Objectivists Need A Church, Too

[Areactor]

What you are discussing already exists in some places--universities as well as some major urban areas--they call them Objectivsit Clubs.  Ok, so they don't meet daily, but they don't really need to.

Do they need to? Nope. But whats wrong with wanting to? Social contact has great positive impact unless your Mr. Roark.

[DavidV]

After some further thought, I’ve changed my mind on the matter. In a rational society, the notion of a “church” as a place to study philosophy is useless – one would be exposed to philosophy on a daily basis, and have a chance to study it from traditional sources like schools and books. What everyone does need however, is a means to “recharge” his soul by reaffirming his values. (Analyzing this idea is why I started this thread.) The means by which he does this may be different for every individual. It also varies in how explicit it is -- from discussing philosophy, to looking at heroic art, to listening to music. The only essential ingredient is a break from routine that provides an opportunity to take a long-range perspective on one's life and values.

I don’t think any Objectivist communities or centers are necessary (at the local level in a free society, at least) because the philosophy we hold in common does not imply a particular lifestyle (that is, particular vocations, and interests) or require much infrastructure to support the interaction (with the exception of schools.) Furthermore, “Objectivist clubs” in a rational society would be equally superfluous for much the same reasons.

[y_feldblum]

"Objectivist clubs/church" in an Objectivist society does indeed resemble the notion of "classes" in a university society.

[Young]

Which is a much more pleasing concept than what many churches typically amount to- being harangued for 45 minutes by a man who spouts unanswered questions in a rhetorical manner from a pulpit.

"Church" seems like it would indeed stain the name of a place of rational discourse.

[BlackSabbath]

I'd call it an Objectivist club or an Objectivist conference.

I'd avoid all possible confusion with religion.

[AutoJC]

I'd call it an Objectivist club or an Objectivist conference.

I'd avoid all possible confusion with religion.

Agreed.

[Young]

This is all hypothetical and not strictly necessary, within an ideal society the rational discussion could not possibly be restricted to a single location, rather you would have a hard time deciding places where rational discussion should not continue, say the bathroom, because of the unwritten rule that no speech goes on between men at urinals.

[Selfish]

My .02 cents- If Roark's temple had really existed, i'd go there as often as life allowed. What a wonderful idea, a place to worship the glory of man.

[AshRyan]

My .02 cents- If Roark's temple had really existed, i'd go there as often as life allowed. What a wonderful idea, a place to worship the glory of man.

Amen!

[AwakeAndFree]

David, some questions about your "Objectivist Church":

1. For the purpose of concretizing ideas, counseling on specific issues, or expanding the knowledge of the abstract principles - we can have art, psychologists and councilors, and night classes/college courses/taped lectures/online courses. Why does this have to be a collective meeting like a church?

2. Why does an intimate gathering of people who share the same premises have to be run by an organization, and not, say, by some private host - like the Salons of the Enlightenment?

3. What does marriage, and other functions have to do with it? Today an Objectivist can get a license to marry couples, and arrange a ceremony - but why does it have to be in a church, with strangers?

I think every human need that the church provided for is also dealt with, more efficiently and honestly, in secular culture: we have art, we have many educational facilities, we have coaches, councilors, psychologists, there are many "inspiration seminars" which are not religious in nature. In a culture ruled by reason and Objectivism, these institutions would perform like they are supposed to - and churches will be obsolete.

[Charles]

GreedyCapitalist "Let me first make a distinction about the nature of studying philosophy to explain my view. There are two ways to study philosophy, which I will call “philosophy qua philosophy” and “philosophy qua life”."

RationalEgoistSG: "David, I have to disagree with your conclusions about education in the future. Assuming that we would live in a society in which the education system was completely private, I believe that the average person's education would be GREATLY increased. "

One thing seems certain: The role of such a church (I prefer lyceum) would differ if the education system was private as compared to state.

The posts so far have talked hypothetically of what such an institutions function would be in a rational/privatized society. I propose it be considered in terms of state education; society as it is today.

Moving on from David's initially use of the word Church, which, as he indicated, served only to stir some discussion on the boards, and replacing it with lyceum, I see several possibilities for such a body:

1) It could presumably take on a more educational role; introducing, in many cases, new sets of values to people. This role seems to be filled by ARI, only this expansion would include actual resource/educational centers.

2) It could act as a forum for the application of the values, and a place of sanctuary, both aesthetically and intellectually, for people of reason.

3) Same as 2), only the forum also devises campaigns for spreading its philosophy and...

4) possibly acts as an opportunity for like minded people to start business ventures/socialize.

I personally like the idea of the sanctuary, a stoddart temple with works and lectuers of great philosohers, great works of art (Tamara De Lempicka anyone?)

and music.

Asa vestige of the old I dont think marriage/funerals would be suited: the idea of the formal ceremony in the xtian sense seems too archaic to me: and more to the point the type of individual making use of such a facility would presumably have the friends/imagination to celebrate any partnerships/passings in a sufficient manner.

Given a purpose, a whole other topic for consideration is the architectire/format for such a place.

Incidently, David, good poster.

[fifi]

My experience with the few objectivists clubs I've been to has been mixed. There are a few people whom I have "hit it off" with. Then, there are many who are walking around with "philosophical radars". They hang about quietly until they hear something evil.

The only way I have maintained the freindships that were started in such clubs was to grow those friendships outside the club.

[Prae]

Do they need to? Nope. But whats wrong with wanting to? Social contact has great positive impact unless your Mr. Roark.

that was always what i liked about Roark

[BreathofLife]

Daniel,

The question then is -- where DO they get their philosophy? 

I think this is part of what a proper parent should be teaching their child. The necessary philosophical premises and use of reason condusive to living their lives and why.

In response to the original idea: I think in a rational society it wouldn't really be necessary nor really serve any purpose that isn't fulfilled by someone else other than that of a social function of rational people.

[WorthyLoverOfExistence]

I came across a little book written by George Santayana in the early 1900's called _Reason in Religion_. After reading that book, I'm convinced that religion can and ought to be an objective value in man's life. The problem is that today, supernaturalism and mysticism have permeated religion so completely, that those who seek to remove it are viciously attacked (for example: retired Bishop Jack Spong, who partially advocates this kind of improvement, has received 16 death threats - all from fundamentalist religionists; none, he notes, from atheists, agnostics, or humanists).

Santayana presents religion as practiced by the ancient Greeks as an example of it's rational use. The Greeks used "God" and "the Gods" as allegorical, poetic devices to refer to various aspects of reality in a way that can both bring greater efficiency of language, and also a sense of beauty and art to what would otherwise be dry, abstract discourse.

I think there are actually many church-goers who realize that religious teaching is essentially symbolic and representational and is most valuable when not taken literally. These are usually the older ones, who live quiet, happy lives, and who derive real personal value from their religion. I'd call them the rational religionists. I think they realize at some level that the true value religion provides is what Rand identifies as the epistemological value of art: the concretization of wide metaphysical abstractions that we need to have immediately available for day-to-day life, but are too broad to be effectively captured and contained in manageable prose. The rational religionist gets from his image of Jesus what an Objectivist gets from his image of John Galt.

The problem is, if any of these church-goers were to say "but it doesn't matter whether Jesus actually rose from the dead; in fact, it's absurd to think that He did. What matters is that the story inspires us to keep struggling through life's difficulties, and to maintain a measure of hope for the future", that church-goer would be viciously denounced as a blasphemer and un-believer. A couple experiences like this, and the rational religionist learns to keep his views to himself.

I don't think Objectivists need a new church. I think Objectivists (who have any inclination to do so) should infiltrate the churches they abandonded and, strengthened by their knowledge of Objectivism, help provide a voice for the rational religionists. Its taken centuries to develop some of these great and beautiful traditions, and it's a crime to leave them in the hands of irrationalists who demand the surrender of one's intellectual sovereignty as payment for admission.

I think it's time we took them back.

"A little philosophy inclineth men's minds to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion." - Francis Bacon

[Bryan]

I think there are actually many church-goers who realize that religious teaching is essentially symbolic and representational and is most valuable when not taken literally. These are usually the older ones, who live quiet, happy lives, and who derive real personal value from their religion. I'd call them the rational religionists.

[...]

The problem is, if any of these church-goers were to say "but it doesn't matter whether Jesus actually rose from the dead; in fact, it's absurd to think that He did. What matters is that the story inspires us to keep struggling through life's difficulties, and to maintain a measure of hope for the future", that church-goer would be viciously denounced as a blasphemer and un-believer. A couple experiences like this, and the rational religionist learns to keep his views to himself.

I would agree that there are many variations of Christianity that do not take The Bible and every aspect of Christianity literally, but one thing that every single person who attends church does believe in is some sort of afterlife. Aside from this, it is VERY hard (impossible) to swallow the morality that Christianity preaches. With this in mind, it would be difficult to refer to anyone who attends church as a "rational religionist".

[WorthyLoverOfExistence]

I'm not really talking about any particular form of Christianity. I'm talking about an attitude that can be adopted by practitioners of any form, and also of Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and any other religion.

Religious institutions are no less vulnerable to corruption by bad philosophy than any other institution. The prevalent morality that current Christian leaders allow to be taught is a manifestation of altruism - it is not the cause. Christianity is a religion - in essence a mythology - which can and in some circles is used to express rational egoism as well as altruism.

One sort of "afterlife" is a spiritual afterlife. In this view, a person who has denied the absolutism of existence, who has turned his mind away from reality and has devoted his consciousness to evasion, rationalization and denial, is spiritually dead. If such a person were to take stock of his life and see "the error of his ways", see that existence is all there is and that living is the only thing to do, he can be "reborn" spiritually, and return to a value-creating and life-loving existence. In this view, there is no notion of ghosts or supernatural dimensions.

[Charles]

I don't think Objectivists need a new church. I think Objectivists (who have any inclination to do so) should infiltrate the churches they abandoned and, strengthened by their knowledge of Objectivism, help provide a voice for the rational religionists.

"Rational Religionists"

The word religion comes from the latin Re - Ligare which literally means 're-link' or 'to link again'. The understanding that seems to permeate all religions is that it in essence means 'to return to god', to link back to your creator/nature. A wider understanding might be to link back to reality.

A religion thus pertains to offer an answer, or way to re-link to whatever its understanding is of creation. To offer the term Objectivist religon would indicate a set of paths/texts leading to a greater understanding of your relation to reality. It could therefore be rational.

However: the understanding of the word religion that such an Objectivist religion would necessitate is far from the common conception of that word. In weighing up what the word religion commonly connotates with the value of applying it to objectivism I would conclude that it is a term objectivists would do well to steer clear of.

[WorthyLoverOfExistence]

[This question was posted in Basic Questions->Has Anyone Read Jaynes ? ]

I would think that for an Objectivist "rational religionists" would be seen as a contradiction in terms, at least as far as the word rational being applied to a religion. Religion is a matter of faith, the opposite of rational. Why would an Objectivist want to "infiltrate" a church? I can understand why we would want to reclaim the tradition of scholarship in academia, but why would an Objectivist want to reclaim the "great and beautiful" traditions of the church? 

In the first place, any kind of tradition, religious or otherwise, is something that can not be built by fiat in a short time. I don't have a full explanation for it, but it seems obvious to me that the one crucial ingredient in the formation of a tradition is time - generations of observation, and the more the better. So however much or little anyone values religious traditions, the fact that they are thus limited in number gives them a certain value. This value was created by past generations, and it's current "owners" can no more claim exclusive rights to it than anyone can claim rights to the exclusive use of natural languages. If you go back far enough - for Christianity, I think it would be before the council of Nicea in 325 A.D., but in general you can go back to the dawn of civilization - there were no "Creeds" and "belief" requirements. I contend that power-hungry "mystics of spirit" seized this value and have held it illegitimately to be used as a bargaining tool to this day. Many of them also used force to eliminate competition. I think anyone who can derive legitimate benefit from them, and is not out to ridicule or undermine them, has a right to participate in these traditions. I find it particularly unjust that the people most vehemently denied access are the ones who take responsibility for their own minds - the best among men.

I saw religion the way you would think for about 12 years, until I began an in-depth discusson of aesthetics in my local Objectivist community group. During this discussion, I realized two things that had been lurking in my mind and that I'd been evading and trying to bury for years:

1. while I enjoy good art, I really do not have the sense-of-life reaction that Rand describes. For me, it doesn't "work" :
   

   Amidst the incalculable number and complexity of choices that confront a man in his day-by-day existence, with the frequently bewildering torrent of events, with the alternation of successes and failures, of joys that seem too rare and suffering that lasts too long - he is often in danger of losing his perspective and the reality of his own convictions. Remember that abstractions as such do not exist: they are merely man's epistemological method of perceiving that which exists - and that which exists is concrete. To acquire the full, persuasive, irresistible power of reality, man's metaphysical abstractions have to confront him in the form of concretes - i.e., in the form of art.

2. religious fantasy, mythology, and mysticism (the style of writing, not the epistemology) do perform this role for me - giving metaphysical abstractions the persuasive, irresistible power of reality.
   

This was not a particularly pleasant insight for a dedicated Objectivist.

I ascribe this to continuous religious indoctrination during the first 12 years of my life. During these crucial, non-repeatable, formative years of my developing consciousness, my capacity to respond to art was captured and redirected to religion instead. The advantage to this is that much of religious symbolism is accessible at any time and needs no physical objects to perform it's role. The disadvantages are, well, I think quite obvious to Objectivists.

I would expect anyone who was not religiously indoctrinated as a child to be disinterested in (and probably repulsed by) the idea of infiltrating religion. But for me it's worth trying, and I wouldn't mind finding others who also would think so with whom to strategize (and commiserate).

For me (and I suspect others like me), the traditions of religion - the ceremonies, symbols, fictional/mythological characters, etc. are "locked in" to my consciousness, and serving a life-fulfilling role that's being held hostage - not for simple cash or slave-labor - but for the most precious treasure any man has: his intellectual sovereignty; the right to own and direct his own perception of reality; the freedom to say "from my experience and by my understanding, this is true".

I think most people in my situation make one of six basic choices:

1. denounce and abandon religion, and find some kind of substitute activity that can fulfill it's role as well as possible.
   
2. continue to practice their religion, and attempt to abandon their minds to the religious authorities and evade and discount the evidence in front their own eyes in favor of the "revealed truth".
   
3. continue to practice their religion, but only pretend to believe.
   
4. continue to practice their religion, but construct complex coils of rationalizations that can allow them to field and swallow every irrational, superstitious, or supernatural assertion with which agreement is demanded of them.
   
5. continue to practice their religion, but secretly do so rationally: consciously aware that it's a kind of art form, that God and His adventures are not stories of actual creatures and events, but are myths that relate real truths about reality - metaphysical abstractions - in the more beautiful, and more efficient symbolic language of allegory.
   
6. continue to practice their religion, do so rationally, and don't make a secret of it. This is the one I'm advocating.
   

One additional point: "faith", as used by religion, is a package-deal. Of course we'd reject the belief in the supernatural part. But religion also includes in this package "confidence" - in oneself and in existence - the benevolent universe premise. These last are objective values.

[stephen_speicher]

In the first place, any kind of tradition, religious or otherwise ...

I do not want to psychologize but, since you have chosen to introduce some of your personal issues, I think it fair to respond in part to that.

You say that "religious fantasy, mythology, and mysticism" perform, for you, the same role as art does for other Objectivists, and you attribute this state to the "continuous religious indoctrination during the first 12 years of my life." But what you have written is an ode to religion, one that you consciously maintain, support, and allow to flourish today. If you do not consciously challenge the premises that you accepted in the first twelve years of your life, then it is not a surprise that you continue to have strong positive emotional responses to that which the philosophy of Objectivism rejects. If you do not identify and ferret out the subconscious source of those emotions, you will forever be in conflcit with the premises of Objectivist philosophy.

In fact, the impression I get is that you have built an elaborate mental structure of the supposed value of religion and its glorious traditions, to rationalize away your refusal to integrate Objectivist principles into all areas of your life. You characterize yourself as an Objectivist, but to accept yourself as being at the mercy of your early upbringing, not only as something that you can do nothing about, but as something that you will elevate and glorify, is quite an un-Objectivistic action in my view. I know many Objectivists who were very strongly indoctrinated into religion for far longer than just the first twelve years of their life, but they are now truly Objectivists because they refuse to accept what life offered them before their conscious convictions changed. It is a hard battle for some, and for some it may be a life-long battle of sorts, but the effort pays off in the values they gain and in the sense of life changes they achieve.

Any "solution" that rationalizes away a conflcit with Objectivist principles, is not a solution at all.

[PossiblyParanoid]

So that’s my idea.  I think even Objectivists today would benefit from – and in fact need a forum whether they interact with like-minded individuals for social, spiritual, and practical reasons.  You don’t have to call it a church – it could be called a temple or a lyceum, but the function of the institution is needed in any society.

Have you heard of The Brights ?

A bright is a person who has a naturalistic worldview

[Free Capitalist]

I can't believe you guys think that everyone in the future will be an extra specialist in Objectivism, that everyone will be their own private Dr. Peikoff. That didn't exist during the Enlightenment, despite people being very educated and well-rounded. That didn't exist during the Classical Era with the Greeks, despite the fact that they had a philosopher culture if there ever was one.

[AshRyan]

I can't believe you guys think that everyone in the future will be an extra specialist in Objectivism, that everyone will be their own private Dr. Peikoff. That didn't exist during the Enlightenment, despite people being very educated and well-rounded. That didn't exist during the Classical Era with the Greeks, despite the fact that they had a philosopher culture if there ever was one.

Who said that? I'd be surprised if anyone here claimed that "everyone will be their own private Dr. Peikoff." A supporting quote would have been nice here.

[Charles]

'worthyloverofexistence' describes how he thinks his ability to emotionally appreciate arts is dulled, and poses that it is because of yrs of religious indoctrination during the first twelve years of his life.

An interesting idea; one I would say is certainly typical if you extend it to a lot of popular culture. I think a lot of people's taste is dulled my the mindless drip of popularized entertainment that is pumped into our minds every day since youth. The feeling many people get when they hear a piece of music in the workplace is mistaken for joy, but is more likely one of recognition. Whatever is selected for its commercial viability becomes what the masses like; if people were being truly objective in taste would they not determine what was listened too?

Masterpieces can be destroyed when they are assigned to a box of cereal in the face of millions... where the imagination should spiral off into emotional depths, it is saturated by coy images of unnecessary trivialities.

A tirade against the advertising industry? Maybe; but after so many years this is a cycle - the masses acceptance of crap breeds more crap, as the cash is raked in by men who's own taste is more than likely effected by the society he lives in.

[Free Capitalist]

The general gist I've got from those who oppose GreedyCapitalist's idea is that you won't need to have a place where philosophy is explained and applied to one's daily life, because it will so permeate the newspapers (op-eds) and everything else, that people will not be able to help but understand the philosophy.

On a separate but related note, I was watching Bravo channel the other day, and they had an hour-long show about wedding from start to finish. It was so sweet, especially about how it was in a church, sanctified so to speak by the building that embodied their highest values (if we disregard what those values were, for a moment). So I wish GC would reclaim his original view, because I emphatically support it.

And there's nothing wrong with calling it a church, though of course other names can be used. After all, the Stoddard Temple was called a Stoddard Temple, and no one says anything bad about that choice of words.