| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
09 Jun 2005 11:28:08 PM |
| Object: |
Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
Ayn Rand, 1905-1982
John W. Robbins
On March 6, 1982 novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand died at her
apartment in New York City. Rand, a Russian immigrant, influenced
thousands of people - particularly college students - through her
many books expressing her ethical and political ideas. She is correctly
regarded as one of the moving forces behind the contemporary
libertarian movement. In 1974, Answer to Ayn Rand, a comprehensive
analysis of her philosophy, was published. Below are excerpts from the
last chapter, "The Philosophy of Objectivism."
In Who Is Ayn Rand? Nathaniel Branden boasted: No one has dared
publicly to name the essential ideas of Atlas Shrugged and to attempt
to refute them. With the publication of this book, that statement no
longer stands. The clarification and refutation of Rand's ideas
attempted in this book have proceeded simultaneously; in large part,
their clarification is their refutation.
Rand once summarized her philosophy while standing on one foot; we
might do the same, summarizing the logical conclusions of her premises:
Metaphysics: Indestructible Matter
Epistemology: Skepticism
Ethics: Hedonism
Politics: Anarchism
Her metaphysics, as I have carefully documented, consists of a belief
in the primacy of indestructible matter. Her epistemology, sensation
plus abstraction, leads only to skepticism, not to knowledge. Chapter
two is a digest of the many ambiguities and difficulties in Rand's
epistemological theory which concludes with Branden's admission that
even though all the evidence might point to a specific conclusion, one
can never be sure. The next bit of evidence may overturn the
conclusion. This, of course, is skepticism.
Rand's ethics, being founded on an amoral choice, not on the "facts
of reality," results in hedonism. Then her entire ethical edifice
collapses because she has built it on a non-existent bridge across
Hume's gap.
Her politics, deriving from her theory of the sovereign individual,
leads straightway to anarchism, not to a society or state, but to a
"voluntary association of men acting only in their individual
self-interest."
It is indeed indicative of the bankruptcy of modern American philosophy
that Rand's Objectivism could go so long unchallenged and be so
fervently accepted by so many. Like Plato and Aristotle, she has sought
to confute the sophists, only to originate a philosophy that confirms
the perennial sophistry of secular philosophy. Philosophia perennis is,
ultimately, but futile speculation designed to show that man and
man's mind are indeed autonomous and independent of their Creator.
Secular human philosophy, like secular theories of history, is
cyclical: It turns from great theoretical systems giving a
comprehensive view of reality to critiques of these systems, which
critiques then result in skepticism. When the depths of skepticism are
reached, some new philosopher erects another magnificent edifice of
human thought, only to have that edifice eroded by the logical
criticisms of other scholars, resulting in a new skepticism. So the
cycle turns, from the sophists to a Plato, from Plato to the sophists;
from the sophists to a Thomas, from Thomas to the sophists; from the
sophists to a Spinoza, from Spinoza to the sophists; from the sophists
to a Kant, from Kant to the sophists; from the sophists to a Hegel,
from Hegel to the sophists. One might conclude that secular philosophy
is but the history of failure; that men who try to erect a Tower unto
Heaven, are soon scattered upon the earth unable to understand each
other.
The cyclical nature of the history of philosophy is, of course,
extremely oversimplified as presented here; but then this book is not
designed to be a text on the history of philosophy; it is merely a
critique of one of the latest figures in the cycle of secular
philosophy. A student of philosophy might soon question why all secular
philosophies have failed to withstand logical scrutiny, why the cycle
of epistemological optimism and pessimism has existed for well over
2000 years. The reason can hardly be because of the superstructure of
the various philosophies that are so diverse as not to furnish a common
explanation. One ought to examine the infrastructures of the various
philosophies, and there one finds a common element: the autonomy of
man's mind. All secular philosophies share the axiom of autonomy, the
belief that man's unaided intellect can arrive at knowledge.
Objectivism is no exception. Yet the repeated failures have not
resulted in a repudiation of this axiom, only in more determined
efforts to reach knowledge via man's own efforts. Lessing's famous
alternative, between accepting truth from the hand of God as a gift and
eternally searching for, but never finding, truth, is the alternative
faced by all thinkers and all secular thinkers have chosen an eternal,
endless, and futile quest, just as Lessing did. The choice as outlined
by Lessing is a choice that must be made by all men. Shall I accept
revelation or not? Is the Bible the Word of God or not? Non-Christian
philosophers (and some inconsistent Christian philosophers) have chosen
the futile search. Many believe that the search is not futile at all
(particularly the inconsistent Christian thinkers, like Thomas), but
will one day succeed. Unfortunately, after two and one-half thousand
years of searching, no man has yet established truth via his unaided
intellect. Objectivism has not changed that fact, for it shares the
axiom of autonomy with other secular philosophies. It, too, will be
eclipsed by a new surge of skepticism, and rightly so, for it has
furnished no good reasons for believing in the ability of the human
mind to create a system of knowledge.
One supposes that after the scattering of the builders of the Tower of
Babel, those who spoke the same language attempted again to erect other
towers, and failed. The antipathy of the human mind to accepting a gift
from God, revealed propositional knowledge, is ever present. It is the
explanation for the cycle of secular philosophy. Faced with the
alternative to accepting knowledge as a gift of God and finding
knowledge on his own, the rebellious human being will always refuse the
gift of knowledge and seek to erect his own philosophical system, his
own Tower unto Heaven.
As a Christian, one can only hope that Objectivism, like all other
philosophical facades, will soon crumble, and reveal to the men of the
twentieth century the utter futility of secular philosophies. This book
has been written with the purpose of speeding the demise of this newest
form of secular philosophical optimism, so that men maybe forced to
admit that the choice is nihilism or Christianity; skepticism or
revelation. The choice is not, as Rand has said, between Communism and
Objectivism, for those two philosophies are actually quite similar:
Both are materialistic, both are empiricist, and ultimately, both are
anarchistic. Rand escaped physically from the Communists in the mid
1920's, but she has never escaped intellectually from the Communists.
Rather than being diametrically opposed, Objectivism and Communism
share common premises, and attack a common foe, Christianity. Here the
antithesis is unmistakable: God or Matter? Propositional revelation or
sensation? God's law or man's whim? Limited government or
totalitarian anarchy? Only one system challenges Communism in all its
ramifications, and that system is not Objectivism. That system is
Christianity.
One of the ways in which the damned will be confounded is that they
will see themselves condemned by their own reason, by which they claim
to condemn the Christian religion.
Pascal Pensees
http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=57
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| User: "Woden" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
09 Jun 2005 11:33:06 PM |
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wrote in news:1118359688.526240.313750
@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
(snip more *****)
Why do this fools continue to think that Ayn Rand was the end-all and be-
all of atheism?
--
Woden
"religion is a socio-political system for controlling people's thoughts,
lives and actions based on ancient myths and superstitions, perpetrated
through generations of subtle yet pervasive brainwashing."
.
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| User: "Dave Lister" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
09 Jun 2005 11:41:49 PM |
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Woden <woden@charter.net> wrote in news:Xns9670C786B2691wodencharternet@
69.28.186.121:
wordsoftruth114@email.com wrote in news:1118359688.526240.313750
@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
(snip more *****)
Why do this fools continue to think that Ayn Rand was the end-all and be-
all of atheism?
Even when they write articles such as that they come off looking like
idiots, and I disagree with Rand on a number of points.
--
Republican Health Plan: Don't Get Sick
Guantanamo: The Gulag of Our Time
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| User: "rugged indivduals" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
10 Jun 2005 04:03:05 AM |
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"Dave Lister" <retsildivad33@hotmail.com> wrote:
Republican Health Plan: Don't Get Sick
You must admit that's an excellent bit of advice. If people can follow it,
prices will drop.
My father, a physician, predicted in 1964 (if I recall correctly) exactly
what would happen to health care if Medicare/Medicaid became law.
Remember those days ? When will we see their like again? Doctors made house
calls, office visits cost ten or fifteen bucks (what copay costs now);
nobody had health insurance, even for hospitalization, because the bill
could be paid by any working individual.
Thanks to government (especially Democrat controlled government, and
especially the kind represented by limousine liberal Ted Kennedy) meddling
in healthcare, fishing for votes by dangling entitlements aplenty as bait
for a readily growing class of nonproducers, once magnificent health
delivery systems and institutions have become dangerously inefficient.
Because of the way gov. has helped to screw things up, even if Hilary-care
were to become law, and all your medical bills were paid by breaking the
backs of productive fellow citizens, "don't get sick" would still be your
best insurance against government facilitated Terry Schiavo style early
demise.
Talk to old folks. More than one has told me, "That free government cheese
program for senior citizens... I never touch that stuff. Who knows what
they're putting in there to knock us off quick, so they can save on Social
Security outlays."
Guantanamo: The Gulag of Our Time
Actually, the closest most of the rats being held there will ever come to
four star hotel accomodations (at least relative to the holes they were dug
out of.) Look at poor ol' Saddam. Isn't he better off in his lovely cell,
than in that pit he was found in?
And consider the "greatest good of all concerned". Isn't the Jurassic Park
of Guantanamo an appropriate way to keep all those animals in one place so
they don't go stomping around the face of the earth, wreaking havoc?
Check out this DOD directive concerning delicate handling of the guest's
Korans: http://www.homestead.com/prosites-prs/koran_sop.pdf
.
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| User: "R. Pierce Butler" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
10 Jun 2005 02:05:54 PM |
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"rugged indivduals" <brandon@comcat.com> wrote in
news:E66dnaIuA-xhjTTfRVn-3w@comcast.com:
"Dave Lister" <retsildivad33@hotmail.com> wrote:
Republican Health Plan: Don't Get Sick
You must admit that's an excellent bit of advice. If people can follow
it, prices will drop.
My father, a physician, predicted in 1964 (if I recall correctly)
exactly what would happen to health care if Medicare/Medicaid became
law. Remember those days ? When will we see their like again? Doctors
made house calls, office visits cost ten or fifteen bucks (what copay
costs now); nobody had health insurance, even for hospitalization,
because the bill could be paid by any working individual.
Thanks to government (especially Democrat controlled government, and
especially the kind represented by limousine liberal Ted Kennedy)
meddling in healthcare, fishing for votes by dangling entitlements
aplenty as bait for a readily growing class of nonproducers, once
magnificent health delivery systems and institutions have become
dangerously inefficient. Because of the way gov. has helped to screw
things up, even if Hilary-care were to become law, and all your medical
bills were paid by breaking the backs of productive fellow citizens,
"don't get sick" would still be your best insurance against government
facilitated Terry Schiavo style early demise.
Talk to old folks. More than one has told me, "That free government
cheese program for senior citizens... I never touch that stuff. Who
knows what they're putting in there to knock us off quick, so they can
save on Social Security outlays."
Guantanamo: The Gulag of Our Time
Actually, the closest most of the rats being held there will ever come
to four star hotel accomodations (at least relative to the holes they
were dug out of.) Look at poor ol' Saddam. Isn't he better off in his
lovely cell, than in that pit he was found in?
And consider the "greatest good of all concerned". Isn't the Jurassic
Park of Guantanamo an appropriate way to keep all those animals in one
place so they don't go stomping around the face of the earth, wreaking
havoc? Check out this DOD directive concerning delicate handling of the
guest's Korans: http://www.homestead.com/prosites-prs/koran_sop.pdf
While I agree in part I don't necessarily buy into what I would consider
exceesive paranoia. Now if that comment on the cheese is a sarcastic barb
then I retract my statement.
Goverment run anything is inflated, overweight and so grossly inefficient
that it would make you scream. Example? Dept. of Homeland Security. Do
you feel safer? 30 billion dollars says you should. Want to read
something sad and disturbing? Do a search on ebay for NTSA. Marcus
Ranum's book on Homeland security is excellent. He points out the flaws in
logic surrounding the DHS.
Never have I ever seen a Gov't run program be efficient. I think that
something like 80% of the money goes for administration overhead. Those
that really need the help, usually don't get it.
rj
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| User: "Nivlem" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
11 Jun 2005 06:19:30 PM |
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On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 14:05:54 GMT, "R. Pierce Butler"
<spamsucks@google.com> wrote:
While I agree in part I don't necessarily buy into what I would consider
exceesive paranoia. Now if that comment on the cheese is a sarcastic barb
then I retract my statement.
Goverment run anything is inflated, overweight and so grossly inefficient
that it would make you scream. Example? Dept. of Homeland Security. Do
you feel safer? 30 billion dollars says you should. Want to read
something sad and disturbing? Do a search on ebay for NTSA. Marcus
Ranum's book on Homeland security is excellent. He points out the flaws in
logic surrounding the DHS.
Never have I ever seen a Gov't run program be efficient. I think that
something like 80% of the money goes for administration overhead. Those
that really need the help, usually don't get it.
The health insurance industry as currently constituted is
likewise bloated and grossly inefficient. Doctors face
paperwork nightmares to get paid for practically anything at
all. At least the government is not obligated to try to skim
profits from the premiums while being stupid, wasteful and
inefficient. Private industry is sometimes not all that it
is cracked up to be. Any corporation that gets beyond a
certain size seems to become more and more like a government
entity.
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| User: "Kate " |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
10 Jun 2005 08:34:02 PM |
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On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 00:03:05 -0400, "rugged indivduals"
<brandon@comcat.com> wrote:
"Dave Lister" <retsildivad33@hotmail.com> wrote:
Republican Health Plan: Don't Get Sick
You must admit that's an excellent bit of advice. If people can follow it,
prices will drop.
My father, a physician, predicted in 1964 (if I recall correctly) exactly
what would happen to health care if Medicare/Medicaid became law.
Remember those days ? When will we see their like again? Doctors made house
calls, office visits cost ten or fifteen bucks (what copay costs now);
nobody had health insurance, even for hospitalization, because the bill
could be paid by any working individual.
What are you talking about? In 1964, my family had medical insurance.
Government did not get into veterinary medicine and it still went way
up too. Perhaps medical advances that take expensive equipment and
involved procedures might have a bit to do with that? Doctors can't
just show up at your house and have the equipment to do their job and
10 to 15 bucks back then, is more like, what, 60 to 100 bucks now?
The price of a current doctor's visit?
Thanks to government (especially Democrat controlled government, and
especially the kind represented by limousine liberal Ted Kennedy) meddling
in healthcare, fishing for votes by dangling entitlements aplenty as bait
for a readily growing class of nonproducers, once magnificent health
delivery systems and institutions have become dangerously inefficient.
Because businesses and other institutions now contract with cheapest
health organizations, doctors are now spending all their time trying
to jockey health care and serve the organization by giving you the
cheapest response possible rather than doing their job and making you
better. This is what capitalism has given you.
Because of the way gov. has helped to screw things up, even if Hilary-care
were to become law, and all your medical bills were paid by breaking the
backs of productive fellow citizens, "don't get sick" would still be your
best insurance against government facilitated Terry Schiavo style early
demise.
You already pay for the health care of everyone who doesn't have it.
And it the most expensive way possible - by emergency room visit. The
hospital has to offer it to all, whether they can pay for it or not
and they raise their prices to pay for it.
Hilary made the sensible suggestion of giving these people
preventative health care, so they don't go to the emergency room and
cost us all a bundle, and idiots like you kicked her in the teeth for
it.
Talk to old folks. More than one has told me, "That free government cheese
program for senior citizens... I never touch that stuff. Who knows what
they're putting in there to knock us off quick, so they can save on Social
Security outlays."
Vote for Bush. He's trying to get rid of social security. Then would
you be happy?
Guantanamo: The Gulag of Our Time
Actually, the closest most of the rats being held there will ever come to
four star hotel accomodations (at least relative to the holes they were dug
out of.) Look at poor ol' Saddam. Isn't he better off in his lovely cell,
than in that pit he was found in?
And consider the "greatest good of all concerned". Isn't the Jurassic Park
of Guantanamo an appropriate way to keep all those animals in one place so
they don't go stomping around the face of the earth, wreaking havoc?
Check out this DOD directive concerning delicate handling of the guest's
Korans: http://www.homestead.com/prosites-prs/koran_sop.pdf
.
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| User: "RyanT" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
10 Jun 2005 09:09:31 PM |
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The irony of this whole situation is that Rand's free-market attitudes
came as a reaction to the Soviet Union's totalitarian regime (she
obviously hates everything to do with government control if you'd
actually read her stuff), something you'd think a commie-phobe would be
able to appreciate.
Of course, this discussion originating out of an article that
criticizes Rand for her atheistic outlooks and claims that her
free-market attitudes lead to selfish hedonism...and look no further
than the guy above defending Rand's philosophies immediately thereafter
because he probably didn't even read the article.
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| User: "John Popelish" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
10 Jun 2005 04:34:23 AM |
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rugged individuals wrote:
"Dave Lister" <retsildivad33@hotmail.com> wrote:
Republican Health Plan: Don't Get Sick
You must admit that's an excellent bit of advice. If people can follow it,
prices will drop.
My father, a physician, predicted in 1964 (if I recall correctly) exactly
what would happen to health care if Medicare/Medicaid became law.
Remember those days ? When will we see their like again? Doctors made house
calls, office visits cost ten or fifteen bucks (what copay costs now);
nobody had health insurance, even for hospitalization, because the bill
could be paid by any working individual.
Thanks to government (especially Democrat controlled government, and
especially the kind represented by limousine liberal Ted Kennedy) meddling
in healthcare, fishing for votes by dangling entitlements aplenty as bait
for a readily growing class of nonproducers, once magnificent health
delivery systems and institutions have become dangerously inefficient.
Because of the way gov. has helped to screw things up, even if Hilary-care
were to become law, and all your medical bills were paid by breaking the
backs of productive fellow citizens, "don't get sick" would still be your
best insurance against government facilitated Terry Schiavo style early
demise.
Talk to old folks. More than one has told me, "That free government cheese
program for senior citizens... I never touch that stuff. Who knows what
they're putting in there to knock us off quick, so they can save on Social
Security outlays."
I agree, completely. Government intervention in health care is just
as destructive as any other form of insurance. Ponder, for a moment,
how many people have been murdered only because they had life
insurance? How many buildings have been burned down, only because
they were insured? Insurance of any kind is always a scam and a
negative influence, whether it is run by private industry or
government. Probably more so when it is run by government, because
they aren't even interested in profit, so cheating is more likely.
Now for my next pet peeve: Why are people so impressed when the
government lies to them and tells them that their employers are paying
half of their social security taxes for them? It always amazes me
that people are absolutely incensed at the suggestion that their
employer is simply sending part of their pay directly to the
government before it is labeled as their pay, and sending another part
after it is labeled as their pay, and that there is no difference
between these two contributions except for labeling.
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| User: "skyeyes" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
10 Jun 2005 09:04:10 PM |
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Woden wrote:
Why do this fools continue to think that Ayn Rand was the end-all and be-
all of atheism?
<Confused> Wait a minute - I thought Antony Flew was the be-all and
end-all of atheism??? I'm having trouble keeping track of all these
conflicting claims.
Dang, I need a kitty hug.
Brenda Nelson, A.A.#34
EAC Professor of Feline Thermometrics and Cat-Herding.
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| User: "Andrew Lias" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
10 Jun 2005 04:04:25 AM |
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Woden wrote:
wordsoftruth114@email.com wrote in news:1118359688.526240.313750
@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
(snip more *****)
Why do this fools continue to think that Ayn Rand was the end-all and be-
all of atheism?
For the same reason that others suppose that Darwin, or Marx, or
Nietsche (and so on) were leaders. For the same reason that these
folks are convinced that supposed death-bed conversions would be
compelling to us.
They are so used to defining their own beliefs in terms of religious
leaders that they simply can wrap their minds around the idea that the
vast majority of atheists don't acknowledge any atheistic leaders.
That's why they went into a Tizzy when they thought that Flew had
converted. "See! See! He was a famous atheists [news to me] and he
recanted [or so it seemed]! Now you must give up your atheism, too!"
This is just the latest iteration. Never mind that I considered
Objectivism to be just another damned cult of personality. Never mind
that Rand's particular brand of hyper-Libertarianism turned my stomach.
Never mind that I thought that her philosophy was callous, arrogant,
inhumane and, worst of all, basically daft. Never mind that some of
the queasiest experiences I've had were while debating Objectivists.
All that matters was that she was an atheist so that I means that I
*must* believe every little thing that she did.
Feh.
--
Andrew Lias
http://andrewlias.blogspot.com
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| User: "Richard Smol" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
10 Jun 2005 08:56:00 PM |
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wrote:
Rand once summarized her philosophy while standing on one foot; we
might do the same, summarizing the logical conclusions of
her premises:
Metaphysics: Indestructible Matter
Epistemology: Skepticism
Ethics: Hedonism
Politics: Anarchism
It was *her* philosophy. She didn't speak for all atheists.
RS
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| User: "Bert Hyman" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
09 Jun 2005 11:45:32 PM |
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In news:1118359688.526240.313750@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com
wordsoftruth114@email.com wrote:
Rand once summarized her philosophy while standing on one foot; we
might do the same, summarizing the logical conclusions of her premises:
Metaphysics: Indestructible Matter
Epistemology: Skepticism
Ethics: Hedonism
Politics: Anarchism
And you'd be wrong.
--
Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN bert@iphouse.com
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| User: "R. Pierce Butler" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
10 Jun 2005 12:20:33 AM |
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Bert Hyman <bert@iphouse.com> wrote in news:Xns9670BEFFFE72DVeebleFetzer@
216.250.184.7:
In news:1118359688.526240.313750@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com
wordsoftruth114@email.com wrote:
Rand once summarized her philosophy while standing on one foot; we
might do the same, summarizing the logical conclusions of her premises:
Metaphysics: Indestructible Matter
Epistemology: Skepticism
Ethics: Hedonism
Politics: Anarchism
And you'd be wrong.
I have read both Atlas and Fountainhead. I didn't see any of the above
either. The original posting was a load of crap. Why do non atheists
always try to tell atheists what they believe in or are supposed to believe
in? Why do they do that?
rj
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| User: "Katt" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
10 Jun 2005 07:00:13 AM |
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"R. Pierce Butler" <spamsucks@google.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9670C4C416821mc2500183316chgoill@10.232.1.1...
Bert Hyman <bert@iphouse.com> wrote in news:Xns9670BEFFFE72DVeebleFetzer@
216.250.184.7:
In news:1118359688.526240.313750@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com
wordsoftruth114@email.com wrote:
Rand once summarized her philosophy while standing on one foot; we
might do the same, summarizing the logical conclusions of her premises:
Metaphysics: Indestructible Matter
Epistemology: Skepticism
Ethics: Hedonism
Politics: Anarchism
And you'd be wrong.
I have read both Atlas and Fountainhead. I didn't see any of the above
either. The original posting was a load of crap. Why do non atheists
always try to tell atheists what they believe in or are supposed to
believe
in? Why do they do that?
Actually, I've been getting quite a clear picture of the 'believing' mind in
the weeks I've been lurking and posting here! Think about it: this daft and
credulous crowd are so accustomed to having someone else tell them what they
are supposed to believe in that they think they can tell us what we believe
in; they're so much in need of 'leaders' to look up to that they think we,
too, must need to be 'led'; they're so hung up on their need for
'guaranteed' personal immortality that they think we must be vulnerable to
threats and scares about dying; and their own moral sense is so seriously in
need of some external agent to strengthen it that they think ours must be
too...!
Fascinating!
Katt.
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| User: "Christopher A. Lee" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
10 Jun 2005 02:54:11 PM |
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On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 07:00:13 GMT, "Katt" <seruhshjaudn@dfhu.net>
wrote:
"R. Pierce Butler" <spamsucks@google.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9670C4C416821mc2500183316chgoill@10.232.1.1...
Bert Hyman <bert@iphouse.com> wrote in news:Xns9670BEFFFE72DVeebleFetzer@
216.250.184.7:
In news:1118359688.526240.313750@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com
wordsoftruth114@email.com wrote:
Rand once summarized her philosophy while standing on one foot; we
might do the same, summarizing the logical conclusions of her premises:
Metaphysics: Indestructible Matter
Epistemology: Skepticism
Ethics: Hedonism
Politics: Anarchism
And you'd be wrong.
I have read both Atlas and Fountainhead. I didn't see any of the above
either. The original posting was a load of crap. Why do non atheists
always try to tell atheists what they believe in or are supposed to
believe
in? Why do they do that?
Actually, I've been getting quite a clear picture of the 'believing' mind in
the weeks I've been lurking and posting here! Think about it: this daft and
credulous crowd are so accustomed to having someone else tell them what they
are supposed to believe in that they think they can tell us what we believe
in; they're so much in need of 'leaders' to look up to that they think we,
too, must need to be 'led'; they're so hung up on their need for
'guaranteed' personal immortality that they think we must be vulnerable to
threats and scares about dying; and their own moral sense is so seriously in
need of some external agent to strengthen it that they think ours must be
too...!
They can't imagine people without an ideology so they invent one where
there isn't any,
It's worse because they fit labels instead of addressing the people
themselves. And then insist that their (often mis-) understanding of
these labels accurately describes them.
It enables them to demonise people they disagree with. Whether it a
huge invented group like liberals, evolutionists etc or a smaller one.
Fascinating!
Katt.
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| User: "Eris" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
10 Jun 2005 12:24:18 AM |
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On 09 Jun 2005 23:45:32 GMT, Bert Hyman <bert@iphouse.com> wrote:
In news:1118359688.526240.313750@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com
wordsoftruth114@email.com wrote:
Rand once summarized her philosophy while standing on one foot; we
might do the same, summarizing the logical conclusions of her premises:
Metaphysics: Indestructible Matter
Epistemology: Skepticism
Ethics: Hedonism
Politics: Anarchism
And you'd be wrong.
Someone a long time ago saw her on Phil Donihue, what a *****.
I was surprised.
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| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
10 Jun 2005 01:00:24 PM |
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In our last episode
<1118359688.526240.313750@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, wordsoftruth114
pirouetted gracefully and with great fanfare proclaimed:
In Who Is Ayn Rand?
A dead writer.
Next question...
--
Mark K. Bilbo - a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
Alt-atheism website at: http://www.alt-atheism.org
--------------------------------------------------
"Come to think of it, there are already a million
monkeys on a million typewriters, and the Usenet
is NOTHING like Shakespeare!" -- Blair Houghton
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| User: "Masked Avenger" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
10 Jun 2005 01:21:00 PM |
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Mark K. Bilbo wrote:
In our last episode
<1118359688.526240.313750@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, wordsoftruth114
pirouetted gracefully and with great fanfare proclaimed:
In Who Is Ayn Rand?
A dead writer.
Next question...
welcome back Mark ...... hope all is OK now .... :)
--
Masked Avenger
aa#2224
EAC Chief Technician in charge of remotely rigging Fundie 'Spell
Checkers' so they all look like hick home schooled yokels
Does Schroedinger's cat have 18 half lives ?
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| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
11 Jun 2005 11:59:01 AM |
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In our last episode <42a993c4$0$16490$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>,
Masked Avenger pirouetted gracefully and with great fanfare proclaimed:
Mark K. Bilbo wrote:
In our last episode
<1118359688.526240.313750@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, wordsoftruth114
pirouetted gracefully and with great fanfare proclaimed:
In Who Is Ayn Rand?
A dead writer.
Next question...
welcome back Mark ...... hope all is OK now .... :)
I'm not all that "back" actually. Just sometimes a bit at loose ends
between trips to the hospital and appointments. So I lurk around the ng a
little to keep my mind off things. I can only stand so much TV. <g>
--
Mark K. Bilbo - a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
Alt-atheism website at: http://www.alt-atheism.org
--------------------------------------------------
"Come to think of it, there are already a million
monkeys on a million typewriters, and the Usenet
is NOTHING like Shakespeare!" -- Blair Houghton
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| User: "Bert Hyman" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
10 Jun 2005 01:28:12 PM |
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alt-atheism@org.webmaster (Mark K. Bilbo) wrote in
news:ldudnfCeO6h1EzTfRVn-3Q@megapath.net:
In our last episode
<1118359688.526240.313750@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
wordsoftruth114
pirouetted gracefully and with great fanfare proclaimed:
In Who Is Ayn Rand?
A dead writer.
This is what Rand herself would call a "definition by
non-essentials".
Next question...
Good luck :-)
--
Bert Hyman | St. Paul, MN |
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| User: "raven1" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
10 Jun 2005 12:17:19 AM |
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On 9 Jun 2005 16:28:08 -0700, wrote:
<snip>
Wow, a third-rate novelist and philosophical hack happened to be an
atheist. That just discredits atheism then and there, obviously.
---
"This is how liberty dies: with thunderous applause"
- Padme Amidala, Episode III
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| User: "RyanT" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
10 Jun 2005 10:44:18 AM |
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You get all kinds of funny results when you apply that same principal
to the ones who're advocating that kind of argument to begin with, hehe.
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| User: "RyanT" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
10 Jun 2005 11:06:35 AM |
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Rand is an idiot.
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| User: "Dave Lister" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
09 Jun 2005 11:40:53 PM |
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What a load of crap. Did you even read it?
wordsoftruth114@email.com wrote in news:1118359688.526240.313750
@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
Ayn Rand, 1905-1982
John W. Robbins
On March 6, 1982 novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand died at her
apartment in New York City. Rand, a Russian immigrant, influenced
thousands of people - particularly college students - through her
many books expressing her ethical and political ideas. She is
correctly
regarded as one of the moving forces behind the contemporary
libertarian movement. In 1974, Answer to Ayn Rand, a comprehensive
analysis of her philosophy, was published. Below are excerpts from the
last chapter, "The Philosophy of Objectivism."
In Who Is Ayn Rand? Nathaniel Branden boasted: No one has dared
publicly to name the essential ideas of Atlas Shrugged and to attempt
to refute them. With the publication of this book, that statement no
longer stands. The clarification and refutation of Rand's ideas
attempted in this book have proceeded simultaneously; in large part,
their clarification is their refutation.
Rand once summarized her philosophy while standing on one foot; we
might do the same, summarizing the logical conclusions of her
premises:
Metaphysics: Indestructible Matter
Epistemology: Skepticism
Ethics: Hedonism
Politics: Anarchism
Her metaphysics, as I have carefully documented, consists of a belief
in the primacy of indestructible matter. Her epistemology, sensation
plus abstraction, leads only to skepticism, not to knowledge. Chapter
two is a digest of the many ambiguities and difficulties in Rand's
epistemological theory which concludes with Branden's admission that
even though all the evidence might point to a specific conclusion, one
can never be sure. The next bit of evidence may overturn the
conclusion. This, of course, is skepticism.
Rand's ethics, being founded on an amoral choice, not on the "facts
of reality," results in hedonism. Then her entire ethical edifice
collapses because she has built it on a non-existent bridge across
Hume's gap.
Her politics, deriving from her theory of the sovereign individual,
leads straightway to anarchism, not to a society or state, but to a
"voluntary association of men acting only in their individual
self-interest."
It is indeed indicative of the bankruptcy of modern American
philosophy
that Rand's Objectivism could go so long unchallenged and be so
fervently accepted by so many. Like Plato and Aristotle, she has
sought
to confute the sophists, only to originate a philosophy that confirms
the perennial sophistry of secular philosophy. Philosophia perennis
is,
ultimately, but futile speculation designed to show that man and
man's mind are indeed autonomous and independent of their Creator.
Secular human philosophy, like secular theories of history, is
cyclical: It turns from great theoretical systems giving a
comprehensive view of reality to critiques of these systems, which
critiques then result in skepticism. When the depths of skepticism are
reached, some new philosopher erects another magnificent edifice of
human thought, only to have that edifice eroded by the logical
criticisms of other scholars, resulting in a new skepticism. So the
cycle turns, from the sophists to a Plato, from Plato to the sophists;
from the sophists to a Thomas, from Thomas to the sophists; from the
sophists to a Spinoza, from Spinoza to the sophists; from the sophists
to a Kant, from Kant to the sophists; from the sophists to a Hegel,
from Hegel to the sophists. One might conclude that secular philosophy
is but the history of failure; that men who try to erect a Tower unto
Heaven, are soon scattered upon the earth unable to understand each
other.
The cyclical nature of the history of philosophy is, of course,
extremely oversimplified as presented here; but then this book is not
designed to be a text on the history of philosophy; it is merely a
critique of one of the latest figures in the cycle of secular
philosophy. A student of philosophy might soon question why all
secular
philosophies have failed to withstand logical scrutiny, why the cycle
of epistemological optimism and pessimism has existed for well over
2000 years. The reason can hardly be because of the superstructure of
the various philosophies that are so diverse as not to furnish a
common
explanation. One ought to examine the infrastructures of the various
philosophies, and there one finds a common element: the autonomy of
man's mind. All secular philosophies share the axiom of autonomy, the
belief that man's unaided intellect can arrive at knowledge.
Objectivism is no exception. Yet the repeated failures have not
resulted in a repudiation of this axiom, only in more determined
efforts to reach knowledge via man's own efforts. Lessing's famous
alternative, between accepting truth from the hand of God as a gift
and
eternally searching for, but never finding, truth, is the alternative
faced by all thinkers and all secular thinkers have chosen an eternal,
endless, and futile quest, just as Lessing did. The choice as outlined
by Lessing is a choice that must be made by all men. Shall I accept
revelation or not? Is the Bible the Word of God or not? Non-Christian
philosophers (and some inconsistent Christian philosophers) have
chosen
the futile search. Many believe that the search is not futile at all
(particularly the inconsistent Christian thinkers, like Thomas), but
will one day succeed. Unfortunately, after two and one-half thousand
years of searching, no man has yet established truth via his unaided
intellect. Objectivism has not changed that fact, for it shares the
axiom of autonomy with other secular philosophies. It, too, will be
eclipsed by a new surge of skepticism, and rightly so, for it has
furnished no good reasons for believing in the ability of the human
mind to create a system of knowledge.
One supposes that after the scattering of the builders of the Tower of
Babel, those who spoke the same language attempted again to erect
other
towers, and failed. The antipathy of the human mind to accepting a
gift
from God, revealed propositional knowledge, is ever present. It is the
explanation for the cycle of secular philosophy. Faced with the
alternative to accepting knowledge as a gift of God and finding
knowledge on his own, the rebellious human being will always refuse
the
gift of knowledge and seek to erect his own philosophical system, his
own Tower unto Heaven.
As a Christian, one can only hope that Objectivism, like all other
philosophical facades, will soon crumble, and reveal to the men of the
twentieth century the utter futility of secular philosophies. This
book
has been written with the purpose of speeding the demise of this
newest
form of secular philosophical optimism, so that men maybe forced to
admit that the choice is nihilism or Christianity; skepticism or
revelation. The choice is not, as Rand has said, between Communism and
Objectivism, for those two philosophies are actually quite similar:
Both are materialistic, both are empiricist, and ultimately, both are
anarchistic. Rand escaped physically from the Communists in the mid
1920's, but she has never escaped intellectually from the Communists.
Rather than being diametrically opposed, Objectivism and Communism
share common premises, and attack a common foe, Christianity. Here the
antithesis is unmistakable: God or Matter? Propositional revelation or
sensation? God's law or man's whim? Limited government or
totalitarian anarchy? Only one system challenges Communism in all its
ramifications, and that system is not Objectivism. That system is
Christianity.
One of the ways in which the damned will be confounded is that they
will see themselves condemned by their own reason, by which they claim
to condemn the Christian religion.
Pascal Pensees
http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=57
--
Republican Health Plan: Don't Get Sick
Guantanamo: The Gulag of Our Time
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
10 Jun 2005 01:45:01 PM |
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Republican Health Plan: Don't Get Sick
Guantanamo: The Gulag of Our Time
You strike a cord with both of the above.
Does it not seem a surprise to ordinary Americans that the US
government spends $450bn every year on arms (the cummulative total of
the next 32 arms spenders!), yet Americans don't have a health care
system that can look after all Americans when they need it?
There may be many, many things wrong with how Britain is governed, but
at least we have a health service that will attempt to make people
better whatever their financial position.
Don't say America can't afford it.
Big business doesn't want to pay it.
And as for Guantanamo.
Is it the case that the rights ascribed to citizens in the US
constitution are not available to other lesser humans?
The Bush administration is even blazen enough not to comply with the
Geneva convention.
Oh, & what the hell are the Americans doing in Guantanamo anyhow?
Cuba has a health system based on need, regardless of their other
shortcommings.
.
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| User: "enki" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy |
20 Jun 2005 04:38:49 PM |
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Dave Lister Jun 9, 7:40 pm show options
Newsgroups: alt.atheism, alt.philosophy.debate,
alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic, rec.org.mensa,
talk.politics.libertarian
From: Dave Lister <retsildiva...@hotmail.com> - Find messages by this
author
Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2005 23:40:53 GMT
Local: Thurs,Jun 9 2005 7:40 pm
Subject: Re: Ayn Rand: The End Of Atheist Philosophy
Reply | Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show
original | Report Abuse
What a load of crap. Did you even read it?
wordsoftruth...@email.com wrote in news:1118359688.526240.313750
@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
Ayn Rand, 1905-1982
John W. Robbins
On March 6, 1982 novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand died at her
apartment in New York City. Rand, a Russian immigrant, influenced
thousands of people - particularly college students - through her
many books expressing her ethical and political ideas. She is
correctly
regarded as one of the moving forces behind the contemporary
libertarian movement. In 1974, Answer to Ayn Rand, a comprehensive
analysis of her philosophy, was published. Below are excerpts from the
last chapter, "The Philosophy of Objectivism."
In Who Is Ayn Rand? Nathaniel Branden boasted: No one has dared
publicly to name the essential ideas of Atlas Shrugged and to attempt
to refute them. With the publication of this book, that statement no
longer stands. The clarification and refutation of Rand's ideas
attempted in this book have proceeded simultaneously; in large part,
their clarification is their refutation.
Rand once summarized her philosophy while standing on one foot; we
might do the same, summarizing the logical conclusions of her
premises:
Metaphysics: Indestructible Matter
Epistemology: Skepticism
Ethics: Hedonism
Politics: Anarchism
Her metaphysics, as I have carefully documented, consists of a belief
in the primacy of indestructible matter. Her epistemology, sensation
plus abstraction, leads only to skepticism, not to knowledge. Chapter
two is a digest of the many ambiguities and difficulties in Rand's
epistemological theory which concludes with Branden's admission that
even though all the evidence might point to a specific conclusion, one
can never be sure. The next bit of evidence may overturn the
conclusion. This, of course, is skepticism.
Rand's ethics, being founded on an amoral choice, not on the "facts
of reality," results in hedonism. Then her entire ethical edifice
collapses because she has built it on a non-existent bridge across
Hume's gap.
Her politics, deriving from her theory of the sovereign individual,
leads straightway to anarchism, not to a society or state, but to a
"voluntary association of men acting only in their individual
self-interest."
It is indeed indicative of the bankruptcy of modern American
philosophy
that Rand's Objectivism could go so long unchallenged and be so
fervently accepted by so many. Like Plato and Aristotle, she has
sought
to confute the sophists, only to originate a philosophy that confirms
the perennial sophistry of secular philosophy. Philosophia perennis
is,
ultimately, but futile speculation designed to show that man and
man's mind are indeed autonomous and independent of their Creator.
Secular human philosophy, like secular theories of history, is
cyclical: It turns from great theoretical systems giving a
comprehensive view of reality to critiques of these systems, which
critiques then result in skepticism. When the depths of skepticism are
reached, some new philosopher erects another magnificent edifice of
human thought, only to have that edifice eroded by the logical
criticisms of other scholars, resulting in a new skepticism. So the
cycle turns, from the sophists to a Plato, from Plato to the sophists;
from the sophists to a Thomas, from Thomas to the sophists; from the
sophists to a Spinoza, from Spinoza to the sophists; from the sophists
to a Kant, from Kant to the sophists; from the sophists to a Hegel,
from Hegel to the sophists. One might conclude that secular philosophy
is but the history of failure; that men who try to erect a Tower unto
Heaven, are soon scattered upon the earth unable to understand each
other.
The cyclical nature of the history of philosophy is, of course,
extremely oversimplified as presented here; but then this book is not
designed to be a text on the history of philosophy; it is merely a
critique of one of the latest figures in the cycle of secular
philosophy. A student of philosophy might soon question why all
secular
philosophies have failed to withstand logical scrutiny, why the cycle
of epistemological optimism and pessimism has existed for well over
2000 years. The reason can hardly be because of the superstructure of
the various philosophies that are so diverse as not to furnish a
common
explanation. One ought to examine the infrastructures of the various
philosophies, and there one finds a common element: the autonomy of
man's mind. All secular philosophies share the axiom of autonomy, the
belief that man's unaided intellect can arrive at knowledge.
Objectivism is no exception. Yet the repeated failures have not
resulted in a repudiation of this axiom, only in more determined
efforts to reach knowledge via man's own efforts. Lessing's famous
alternative, between accepting truth from the hand of God as a gift
and
eternally searching for, but never finding, truth, is the alternative
faced by all thinkers and all secular thinkers have chosen an eternal,
endless, and futile quest, just as Lessing did. The choice as outlined
by Lessing is a choice that must be made by all men. Shall I accept
revelation or not? Is the Bible the Word of God or not? Non-Christian
philosophers (and some inconsistent Christian philosophers) have
chosen
the futile search. Many believe that the search is not futile at all
(particularly the inconsistent Christian thinkers, like Thomas), but
will one day succeed. Unfortunately, after two and one-half thousand
years of searching, no man has yet established truth via his unaided
intellect. Objectivism has not changed that fact, for it shares the
axiom of autonomy with other secular philosophies. It, too, will be
eclipsed by a new surge of skepticism, and rightly so, for it has
furnished no good reasons for believing in the ability of the human
mind to create a system of knowledge.
One supposes that after the scattering of the builders of the Tower of
Babel, those who spoke the same language attempted again to erect
other
towers, and failed. The antipathy of the human mind to accepting a
gift
from God, revealed propositional knowledge, is ever present. It is the
explanation for the cycle of secular philosophy. Faced with the
alternative to accepting knowledge as a gift of God and finding
knowledge on his own, the rebellious human being will always refuse
the
gift of knowledge and seek to erect his own philosophical system, his
own Tower unto Heaven.
As a Christian, one can only hope that Objectivism, like all other
philosophical facades, will soon crumble, and reveal to the men of the
twentieth century the utter futility of secular philosophies. This
book
has been written with the purpose of speeding the demise of this
newest
form of secular philosophical optimism, so that men maybe forced to
admit that the choice is nihilism or Christianity; skepticism or
revelation. The choice is not, as Rand has said, between Communism and
Objectivism, for those two philosophies are actually quite similar:
Both are materialistic, both are empiricist, and ultimately, both are
anarchistic. Rand escaped physically from the Communists in the mid
1920's, but she has never escaped intellectually from the Communists.
Rather than being diametrically opposed, Objectivism and Communism
share common premises, and attack a common foe, Christianity. Here the
antithesis is unmistakable: God or Matter? Propositional revelation or
sensation? God's law or man's whim? Limited government or
totalitarian anarchy? Only one system challenges Communism in all its
ramifications, and that system is not Objectivism. That system is
Christianity.
One of the ways in which the damned will be confounded is that they
will see themselves condemned by their own reason, by which they claim
to condemn the Christian religion.
Pascal Pensees
http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=57
--
Republican Health Plan: Don't Get Sick
Guantanamo: The Gulag of Our Time
I will respond to this because it is fun and you have a strong
idological position. Rand is hard to read and she does use too many
words where it is easy to get lost. It takes here for ever to reach a
point. She tends to be persuasive because she constructs the arguments
to make here point. Where here arguments have a good relation to
reality she makes good points. She has made some good points in
economics but as far as sex and personal relationships she makes little
sence.
Republican Health Plan: Don't Get Sick
Guantanamo: The Gulag of Our Time
Where did this come from? Am I missing some posts on my server?
.
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