metaphor,  not sure why you threw in the gravity statement), but one's allies in protecting and advancing the good to every individual's benefit is what is needed in this fight versus what has become the greatest series of evil events in the history of our Republic, and to stop it from falling from what has become a slightly hidden version of tyranny into open tyranny, while helping save other good individuals such as myself from imminent full destruction and death from the tyranny while we all work together to return America to the land of Liberty and Capitalism.

And more to the exact point from the Lexicon:

"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromiser is the transmitting rubber tube . . .

When men reduce their virtues to the approximate, then evil acquires the force of an absolute, when loyalty to an unyielding purpose is dropped by the virtuous, it’s picked up by scoundrels — and you get the indecent spectacle of a cringing, bargaining, traitorous good and a self-righteously uncompromising evil."

“GALT’S SPEECH” For the New Intellectual, 216

Edited by EC
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11 hours ago, EC said:

 . . . Atlas (which is an obvious metaphor,  not sure why you threw in the gravity statement) . . .

Because the old picture of the world needing to be held up was false. Our experience is that unsupported objects here on the surface of the earth fall, but the generalization to thinking the earth itself would fall if unsupported proved incorrect.

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2 hours ago, Boydstun said:

Calling "sanction" occasions of failing to recognize evil and take actions to oppose it is incorrect English, a smearing out of the term sanction.

No. Specific *moral*/rational sanction. Are you for some reason at odds with the moral concept of not providing moral sanction to the explicitly evil? If so, are you suggesting that one should compromise or excuse evil, both of which are explicitly evil ideas. 

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2 hours ago, Boydstun said:

Because the old picture of the world needing to be held up was false. Our experience is that unsupported objects here on the surface of the earth fall, but the generalization to thinking the earth itself would fall if unsupported proved incorrect.

So you are randomly equivocating the correct concept of gravity with the analogy that it is the men of the mind that drive the advancement of mankind and create all values? 

If these are your positions,  then I morally condemn you,  you are not an Objectivist, and there is very limited value that you have to offer. 

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Posted (edited)
On 3/28/2024 at 9:33 AM, tadmjones said:

Rand's critique of religion as primitive philosophy is as reaction to the dogma produced by 'faith' ,  a product of irrationality or arbitrary statements and not comparable or even remotely related to 'proper' knowledge in Objectivism. The condemnation of the morality that would follow an ethos of sacrifice is her defense of the self as the highest value.

Is the appeal ,(or prehension) for religionists or specifically Christians for O'ism, rooted in an escape or denial of 'transcendental' aspects of reality? Are Galt's triumphs not actually literary examples of transcending the 'mundane'? Regardless etymology , what is inspiration?(and then reconsider etymology)

Ayn Rand's noble romanticism, as she says in her Introduction to The Fountainhead, reclaims the emotions of reverence for the sacred back from traditional theistic religions' monopoly on them. Is this Objectivist romance for real ideals what attracts some Christians/theists to Ayn Rand's work, despite their Christianity/theism?

Christianity's "transcendent reality" is God, and human earthly affairs are mundane. Galt's triumphs are "transcendent" in that they are heroic realizations of his highest ideals, the exalted becoming of his rational productive being. To be inspired by this noble, uplifting romance of Galt, is to "breathe in" and be energized by that "spirit".

Edited by monart
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On 3/29/2024 at 2:10 PM, EC said:

This group is an underground unit of domestic terrorists destroying and threatening the lives of not just myself but of all Americans right now,  and this is the most massive National Security threat in existence.  Everyone needs to immediately protect themselves and the country.  Start by sending a tip on what is occurring to the FBI.  We need to all act right now and get the government to do its job.  This is an immediate existential threat against not only myself but every American and the republic itself.  Or they will start destroying and passively murdering every one of us,  and who knows when this domestic terrorist unit will turn to active murder? At this rate they could start this at any moment. Again, this is an immediate National Security threat of largest scale in the history of the nation, this isn't just directed at myself,  but all good moral intelligent people.  This needs to occur right now to save ourselves.  Contact the FBI. 

I can't let this be buried. This is an emergency, where a man's life is being destroyed by domestic terrorism within the United States over at least two years now. It is happening across a wide region and countless people from all walks of life seem to be involved. This is an immediate threat to not only my own life but the lives of all Americans. My own son is right now on a nuclear submarine protecting this country from foreign aggression while his father,  myself,  is being attacked by criminal domestic terrorists ( I'm assuming it's people somehow posing as Americans or something) and no matter how much I put out what is occurring nobody will help. Right now with this occurring the entire nation must be at extreme risk. 

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Please I am being slowly murdered by whoever this domestic terrorist group is. Why are people allowing this to happen to a fellow American? Why is nobody helping me anywhere, let alone ignoring a massive terrorist threat to every American and the entire nation in every possible manner?

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18 minutes ago, EC said:

Please I am being slowly murdered [...]

Call the police. They will direct you to the appropriate help facility

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On 3/30/2024 at 2:33 PM, monart said:

Ayn Rand's noble romanticism, as she says in her Introduction to The Fountainhead, reclaims the emotions of reverence for the sacred back from traditional theistic religions' monopoly on them. Is this Objectivist romance for real ideals what attracts some Christians/theists to Ayn Rand's work, despite their Christianity/theism?

Christianity's "transcendent reality" is God, and human earthly affairs are mundane. Galt's triumphs are "transcendent" in that they are heroic realizations of his highest ideals, the exalted becoming of his rational productive being. To be inspired by this noble, uplifting romance of Galt, is to "breathe in" and be energized by that "spirit".

Where does the reverence come from? Did the theistic monopoly imbue those who contacted their subjects with it , or is it that reverence was misplaced? If reclaiming infers a misplacement what is the genesis of the reverence?

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20 hours ago, AlexL said:

Call the police. They will direct you to the appropriate help facility

The "help facility" needed is the protection of the federal government. This is a huge Midwest (at the minimum) crime that is occurring that is a threat not just to my own life but every individual's life. This is domestic terrorism,  no police are capable of doing anything about it nor stopping it. Again this is terrorism. Seriously, are they just waiting for these people to murder myself and others openly, instead of just a slow destructive murder? Why is it so hard for people and the government to believe and act on the truth. It's like nobody wants to act until I'm actually murdered. 

Edited by EC
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8 minutes ago, EC said:
20 hours ago, AlexL said:

Call the police. They will direct you to the appropriate help facility

The "help facility" needed is the protection of the federal government.

Then call them, see to what help facility they direct you, and keep me posted. TIA

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2 minutes ago, AlexL said:

Then call them, see to what help facility they direct you, and keep me posted. TIA

I have contacted the FBI and the CIA about this.  There is no police force that has jurisdiction over countless cities,  counties,  and multiple states.  This is the job of the federal government to protect Americans from domestic terrorists.  How does nobody care about the safety of the country while this is occurring? I would only go with the FBI or a federal agency to a place where I'm protected while they eliminate the terrorist group and bring them to justice. What part of immediate, wide-spread, and ongoing threat to national security isn't being understood?

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44 minutes ago, EC said:

There is no police force that has jurisdiction over countless cities,  counties,  and multiple states.

I thought I was clear: I did not recommend that you contact the police to solve the problem, but to direct you the the appropriate competent authorities/organisms.

Edited by AlexL
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3 hours ago, AlexL said:

I thought I was clear: I did not recommend that you contact the police to solve the problem, but to direct you the the appropriate competent authorities/organisms.

I've contacted all those people myself, and nobody will respond.  The death of an innocent man being savaged by an underground network of domestic terrorists will be on the hands of everyone, those agencies, my friends and family who won't help protect me, and everyone that has read everything I've posted about this national security threat threat that has destroyed my life randomly and will come for other random victims next. Again, concretely right now I'm being destroyed and murdered but why would a massive terrorist group limit itself to just me,  *everyone* is in extreme immediate danger if one man is by a terrorist group regardless of whether they make their methods hard to prove (on purpose and by intentional design) and report or not. Every American life is currently being threatened by this terrorist group. 

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13 minutes ago, EC said:
3 hours ago, AlexL said:

I thought I was clear: I did not recommend that you contact the police to solve the problem, but to direct you the the appropriate competent authorities/organisms.

I've contacted all those people myself, and nobody will respond.

My point was precisely for you to let the police determine which is the appropriate organism you should contact for help, and not for you to decide this.

Quote

my friends and family ... won't help protect me

How do they explain this refusal?

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On 3/24/2024 at 9:48 AM, monart said:

 

. . .

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 . . .

. . .

 

 

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.

 

------

 

 

 

-----------------

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.”

 

I remarked in 2009:

Quote

 

I can’t buy that one is a Christian who never turns to faith in contradiction of reason.

I can’t buy that one is a Christian who never turns to mercy opposed to justice.

I can’t buy that one is a Christian who pursues monetary riches for himself.

I can’t buy that one is a Christian who never sacrifices his own judgment to a higher-than-human intelligence in the universe.

I can’t buy that one is a Christian who in no way believes he and his loved ones will arise from the grave and live forever in happiness in the presence of Jesus Christ (the son of God and savior of the world) in the kingdom of God.

A Christian can’t be any those five ways. An Objectivist must be all those ways, except the third is elective in degree.

An Objectivist may elect to pursue monetary riches for herself, provided she understands the rightness of it.

One cannot be a Christian and an Objectivist.

 

 

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I think many in the world are pivoting away from old conflicts defined in terms of polar opposites which are not at play right now as they once were.

When the world is seen as filled with mostly "good" cultures and societies which generally value peace, autonomy, family, life, happiness, for everyone... the philosophical quibbles over just what the good is and why, and how best to achieve it can be real and indeed can be very contentious and stark:  Atheism versus Religionism, Capitalism versus Socialism, but in the end they are not existentially and urgently crucial.

Christians have been quite harsh on "heretical" or "heathen" thinking for quite some time and the vehemence with which the Atheists "rebelled" against Christianity, religious and mythical thought is quite breathtaking.  But over recent times I think many feel that the animosity between generally good people over these issues is rather small potatoes.

For the world is now seen as having a sort of "thing" working in the background, of people whose motive is sheer political and economic power, whether governments and bankers or oligarchs and powerful families etc. or all of them... it possesses an unmistakable "evil" culture which does not value peace, autonomy, family, life, happiness, for everyone... instead valuing those for some: personal friends and family, and are happy to "pay the price" of consigning everyone else to their antitheses war, authority, isolation, misery and death.  

What point is there to fight over just exactly what good is and how to get there when a faint but clear harbinger of cultural evil.... atheist non-moral anti-human post-modern evil that is arising.  Whether or not consciously emerging from the nexi of power, or whether unconsciously emerging in the psychology of culture which has lost the basis of its morality and has not discovered objectivism, the inhuman evil is now at work here. 

 

It makes sense for those that hold humanity, human life, individual life and liberty in high esteem to band together for humankind.  It has been happening.

 

Craig Biddle debated with Denis Prager a few years back putting forth the position that they should not fight... Prager at that time was stuck in the mind set that he must scare people back into religion with the bromide "without religion morality is impossible"... as if membership in the good camps was more important than sheer numbers of good people.

Richard Dawkins has announced that he is an "Atheist Christian"... quite a claim to unpack but nonetheless one which is symbolic of a real spiritual and mental alliance ... good people who still value humanity and life on earth as free individuals with peace, autonomy, family, life, happiness, for everyone, NOT just some people, should and will come together.

 

Of course the "thing"'s activity in sowing divisions is accelerating, men against women, blacks against whites, left against right, atheism against religion, Christian against Muslim...

 

Christians citing Objectivism and Objectivists reaching out to good religionists is a good thing and all individual human loving people need to come together.

Edited by StrictlyLogical
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There is such a thing as "agreeing to disagree" but this requires both sides to give up the use of force.

Giving up force means that persuasion has to be used instead, which gives the long-term advantage to reality and reason.

Some people don't want reality and reason to win.

Others just don't want to wait; they think they have the advantage when it comes to force, so they seek to use it.

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SL,

There is a widespread good in people of wanting to know the truth. Aristotle thought that even ALL people desire to know (the truth). One widespread thing people want to know today, as thousands of years ago, is what becomes of one's inner self and that self of one's loved ones when we die. Is it really just the absolute end as it might appear from the successive states of the deceased body, or is there future life, perhaps one brighter or darker than the earthly life (and for some an opportunity to sell post-death prizes and penalties for power and money in earthly life)? Decline the fake insurance policy of Pascal's Wager. Prize the truth come what may.

As for widespread desire for protection against dangers, the main danger is not from interpersonal conflicts, but from nature. Getting to the discoveries and developments that can rescue one or one's loved ones from this or that particular occasion of bodily catastrophic failure (mostly from disease or old-age cascades) is not helped by prayers and blaming death on human moral failings, but by rational investigations into nature. I mention this vast sort of danger due to Objectivist-types' widespread knee-jerk salience of dangers from interpersonal conflicts as first concern among dangers and politics as top aim.

There are plenty of religious people with whom I form political alliances. More importantly, religious friends and family and I (I purely naturalist, atheist) love each other very much. Those are choices open based on common values, including the value of truth, even as one keeps straight what are one's differences on what is true and how to get it.

Nietzsche became so popular in the culture of Germany in the 1890's and up to WWI that there were some theologians serving up bowls of unity between Nietzsche and Christian religion in Germany. When I was first in college ('66–'71), there was Christian Atheism of Altizer.* More recently and probably more durably, there is The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality (2007).

Edited by Boydstun
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23 hours ago, AlexL said:

My point was precisely for you to let the police determine which is the appropriate organism you should contact for help, and not for you to decide this.

How do they explain this refusal?

No. I've contacted all the appropriate authorities myself about an extreme terrorist threat against the country and to save my own life from their attack on my life and ability to live it.  Again, this is a mass regional threat to both myself and every American which falls far outside the jurisdiction of any local police agency.  Everyone needs to be in fear of what is happening when the government isn't responding to an extreme threat and a citizen is being terrorized and destroyed by evil with seemingly no one to come to their aid. Also, as a side note, please notice those that keep trying to bury this subject in this and other threads and/or seem disbelieving or hostile to a man attempting to save his life as they have a likely chance of being apart of this group any crime and are committing an act as part of this group proscecutable under the RICO act at a bare minimum.  Again, a slow torturous murder and destruction by a million pinpricks of each engaging in relatively tiny crimes that are hard or nearly impossible to prove without the entire context is still a murder.

I need help getting the feds to immediately do their job or I will be dead with two weeks or less because of this and everyone reading all of this and understanding the truth will be at least slightly complicit in my murder. (Which again whomever these hacking terrorists actually are through up an upside-down emoji on my phone because they seem to think that my destruction and slow murder is somehow "funny"). This is how evil this group is and what not helping a man begging for help from terrorists attacking and destroying me in our own nation is at a minimum passively endorsing and allowing to occur.  Again, *nobody* is safe and this is occurring. There is a terrorist group here now in the Midwest murdering me and none of us our safe.  Why is this so hard to understand? 

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28 minutes ago, AlexL said:

You did not explain why your friends and family won't help you. Or you simply don't want to follow their advice?

 

29 minutes ago, AlexL said:

You did not explain why your friends and family won't help you. Or you simply don't want to follow their advice?

One they are denying the evidence of everything I've provided or change it all, and there "advice " is complete nonsense that in no way applies to the facts that have occurred and/or are being influenced somehow by this criminal element and are afraid of the terrorist group. What part of this being a terrorist organization conducting a criminal operation within the United States against myself and all American citizens not being understood? Also, possessing a 180 IQ, having experienced everything that has happened in detail, and via proper usage of epistemology have properly evaluated what is happened at every level and in a much much better position as a result to understand what is happening and how it needs to be resolved then "family members " all of whom far less intelligent than myself,  don't know every fact in detail and are far less capable of properly evaluating reality. 

Also,  there are many legal precedents that those that are in communication with the victim of a major crime such as myself and do not provide legal help or report it, especially if it leads to an individuals death can be found at least partially at fault.  And again,  this is completely dropping the context that this is 100% a terrorist group engaging in this crime against myself and is therefore an immediate and extreme threat to every single American and National Security. This is not some random story or "delusion". This is real, it is happening right now, my life is at immediate risk, and any terrorist group operating somehow "semi-underground" threatening the life of, destroying the life of an American is not simply an extreme threat to not just myself but every individual American and the entire nation right now.

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