I cannot quite agree with you. Philosophy, "pursuit of wisdom" in a loose translation, in my view is the most fundamental concept. As I said elsewhere here, in my opinion, religions start from a basic act of faith and then create conceptual structures to answer the questions that philosophy tries to answer. Dogma trying to dress itself in philosophy.
If I am alone on Earth, what does it matter if I behave cowardly or courageously? But as soon as I have my parents around, or my wife, or my children, the moral code matters a great deal. Would you say?

You will not fully understand that speech until you learn much more about philosophy and begin to see how much she was addressing and challenging in the traditions of the history of philosophy. Ayn Rand spent 2 years working on writing that speech in the novel so that it would both correctly express her ideas and fit into the style, plot and theme of the novel

OPAR will give you a much better additional understanding because it is a non-fiction, systematic explanation unconstrained by the limitations of a novel.

But you still need the broader context of its relation to the prominent philosophies in history which still dominate. For that it doesn't matter that you are getting nothing out of your school course in philosophy. The way it is typically taught, it is a good sign that you are by natural inclination choking on it and throwing it up.

When you have the time, listen to the recordings of Leonard Peikoff's lecture courses on the history of western philosophy that he first gave in the 1970s. At $11 for each of the two series they are now very inexpensive.

https://estore.aynrand.org/p/95/founders...

https://estore.aynrand.org/p/96/modern-p...

There is also a free version at the ari web site but it is more cumbersome to listen to and isn't set up to be downloaded.

There is also good discussion of the role of the axioms of existence, identity and consciousness for their role in conceptual knowledge in Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, but that can come later.

You will find an enormous difference between all of this and what you are currently suffering through at school.

The purpose of religion is to attempt to rationalize that which is beyond man's comprehension. Before I take flak on both the Objectivist and Christian perspectives, let me just say that humans are limited creatures. Part of the reason that we study science and outer space in particular, as well as philosophy is to answer some of those questions that are currently not sufficiently explainable. AR recognized this point. That is why she described the struggle between Drs. Akston and Stadler for the three star pupils: Galt, D'Anconia, and Danneskjold.

We have seen what you write. You don't read and don't understand what the philosophy is, yet continue to attack it and personally smear those who agree with it as you proselytize your religious opposite. You are attacking people you know nothing about. You have no objectivity in your dealing with others, a philosophy you are ignorant of, and your own speculations about the universe at large, all from your own imagination.

ewv, you are entering a discussion that a number of us have had for several months, and apparently you are unaware of the prior discussion. You may remember the T-shirts coming out that said "Atlas Shrugged: Now Non-Fiction". A few of us suggested that that might be the proper follow-up to the 3 movies. As part of that discussion, the topic of Mark Cuban had come up given his business prowess. If you had watched the video at the start of this thread, you would have noticed that Mark Cuban was referenced in the two-minute video. Khalling and I have had a discussion about Cuban's worthiness (perhaps ideological purity?) to belong in the discussion of an Atlas Shrugged: Now Non-Fiction. As Khalling reiterated today, Cuban is against patents, but for trademarks - a strange contradiction.

Ethics arises from the fact that we must each make choices in our lives and what we choose makes a difference, requiring a standard and a code of values. That is primarily a personal matter, not social. How we should deal with others is a consequence. Ethics is one of the main branches of philosophy.

Religion is a primitive form of philosophy in its attempt to establish a coherent view of the world and how to live, although through faith and mysticism.

Tell this to you confessor!

Did you notice that you said first that fundamentalists, presumably the people who stick with fundamentals, to you are dogmatic. Then you said, second, that some fundamentals are not dogmatic.

To me, dogma, as a conceptual structure, is a top down affair. But since we use "fundamental" as a descriptor here, it would be more appropriate to speak of bottom up. In any case, dogma is a structure, consisting of very basic "undeniable" (read unchangeable) fixed beliefs and then, following from that, a set of rigid, also undeniable truths.

Catholic Church has tried many times to rescind certain parts of their dogma, which were before that change just as "self-evident" dogmatic truths as everything else. A conceptual structure from which you can cut out pieces and the rest supposedly remains sound and untouched is not something I can consider with any confidence.

In the Soviet Union, the communist dogma was for all practical purposes a religion and writings by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin were in effect their "bible".

I could not have asked for a better example of someone who considers Objectivism to be a religion.

Jan

Obviously it makes no difference. Sacrificing yourself to all others on earth as "equals" is the sacrifice of your life, which is thereby subordinate to the others. It is the opposite of Ayn Rand's philosophy on that and many other grounds.

All of which is irrelevant to the subsequent demise and does not justify it.

After the first line with his usual ignorant personal insult, he described philosophy while leaving out his primitive method of mystic faith to pretend he should be taken seriously.

Yes but it's not the way you wrote it previously.

Speak for yourself.

You've got that right. One of the things that often amazes me is how those who have either read or heard some gobbledegook about Objectivism spout the conclusion that it's a childish, unimportant hunk of stuff derived from her fiction. When I question them, they get very defensive, but when you boil away the layer of fat, you discover that it can't be any good because people actually try to live my its precepts and those who try to live by it are only emulating the heroes from her books.
El Barfo! (A little Spanish expletive) I respond: "Don't you think emulating one of her heroes would be a good thing?" If they would answer honestly they would have to say, "I've never read her books." Never got that honest answer, yet.

The purpose of religion is to impose on people a dogma, which the priests try to pass a quasi-philosophy.

Hello, R,

OK. I will try one last time.

Faith is, in my opinion, a belief or feeling that something is true. Religious faith is, again in my opinion, a belief in supernatural power of one kind of another, i.e. in the existence of God or Gods. That is the fundamental. Of course, even religious people being rational animals, they build conceptual constructs, which I think you believe are a philosophy. But to people outside the particular religion, that is not philosophy. It is dogma pure and simple.

The mysticism label comes from the fact that religious dogma cannot be rationally explained and analyzed. It is so because God says that it is. I think some people call that non sequitur.

Please note that you just said yourself that you are zealous, thus you are zealot. Sequitur. People smell zealotry.

All the best. Goodbye!

Ok thank you! I now actually know the meaning of that statement
Confession time I read the entire speech in one day and I'm afraid I may have glossed over some of it
Also philosophy has never been my strong suit ( to put it mildly in reality i am almost failing the subject in school) I'm better at the political side so thanks for the help

Thank you, J.