Yep, when your wife doesn’t listen too you – beat her dumb ass!
Disobedient Christian wives should consider themselves lucky that they aren’t being stoned to death in the center of town.
I think it’s a bit hasty to say that a woman cannot give birth to an 80 year old man…maybe in the future it is possible, or when we discover more about our universe. Heck, when this 80 year old baby turns up at your door and is born right infront of your eyes, what are you going to say, “This is not possible”?
And when the sky turns pink with flecks of nylon and instead of appearing spread out over the entire range of vision not taken up by earth, appears contorted into the shape of an hourglass … are you going to say “I always knew it was possible”?
Both scenarios are impossible.
I guess perhaps it’s in my empirical nature to be suspicious of a philosophical conclusion that a thing can or can’t exist. Philosophy is undoubtedly useful in this, especially in clarifying what things are included in a concept. But what was that quote from Hamlet? “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than can be found in your philosophy.”
Are you suspicious of butter? If I say there’s butter on my toast, are you going to say I’m being far too close minded in my philosophical conclusions about what is or isn’t included in my breakfast?
Hamlet also says: “To be or not to be - that is the question”. That is a fundamentally philosophical question - is life worth living or not? (Thank you Albert Camus). Hamlet is a philosophical play, which throws its hands in the air by the end, as with most of Shakespeare’s plays. It decides to circumvent any real answers, and instead dances around a lot of possibilites and concludes with a kind of, “Well, it’s a funny old world isn’t it?” sort-of message.
Hamlet is a deeply troubled character, dealing with a love, death, vengeance, murder - he’s got a lot on his plate and he’s trying to make sense of it. He ends up not coming to much of a conclusion despite some wonderful introspections. His statement to Horatio seems more born out of the fact that he is a character who simply doesn’t understand the use of philosophy - as Shakespeare didn’t and as most people (including Philosophers) don’t.
I think you’ll find philosophy, specifically the one we study and discuss here, is not a tool for clarifying what a certain concept might be, but for exploring where a concept actually comes from, what defines a valid concept, why is a certain concept actually useful in itself, etc etc.
Do you think it is arrogant of a man to make claims about the universe from his own introspections or from his direct observations of realty? I should ask you - which body or mind do you suggest man should inhabit before he is allowed the right to explain his own world?
This question being asked is only an opportunity for Objectivists to continue emphatically answering it in a positive way. You shouldn’t scoff because they’re asking the question, because thats just a product of their conditioning. Religious people, faith heads, Christians, whatever… are all conditioned to not know the answer to this question, and further conditioned to be incapable of fathoming an answer to the question apart from god.
We’re just getting a little more help from the scientific community from popular authors the way I see it.
I think the efforts of Dawkins, Dennet, and Harris are extremely commendable on this question about morality without theism. All of these men are in some capacity dedicating themselves to a question that strongly impacts morality, “What is human nature?” What are we and who are we as a species? Neuroscientists Dennet and Harris, and Evolutionary Biologist Dawkins are all publicizing very critical denunciations of the ideological wrecking crew thats derailed the United States for everyone, i.e. Christianity.
Thats the best thing about them. They’re writing best selling books that are very critical of a philosophical position that is absolutely antithetical to Objectivism, and because of the consciousness raising taking place the stage opens up for all of the people they reach. They are opening the door for people who are borderline tired of their religion, to escape it. And opening a door for those comfortable with their religion, to doubt it. Once those people begin looking for alternatives to guide their lives the stage is open for an audience to become captivated by the philosophy of Objectivism.
The word “Atheist” is beginning to take on a more curious appeal than ever before in history, and thats a good thing. Christians are ingrained to erect a framework around the word resonating disdain and when they aren’t able to fit someone like an upstanding Objectivist into the mold they question… and then want to know more… Atheism then becomes the tip of the iceberg. Christians are rarely ever introduced to the word “Objectivism” let alone the philosophy, so even insofar as capturing the attention of someone for the sake of dialog I prefer to accept and promote the Atheist label. Any step toward Reason, and away from Faith is a positive step.
Any step toward Reason, and away from Faith is a positive step.
So long as it is truely a step towards Reason. Same with the libertarians like Hitchens or the popular atheists like Dawkins don’t provide a solid basis, and instead place Reason up as some floating, praise-worthy abstraction, rather than a basic fact of man’s nature. I think Dawkins does do this to some degree - “Just because something can be put into a grammatically correct sentence, does not make it valid” and “Using faith to explain ignorance is just begging the question” - but it’s hard to drive the point home without a good grounding.
Sure, you’ll convince those on-the-fence types, but convince them towards what? To not go to church or believe in God? They barely do those anyway. It’s getting them to not be susceptible to the much more dangerous ideas that come from the same irrational basis of ‘faith’, which is the hard thing.
And the lack of foundation also brings up another problem: that of the “As far as I know…(x)” where (x) could be the validity of God’s existence or the morality of a system like Socialism. People reading one of these books might say, for example, “Oh yes, of course, the Intelligent Design argument is obviously flawed”. However, as soon as a new argument (or an old one in disguise) comes along from the Faithful (or any irrational group of people), they’ll be swayed that way again.
Without any roots, those plants are going to just go swaying in the wind, Left and Right, Faithful or Reasonable; they need to be taught to be big, strong trees with roots in reality, not little saplings being uprooted and potted here and there, wherever seems reasonable.
This brings up an interesting subject on how to approach opposing ideas. Lemuel mentioned that by saying he is an objectivist as opposed to calling himself an atheist brings up more opportunity for productive exchange of ideas. I think that is the correct way of asserting your beliefs.
When my Dad started to talk to me about religion and philosophy, he did it by standing as an Objectivist. He would talk to me about faith and how detrimental it was to a person, but he would also back that up and explain why. The Mormon church has enough ‘hard’ evidence against it that he could have shown me facts about what was wrong with the church. He knew I would leave the Church (I doubt anyone that has access to the internet and knows to question things could stay) but his concern was for what I would turn to when I did.
I found Dawkins entertaining when I watched some of his work (I was already an Atheist). However, I do not believe that it would have converted me. (I would have left Mormonism… but I might have turned to some other branch of Christianity, Buddhism, or Deism.)