No, your perception of reality is colored by your core beliefs. But you don't have "your reality" . A is A.

Thank you, Zen. Good comment

No, the reality is that it is an elephant.their perception has nothing to do with reality. Scott said it well. Liberals say that perception affects reality. That's a slippery slope.

My point exactly...empirically, I don't. My 'reality' is, just like everyone else's, colored by my core beliefs.

Salty, the conundrum is "how" did you acquire the knowledge to assert your definition of reality? According to your comment, how do you know you are correct?

But where do you get the notion that your perception of reality is actually correct? An old conundrum that illustrates the point is one of three blind men touching a different part of an elephant are each asked to describe the beast judging by what they've perceived. So yes, perception does in fact have a part to play.

That's reality.

Chase your own gauntlets, Mike. I submit that in the context of this topic, he was accurate—as was my comment. I have no interest in your contextomy.

+1 http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts...

Reality doesn't care about your perception. Perception is irrelevant. That's the whole point of "A is A." A is A regardless of your point of view. Your perception has no bearing on the nature of A. A will never be B. It will always be A. Your opinion of A, or your view of A, is of no consequence to the nature of A.

That's Objectivism.

Also, if someone was to raise the issue of Schrodinger's Cat, as Mike may be alluding to, I would add that our understanding of the nature of A is also irrelevant. It is what it is, regardless of our capacity to see it, hear it, feel it, taste it, touch it, or understand it.

That's what we as Objectivists mean when we say "reality." We mean it in the strictest sense. We mean that which exists independent of perception.

The plain fact, stated by Ayn Rand explicitly in her Introduction to The Fountainhead is that Objectivists are man-worshippers. Rand also pointed out that religion is a primitive attempt at philosophy. She also noted that Christianity was the first religion to be concerned with the individual. (I disagree. I think that Buddhism was first. However, I take her point: Christianity was, indeed, concerned with the individual, which Greek and Roman religion were not. Arguably, even Judaism as an outgrowth of traditional Semitic animism was not concerned with the individual until after it was influenced by Christianity. All of that is another discussion, however.)

Zenphany was not accurate. He is uninformed. Here is a set of examinations on Objectivism. http://thecultureofreasoncenter.com/t...
See how well you do.

About 1902, Ernst Mach thoroughly deflated Ludwig Boltzmann, and others, by challenging them on the existence of atoms, which he denied. "Have you ever seen one?" Mach was a strict empiricist. He used his very capable reason on the very well established experiments of his day, and rejected the theoretical construct of the atom. Do atoms exist? It depends on how you define atom. ... but you find definitions pedantic and unproductive...

In the context of the reply, Zen was very accurate. You know well that Objectivism is not by its nature a 'religion' involving 'worship'.

You assume that all men perceive reality the same way and that is simply not the case. Each of us filters what we see and hear through our own core beliefs; hence my comment about religion. For example, there are those who argue that atheism is a religion. Both an atheist and a catholic might witness a beautiful sunrise; both see the same thing but perceive it differently. Each also believes that his perception of the event is the only valid one. Both are unable to definitively convince the other but both cannot be correct. They have each for whatever reason based his world view upon an acceptance of a basic tenet as a matter of faith, whether it be the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible, a math book or an episode of Star Trek.

Mike, you're becoming obnoxiously annoying and pedantic. Objectivists may indeed experience human emotional responses to things, actions, events, even others--but such are not essentials to or principles underlying Objectivist thought and experience, other than to recognize them for what they are. But the Objectivist, rather than unthinkingly acting on those emotions, recognizes them for what they are and measures them against the factual realities of his environment to then determine his own actions and/or reactions.

This thread of this post concerns 'worship' as Salty Dog uses and expressed it, which is the religious context, regardless of your obvious attempt to 'blow air up your skirt' with a tenuously related quote from AR and criticism of my response to Salty.

And once again I'll state that, 'Objectivism is not 'worship' (as used in Salty's comment) of anything.'

Yes, Man's mind through his senses, perceives reality and through rational, logically reasoned application of his mind learns about that reality.

Nonsense! Going from a comment about a statement that Objectivist society 'must be religion free', to the state of American public education as an example describing the content of '1984' certainly doesn't contribute anything of value.

The words are the posters, not mine--if you don't understand what an Objectivist 'means' by the word "religion" or the phrase "an Objectivist society" at this point on this site, I certainly can't and further, won't attempt to help you.

Minus 1, Zen, for lack of knowledge. I point you to Ayn Rand's essay in The Objectivist, which was also her new Introduction written for a reprinting of The Fountainhead.

Just as religion has pre-empted the field of ethics, turning morality against man, so it has usurped the highest moral concepts of our language, placing them outside this earth and beyond man’s reach. ..."

[Exaltation, worship, reverence, and sacred do have meanings, she says, but not the ones given by most religions.]

But such concepts do name actual emotions, even though no supernatural dimension exists; and these emotions are experienced as uplifting or ennobling...
[...]
It is in this sense, with this meaning and intention, that I would identify the sense of life dramatized in The Fountainhead as man worship.
[...]
The man-worshipers, in my sense of the term, are those who see man’s highest potential and strive to actualize it. . . . [Man-worshipers are] those dedicated to the exaltation of man’s self-esteem and the sacredness of his happiness on earth."

Read the entire extract here: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/man...

(I gave you a +1, Old Salt bringing you up to Zero. Your comment was worth considering.) All societies have folkways and laws. The important questions are about what those are. The fact that two people claim to be "religious" does not make their beliefs and practices equivalent or commensurate.

Many great scientists claimed to believe in God, but, clearly, their behaviors were much different from the actions of others who would too easily be called "co-religionists." I point out once again, that although Einstein and Schroedinger rejected the Copenhagen Theory of Bohr and Heisenberg, none of them, and none of their students killed each other over it. No Bierstuben full of followers were bombed by Copenhagen Fundamentalists or Relativistic Reformists. At the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries, most of the leading physicists denied the reality of atoms. "Have you ever seen one?" was the most withering remark heard in a debate. No one was burned at the stake, or denied the right to own property, or denied the right to vote.

Now with most religions, the outcomes are not so civilized. So, you can appreciate the easy rejection of religion in general. However, most philosophies are just as wrong-headed. Perhaps the differences are to be found in - or measured by - how a body of beliefs reacts to new ideas. Thomas Kuhn pointed out that as science advances, new paradigms are accepted and old paradigms are abandoned. So, we do not have a Journal of Phlogiston Physics even though we still have journals of Aristotlean and Platonist philosophy. Of course, there are those Two (or Three) Testaments that some people claim are impossible to improve upon.

Some altars are bloody with sacrifices. Perhaps most are. But not all are. Sometimes, an altar is a just a stand for a big book, like the one in the library with the Oxford English Dictionary on it. Sometimes, an altar is just a big smooth cube tempting you to make another twice its size.

Your statements are wrong because they are incomplete.

The great horror of George Orwell's 1984 was not just the oppression of the the masses. It was not even the torture and death of Winston Smith and Julia. It was Newspeak, the reduction of human thought. It began with short, declarative sentences for which no context was given, and no further explanations were necessary. Public education in America is a prime example of that. Who was the 16th President? When was Neptune discovered? What is French Impressionism?

What do you mean by "religion"? What do mean by "an Objectivist society"?

yet that pesky contradiction of who creates the best within us

Objectivism and religion are compatible. Allow me to cite chapter and verse: The Fountainhead, Part 2, Chapter X (p. 340 hb).

"So you see, Mr. Roark, though it is to be a religious ediface, it is also more than that. You notice that we call it the Temple of the Human Spirit. We want to capture--in stone, as others capture in music--not some narrow creed, but the essence of all religion. And what is the essence of religion? The great aspiration of the human spirit toward the highest, the noblest, the best. The human spirit as the creator and the conqueror of the ideal. The great life-giving force of the universe. The heroic human spirit. That is your assignment, Mr. Roark."
...
"Mr. Stoddard, I'm afraid you've made a mistake," he said, his voice slow and tired. "I don't think I'm the man you want. I don't think it would be right for me to undertake. I don't believe in God."
...
"That doesn't matter. You're a profoundly religious man, Mr. Roark--in your own way. I can see that in your buildings."
...
"That's true," said Road. It was almost a whisper.
...
"I wish to call it God. You may choose another name. But what I want in that building is your spirit. Your spirit, Mr. Roark. Give me the best of that--and you will have done your job, as I shall have done mine. Do not worry about the meaning I wish to convey. Let it be your spirit in the shape of a building--and it will have that meaning, whether you know it or not."

Objectivists are rationalists and realists. Note, however, that when we say "rationalism" we are not aligning with Continental Rationalism of the 17th century. When we say "realism" we do not mean British Empiricism. So, too, with "religion" do you need to define what you mean by what you say.

The 'reality' that you perceive.

Objectivism is not 'worship' of anything. It is recognition of facts of reality.

Objectivists aver that rational, logically reasoned use of the mind dealing with facts of reality can find no basis for religion. It follows that an Objectivist society would have no religions. It has nothing to do with 'claim' or 'must'.

Let's face it. We all worship at the altar of something. In it's broadest sense, that makes us all followers of one 'religion' or another.