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Post by tits on Jan 26, 2007 9:08:51 GMT -8
"For millennia, religion has been used to explain phenomenon that humans can't explain."
Don't you mean that since all archaeological findings point to a human quest or belief in a higher being. Some of those digs from China and Europe are will over ten millenia. Native American Indian traditions offer similar stories and many of them are tens of millenia old.
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Post by jfree on Jan 26, 2007 12:49:14 GMT -8
Unchecked selfishness always leads to greed and corruption, see any powerful industrious person in history, Alexander the Great, Henry VIII, Julius Ceasar, Elizabeth I, Victoria, all wanted for themselves power and money, how did they get it? Thru war, conquest and the raping of any natural resources they could get their hands on, to be sure one could most correctly call them productive.
You want for more modern examples see the debauchery of Hollywood and the Music industry, chock full of the most selfish and most unhappy people you will ever meet, most have no concept of true faith, compassion or empathy, they are eating machines. Look at nature, there is Rands true eutopia, all animals live for themselves, it is brutal, industrious, selfish and cruel. What Rand appears to promote is an animalistic egocentric life of a predator, all is his for the taking, no shame no guilt no rules.
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Post by FightingFalcon on Jan 26, 2007 15:09:34 GMT -8
I don't understand what is so hard to understand about our philosophy - am I not making myself clear? Are you reading what I write and just not paying attention?
First off, I believe that man's greatest achievement is productivity. Secondly, I believe in a Morality of Life and Production - not Death, War, Statism, etc. Thirdly, I believe that all money/power should be acquired without force or fraud. And fourth, I do not believe in the initiation of the use of force.
Although those are not all that I believe in, that is enough to refute what you said. No, Alexander the Great, Henry VII, Julius Caesar, Elizabeth I or Victoria would fit onto my list. Without even looking at their lives I can say that they don't because they are all MONARCHS! Unelected monarchs, many of whom acquired their power through force or fraud. They represent a system of government (e.g. tyranny) that I hate the MOST.
Secondly, the Hollywood crowd and the music industry is another example of those whom I despise. What do they use their productive talent towards? They spend it on worthless things and make nothing of their life. They are all worthless playboys and girls. The worst of all of these is Paris Hilton - a woman who was given a great fortune by an excellent businessman (there is an example of someone whom I admire) and wastes it. She is a completely and totally worthless human being.
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Post by jfree on Jan 26, 2007 15:50:19 GMT -8
I geuss James, the misunderstanding comes in from the intrusion of reality. If being selfless is evil, then there can be no compassion or empathy, w/out those selfishness will no matter what you think turn to greed and corruption and the ultimate down fall of society. Hollywood, the Music industry and Paris Hilton fit your definition of selfishness to a T. They produce movies, music and fodder for the lowest of media outlets, they are very productive, and they don't wage war to do it, they spend on themselves as much as possible and only give to charity for good PR, therefore the charity is not selfless. The Greeks and the Romans learned this the hard way, where are they now? They are a sidenote, a blurb in modern history, nothing great comes from them anymore, but they were once great, their age of reason and selfishness destroyed their empires, decadence, orgies, selfish pursuits, disease and ignorance destroyed them.
Remember that those who are selfish and scorn selflessness can find no joy from learning, educating others or sharing, especially when such selfless pursuits they find vulgar.
I read what you wrote and like American here, I see the impossibility and irrationality present in this philosophy. You cannot deny the survival of the fittest rationality present behind this philosphy, it is a constant, she is saying selflessness is evil, the Red Cross is evil, Mother Teresa is evil, Ghandi is evil, Social Services is evil, the only thing truley evil is someone trying to demean, degrade and twist human compassion, empathy and charity into something dirty.
Rand in short sounds like Hitler, he too thought charity evil which is why so many handicapped persons ended up in death camps. And why did so many people in Europe ignored the death camps, because they were selfish.
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Post by FightingFalcon on Jan 26, 2007 18:11:21 GMT -8
I said that living for others is evil - there is nothing wrong with emotion. However, I still reject all notions of pity. I might ask my friends for small favors but I would never ask them to help me out in any way. My life is what I make of it and I would never ask another person to live for me. True, they might be productive but the manner in which they conduct their lives excludes them from my philosophy. There is nothing wrong with having fun and getting drunk - God knows (metaphor) that I do that enough. But when it becomes an every day thing for you, when your life is consumed with such worthless pleasures then you have become a man without purpose. A man without purpose (or a man who serves a purpose he does not understand nor questions) is the worst type of man alive. There are so many things wrong with these statements that I'm not sure where to begin. 1) The Romans and Greeks are not examples of my philosophy although they do come close. They had a strong work ethic, believed in "hero-worship" (for lack of a better term) and produced exceptional individuals. Where they fail is the fact that they had gods and worshiped the State. Not to mention their reliance upon force and fraud to achieve their aims. 2) The Romans and Greeks are blurbs? Are you serious? Can you possibly fathom the impact of Greek and Roman culture, history and society upon Western civilization? 3) Any culture that requires the pouring of libations to gods is not Rational. On the contrary, the pursuit of knowledge is one of the greatest quests for the Objectivist. Knowledge for personal gain or personal pleasure - not knowledge to attain any sort of common good. Nor would I try to. Competition is at the core of my philosophy and I would never allow the weak a second of respite. Rand makes this clear in Atlas Shrugged when two friends engage in a fierce economic battle, yet they continue to respect and honor each other. They have emotional attachment to each other while at the same time they seek to destroy each other. It's a level of respect that I don't presume you would be able to understand. It is something dirty. Pity is an ugly emotion that I would never seek. I have no problem with voluntary social organizations although I disagree with their methods. Rather than giving a poor man a fish, I see much more usefulness in teaching him how to fish. Furthermore, I see no purpose in giving food to tyrannical regimes that shoot its own people for it. My problem is with mandatory social organizations, e.g. tax supported ones. If you want to donate your time and money to a social organization, that's your business. But you have no right to tell me what I can and cannot do with my own money. You have no right to take my hard-earned money and give it to a useless and wasteful cause. If you really cared about your fellow man, you would seek to educate him on productivity, reason and living for himself. Worthless handouts that feed him for a week then cause him to beg for more do more harm than good. Never again will anyone make me feel that I have an obligation to help the needy. That they have a right to my material possessions simply for being lazy. Like my earlier example, Ms. Rand rejects spending money on a useless cause like education for the mentally retarded at the expense of gifted children. That is pure evil. But no - she is nothing like Hitler. To even make that comparison means that you have grasped nothing that I have said. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_%28Ayn_Rand%29Feel free to educate yourself. Or better yet - why not let Ms. Rand educate you? Since I'm sure you won't read her works, why not just let her speak to you? She covers Altruism in the second video link Part 3 covers religion at 2:50 forward I strongly suggest watching these. I just watched them again and I can't begin to describe how much more intelligent Ms. Rand is than I am. She perfectly describes our philosophy. If there is one person in history that I could meet, it would surely be her. |
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Post by jfree on Jan 26, 2007 19:22:52 GMT -8
James, I said MODERN history.
No point in going on, you don't see what I am getting at, reality will not allow for this philosophy to exist. You cannot call good evil and expect evil to be good.
Okay I read the first one, had to giggle, a horse is a horse, I am what I am what I am, tooo funny.
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Post by cataracts on Jan 29, 2007 22:11:22 GMT -8
I said that living for others is evil - there is nothing wrong with emotion. However, I still reject all notions of pity. I might ask my friends for small favors but I would never ask them to help me out in any way. My life is what I make of it and I would never ask another person to live for me. True, they might be productive but the manner in which they conduct their lives excludes them from my philosophy. There is nothing wrong with having fun and getting drunk - God knows (metaphor) that I do that enough. But when it becomes an every day thing for you, when your life is consumed with such worthless pleasures then you have become a man without purpose. A man without purpose (or a man who serves a purpose he does not understand nor questions) is the worst type of man alive. There are so many things wrong with these statements that I'm not sure where to begin. 1) The Romans and Greeks are not examples of my philosophy although they do come close. They had a strong work ethic, believed in "hero-worship" (for lack of a better term) and produced exceptional individuals. Where they fail is the fact that they had gods and worshiped the State. Not to mention their reliance upon force and fraud to achieve their aims. 2) The Romans and Greeks are blurbs? Are you serious? Can you possibly fathom the impact of Greek and Roman culture, history and society upon Western civilization? 3) Any culture that requires the pouring of libations to gods is not Rational. On the contrary, the pursuit of knowledge is one of the greatest quests for the Objectivist. Knowledge for personal gain or personal pleasure - not knowledge to attain any sort of common good. Nor would I try to. Competition is at the core of my philosophy and I would never allow the weak a second of respite. Rand makes this clear in Atlas Shrugged when two friends engage in a fierce economic battle, yet they continue to respect and honor each other. They have emotional attachment to each other while at the same time they seek to destroy each other. It's a level of respect that I don't presume you would be able to understand. It is something dirty. Pity is an ugly emotion that I would never seek. I have no problem with voluntary social organizations although I disagree with their methods. Rather than giving a poor man a fish, I see much more usefulness in teaching him how to fish. Furthermore, I see no purpose in giving food to tyrannical regimes that shoot its own people for it. My problem is with mandatory social organizations, e.g. tax supported ones. If you want to donate your time and money to a social organization, that's your business. But you have no right to tell me what I can and cannot do with my own money. You have no right to take my hard-earned money and give it to a useless and wasteful cause. If you really cared about your fellow man, you would seek to educate him on productivity, reason and living for himself. Worthless handouts that feed him for a week then cause him to beg for more do more harm than good. Never again will anyone make me feel that I have an obligation to help the needy. That they have a right to my material possessions simply for being lazy. Like my earlier example, Ms. Rand rejects spending money on a useless cause like education for the mentally retarded at the expense of gifted children. That is pure evil. But no - she is nothing like Hitler. To even make that comparison means that you have grasped nothing that I have said. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_%28Ayn_Rand%29Feel free to educate yourself. Or better yet - why not let Ms. Rand educate you? Since I'm sure you won't read her works, why not just let her speak to you? She covers Altruism in the second video link Part 3 covers religion at 2:50 forward I strongly suggest watching these. I just watched them again and I can't begin to describe how much more intelligent Ms. Rand is than I am. She perfectly describes our philosophy. If there is one person in history that I could meet, it would surely be her. FF, I watched and listened to the first two videos of Ayn Rand. A thought struck me as to what she is doing. She doesn't believe in God and practices no religion. In order to justify herself she has used, what she considers, to be a reasonable and objective criteria for the proper way of living her life. She has used reason to defend her belief that God doesn't exist. Unfortunately her reason is full of holes. Take for example selflessness. On the one hand it's good if it's for your wife and family, however, it's bad if your giving money to the poor. She refuses to believe that we are here for only a short period of time and then the judgement. Her objectiveness encompasses only the here and now. Forget about what comes with the grave. Yet we all know the grave is there for each and every one of us, however she makes no clarifications as to what happens at this point. Because there is no God and no religion, every gain must be made while alive on Earth because there is nothing after this point. Animals are like this. Don't take a bone away from your pet dog, he may bite your arm off. This would be OK. The man that becomes the leader of industry (Mr. Superman) can crap all over anyone he wants to because those he craps on are useless wasted people that can't comprehend how smart he is. Shades of Hitler. Cataracts |
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Post by cataracts on Jan 29, 2007 22:31:21 GMT -8
FF,
The third video of Ayn Rand discusses that she is an atheist and that she only believes in reason. Human reason. Her reason. Nothing else. Doesn't she understand that Faith is primary to reason. That before a man can ever even use his reason, Faith must exist. Reason cannot exist without Faith. Faith gives us the image of what can be and then reason provides the wherewithall to achieve what we first believed with Faith.
She doesn't even like to look at the stars or contemplate where they came from. She would rather look at a sky scraper. It's what men have done that amazes her. Like I said before, she wants to make man the God. Eliminate the real God and put man in His place. This is exactly what Joseph Stalin did. With Stalin it was making man into God with one slight change. Of all the gods they had in Russia, he was the "chief god". How many people did Stalin put to death? 20 million? 50 million? But then they were just useless people that couldn't build skyscrapers. They could be done away with. Useless fodder that stunk up the path they walked on. Do you agree FF?
Cataracts
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Post by cataracts on Jan 29, 2007 22:46:19 GMT -8
FF,
The fourth video was very revealing about Ayn Rand's personality. A woman from the audience stood up and said that she disagreed with Rand's ideas on "responscibility". Rand could not stand anyone to disagree with her. She actually said that this was her show and if the woman in the audience wanted to give her opinion, she should go on another show.
Rand showed her total intolerance of anyone that had a different opinion. Just like Stalin. The difference being Stalin had the person liquidated. Rand's anger at that woman showed that she felt uncertain on her own ground. If she was confident of what she was preaching, there would have been no threat in her mind. Ayn Rand did not come accross as an intelligent woman.
Cataracts
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Post by cataracts on Jan 29, 2007 23:02:34 GMT -8
FF,
The fifth video was really an eye opener. She was born in Russia in 1905. At the time of this video she was 75 years old. That makes it about 1980.
Her philosophy comes across as a semi-intellectual philosophy of the Russian people she comes from. These would be the workers and store keepers of early 20th Century Russia where she was raised. These would be people that probably had no Christianity and were just concerned with making ends meet.
She's a sad woman. She is intelligent and has done her best to make a living in the Western world. In order to accomplish this she has expressed her countries way of life and placed it in a written form. Anyone that would seriously consider taking her philosophy as a way of life should give it a lot of thought.
Cataracts
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Post by FightingFalcon on Jan 31, 2007 20:34:41 GMT -8
Your posts aren't worthy of a response. You clearly have no idea what she's talking about if you compare her to Stalin. You're either watching different videos or more enslaved to religion than I can ever want to imagine.
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Post by cataracts on Feb 1, 2007 0:10:16 GMT -8
OK FF, Sorry to have bothered you.
C.
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Post by twilly on Feb 19, 2007 18:36:15 GMT -8
OK FF, Sorry to have bothered you. C. cataracts, Thank you for sharing what you've read about Rand. And know there are those of us who are balanced enough to realize how bad it can get with some 'out there'. |
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Post by cataracts on Feb 20, 2007 2:30:08 GMT -8
Hi Twill,
Nice to hear from you. You've been away so long that I got an extra star by my name since you were gone.
Cataracts
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