I wrote Yaweh AND stories. Both the old and new testements have lots of lore in them from older religions. Most of the stories were passed along from generation to generation verbally. Some were written down, but writing in those days was rare and only were understood by a few. I've read these stories and the work of various authorities who have explained their relevance to the Christian and Jewish, and even Muslim religions. You can look up this stuff if you're so inclined. Frankly, I have neither the time nor the inclination to do a seminar on it.

I see some of your stance but think this discussion between us is a waste of time. Please, let's just move along.

Is not Objectivism the study of reality? Is not one of the base claims that of primacy of existence and consciousness? Is not then the debate of existence's nature as being temporary or permanent then of major import? Of course it is! I simply refuse to acknowledge the concept of nihilism which atheism embraces. I value my consciousness and reject the notion that it is somehow a temporary or happenstance blip in reality because it violates the very self-preservation inherent in the assertion of consciousness!

Again, you are welcome to believe that death is the end of your being if it makes you happy. I hope you will be pleasantly surprised when you find out it is not.

Love is not necessarily defined strictly as an emotion. This is a limited view, IMO. Love can also be defined as an action that flows in the direction of a need, and can be completely divorced from any feeling whatsoever. (Ask any parent about this one.)

Precisely.

"Christian doctrine is a merging of ancient mystery cults"

Christianity claims its origin with Adam and Eve - the progenitors of all who have lived on this planet. It is not a derivation of any other religion. If you are referring to the Christianity organized by the Emperor Constantine, it is interesting to note that he himself was not a Christian, but a sun worshipper. He saw the popular influence of Christianity and made it into a political tool for his personal aim for power. That Christianity is not the Christianity I am talking about or defending, as it is a product of man.

"reason based on the physical senses"

If you choose to limit yourself to those five senses, you will reject matters of the sixth sense - the spiritual sense. I choose to use all the tools of inquiry at my disposal. And the reason you choose to downplay the matters of the spirit as unintelligible, etc., is because the five senses to which you restrict yourself are insufficient in dealing with spiritual phenomena. It's like getting frustrated when the round peg doesn't go in the square hole. I understand the frustration, but I can only tell you that a square peg exists - I can't make you pick it up or put it in the hole. That is something only you can do.

I have a paid membership to this site. So my belief and participation in it is demonstrated by the most revered tool of Ayn Rand - the dollar. If you wish to challenge my commitment to it and its principles, I would invite you to demonstrate the same level of commitment.

RE: "there must be some interest in the welcoming question on their part"
To a point John. But ewv is absolutely correct when he says this isn't a place for "Bible thumbing." Inquiring about faith vs. reason is fine in the Gulch. Advocating faith over reason is not and could potentially lead to banning if not kept in check. See the Gulch CoC: http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/faq#f...

Thanks.

I'm don't know what you mean by "conglomeration of Yaweh and other stories passed down of Abraham..." I am aware that some consider Yaweh to be the name of god, as passed down through the Hebrews. Observant Jews never write the name of god and even when writing today will write G-d. Since written Hebrew omits vowels and since the Hebrew letter sequence translated as YWH is so old, nobody is absolutely sure what vowels go there.

But I strayed. When you wrote that Judaism came from a conglomeration of Yaweh and ..., what did you mean by Yaweh?

I propose that your casting of the religion prior to being written down as "lore" is not meaningful. Lore is lore whether it's written or not, and the oral tradition is just as valid as a written bible.

I'm going to send this conversation to my friend so he can enlighten me with the correct Jewish viewpoint (rather than my recollections) and also respond to what you wrote. It will be educational for both of us.

It is recognizable s a human within weeks with a heart beat and the ability to feel pain. It is not a mystical religious notion, it is fact. You can ignore that fact but that does not changing anything.

The problem is that Piekoff, like Rand, believe that the Nicene Creed - from which these arguments are derived - is accurate and authoritative. For many in the Christian world they are, but not for all. I am one of those who denounces the Nicene Creed for the nonsense it is. I do not believe in a God who is infinite, but who is instead finite: discrete.

The second problem relating to creation stems from a conceptual fiction. The word in Hebrew from which the English "creation" is taken is more properly translated as "organization" - meaning the construction of things from existing material - not something from nothing. Indeed - even the original word creation in English was about taking of existing materials to form something more organized and with purpose - not to spawn something from nothing.

"Is God omnipotent? Can he do anything? Entities can act only in accordance with their natures; nothing can make them violate their natures . . ."

This is finally a statement I can agree with. So the real question is what the nature of God would be that could coincide with reality. Instead of making up and fixating on the straw man argument of arguing what can't exist, concentrate on defining what could and go from there. If you want some ideas, I'm more than happy to take this to a private thread to discuss.

I never said it was Objectivism. You are welcome to reject it for whatever reasons you choose. And I take it to private conversations because I respect this forum and its people. I am a paying member because the people I find here are generally respectful even in disagreement.

I believe in studying reality, which is what Objectivism claims to be. Unlike others, however, I do not claim that religion is a belief in the unknown or unknowable and I decry the definition of faith as such for the straw man it is. I agree with the Objectivist who claims that everything is knowable. I believe that much of what Ayn Rand identified was accurate, but that she incorrectly surmised that since she couldn't find a religion that made sense that none existed. She chose atheism because she could find no faith in which she could reconcile dogma and principle with reality. I do not blame her for such. I just know differently. I know what I believe in. It makes sense. I have empirically tested it. And I stand by my convictions. You are welcome to believe in anything or nothing. All I offer is an alternative viewpoint for consideration and invite logical, rational discussion. If you choose to allow your biases on the matter destroy any objective and thoughtful consideration of the matter, that is for you to decide.

As I recently wrote what I as a Christian thought about Ayn Rand, I replied with my doubt there was anyone on the planet that I 100% agreed with.
Take my Christianity. I believe evolution is a fact and not a theory. So I do not 100% believe in what is written in the Old Testament.
There is also evidence that a great flood occurred exclusively in the Mediterranean region way back when people were on the planet.
I'm a fan of Rush Limbaugh, but when he said smoking is not addictive I was a smoker then knew better. I quit and it hurt.
Anyway, a fetus is alive and and has rights. I'm not alone with my point of view--

http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.co...

As I also wrote about what I thought--

Ayn Rand I do adore
But Jesus is the door.

The New Testament came much later than the Old and never in any religion has so much detailed description been written about the life and times of Jesus Christ.
Believe it or not. That was the original choice before of course power hungry people warped the whole thing pretty quick.
Ayn Rand was an atheist. I'm not.
So we're different. And so what? She does possess valuable insights. So does what Confucius say . .

You are correct. But he wrote it all down in a sequential form. The religion became a conglomeration of Yaweh, and the stories passed down of Abraham and an accounting of families and a few legends picked up from a number of other even older religions. Prior to Moses, or whoever, it was just lore.

You seem obsessed with the work mystic, and God.

The Scientific Method:
I. The scientific method has four steps

1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.

2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.

3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.

4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.

If the experiments bear out the hypothesis it may come to be regarded as a theory or law of nature (more on the concepts of hypothesis, model, theory and law below). If the experiments do not bear out the hypothesis, it must be rejected or modified. What is key in the description of the scientific method just given is the predictive power (the ability to get more out of the theory than you put in; see Barrow, 1991) of the hypothesis or theory, as tested by experiment. It is often said in science that theories can never be proved, only disproved. There is always the possibility that a new observation or a new experiment will conflict with a long-standing theory.

Perhaps it is YOU who does not understand science. Please take note, that scientific theories can NEVER be proved, only disproved. That would be a negative proof which you claim is no proof.

Science broken down is really one thing. Trying to figure out how things work. First you have to ask the right question to get the right answer. The problem is you and many scientists do not want to ask the right question making the theories impossible to validate.

I do understand science, and enjoy science and discovering new things. I do modify my personal view when PROOF is offered to change that view.

You seem to hold on to your "belief system" with a dogmatism that far exceed even the most fierce religious zealot.

From my personal view, you exhibit the contempt for reason, by using shallow justifications and insinuations in your responses.

If there is no authority with which to rely then any observation is also fallacy if you refer to it since it must then be "dogma" handed down and should not be used at all.

The problem here ewv, if you have not been able to maintain any consistent line of thinking you have waffled back and forth which is not reason.

You seem to set yourself up as an authority of reason, but then say there is no authority, making everything you say invalid.

Please pick a view and maintain some kind of consistency.

The above had NOTHING, I repeat for your benefit, NOTHING to do with religion.

The above had EVERYTHING to do with consistency of thought, which you lack in your response.

You talk of moral right. Look at the Objectivist Oath, and meditate on each aspect of it.

And because I can tell you simply want things handed to to you without effort, here is what Timelord used as a definition of life. Again this is NOT religious. And you in many previous posts laud Timelord as an Objectivist, therefore the definition HE provided for life must be Objectivist.

Timelord provided this as the definition:

Posted by Timelord 17 hours, 39 minutes ago
(Life itself cannot be "defined") Why do you insist on making these outrageous claims that are so very simple to disprove?

1
a : the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body
b : a principle or force that is considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings
c : an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction

Based on that a fetus from the point of conception meets the qualification of life. PERIOD. A fetus from conception reacts to stimuli, metabolizes, grows, is most definitely animate, and is most certainly functional exhibiting a force separating it from a dead thing.

That makes a Fetus "ALIVE" from the point of conception. That Fetus is a Human Life. All Human life in these United States are entitled to all the protection of the Constitution of these United States.

Since it is illegal to knowingly "stop" a human life against its will, planning and executing such an action is by definition 1st degree murder that makes abortion murder, by all legal secular definitions using Timelord's definition of life as a legitimate Objectivist definition. Also since Timelord is a devout atheist you should accept his definition as an objectivist and a fellow atheist. NONE of whatI pointed out here is religious but 100% secular ind logical AND consistent. Few little of YOUR argument is either logical or consistent, making your argument unreasonable, and contrary to any view of Objectivism.

Now if you disagree with Timelord's definition of life, then I put it to you to provide a definition of life that IS acceptable to you. My bet is you cannot provide a definition of life that does not prove that a fetus meets the qualifications of life, and is entitled to all rights of a human being.


http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/phy...
Whatever may be open to disagreement, there is one act of evil that may not, the act that no man may commit against others and no man may sanction or forgive. So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate—do you hear me? no man may start—the use of physical force against others.

So abortion IS physical force against another, given the definition of life which is according to Ayn Rand UNFORGIVABLE and EVIL.

Now to take this a step further.

http://news.sciencemag.org/evolution/...
"According to conventional wisdom, an embryo becomes a boy when a gene on the Y chromosome triggers the development of testes, which then begin to produce male sex hormones, including testosterone, at about the 8th week of gestation."


Now if at 8 weeks gender and "gender preference" is in play then that life by the definition provided, has also taken on more complex traits of identify. Then that life is even further defined and if most certainly MURDER to abort.

So please pick one stand to take and be consistent.

Your own statements, like this one http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts..., say otherwise. You are trying to have it both ways.

I think you should be reading more of it yourself. You can then at least decide if it's really what you want.

The ones stubbornly pushing religion in a misrepresentation and ignorance of Ayn Rand's philosophy don't belong here doing that, and it does nothing to help those who are trying to understand Ayn Rand's ideas.

You didn't integrate it. It is a contradiction. No one can understand Ayn Rand's philosophy by misrepresenting it in terms of its enemies and opposite to manipulate people into "accepting" it. You pandered and apparently absorbed it yourself. Pragmatism doesn't work.

I do explore physics and astronomy and Rand's ideas, and yours.
there is no mysticism in my life. . I do not deal with murky thought --
the unknown section of reality is specifically that. . it works well
for me in my life. -- j
.