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Previous comments... You are currently on page 5.
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?
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.
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.
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".
Jan
What if I told you that God is nothing more than the essence of whatever/however the universe was created? Or are you of the belief that all that is spontaneously originated out of nothing?
The only religion that I'll attempt to speak authoritatively about is Catholicism. I'd say that even the Pope's of late have been less dogmatic in their perspective - heck, the current Pope has even opened up to homosexuality. There are some things that are fundamental, not necessarily dogmatic.
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.
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!
I don't even treat what my parish priest says as the "gospel truth," nor that of the Pope himself for that matter - yes, I'm a Catholic heretic.
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
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