Arguing with someone promoting religion on faith is indeed pointless. There are no standards or criteria when one side makes arbitrary pronouncements based on what he calls "faith".

Nor is this a matter of having an "open mind". "He who has an open mind quickly has it filled with garbage." I have an _active_ mind, open to new ideas and rational explanation, not to the arbitrary and not to the constant repetition of variations on old fallacies promoted with an alleged requirement to be "open" to them without regard to prior knowledge.

This is a positive point of view, not "atheism", which is only a rejection of belief in the supernatural and not a positive statement of any position. Whatever atheists you talk to and lump together, the atheism itself tells you nothing about anyone's philosophy or the degree of activity of anyone else's mind. Accusing someone of being "closed" for rejecting nonsense, claimed to be based on talking to "atheists", is not a justification for dismissal of the rejection.

You can entertain any idea you wish for the purpose of fiction, but even in that there are standards to make your stories coherent and plausible enough to illustrate a theme. If you mean non-fiction by "matters not settled", there is always advancement in the frontiers of knowledge, especially in science. The need for creative thought does not imply openness to anything and everything. Science is not fiction.

The Framers did not just "choose" the word "inalienable" for no conceptual reason beyond politics, and they didn't just "shrewdly put" certain rights above the "ability of men to alter" as a political move to try to head them off by calling rights "inalienable". They identified the fact that rights are inalienable by our nature as human beings and that this fact precedes concepts of government: As men of the Enlightenment emphasizing reason and individualism they understood that man's nature requires him to be free in order to live in accordance with his own thinking and choices, and that therefore government should accordingly be limited. "Inalianable" is philosophical, and means by our nature, not either shrewdly political or theological.

They knew that this was man's nature regardless of how that nature came to be over history. Their reference to 'endowed by a creator' referred briefly and in general to a permanent endowment however it was created, what our characteristics and moral rights are permanently by our nature, regardless of how they got that way. It did not mean a Christian god. It was an application of their individualist outlook to politics made in a political statement, not theology. 'Creator' was vaguely deist in an era of pre-evolutionary science which they could not have known about; they had no idea how or by what mechanism we became what we are, nor was or is that relevant to what they needed to do based on what they knew. It was a lot deeper than just being either "shrewd" or religious dogmatists.

I reject faith because human reasoning is not infallible, it requires correct methods to validate one's ideas. There is no evidence whatsoever of some '6th sense' giving infallible knowledge bypassing the necessity of observation and logical thought based on it. I reject the arbitrary and all claims to "faith" as a source of valid knowledge.

There is no sixth sense bypassing the other five, but there is a wealth of knowledge about the human capacity for gullibility, imagination and lack of objectivity. There are no "experiences" of contradictory "miracles", only people who interpret whatever bizarre notions that go through their minds as supernatural, contradicting everything that is known. Fantasy is not a tool of cognition.

I do not naively "believe" whatever someone calling himself a "scientist" says, with no explanation or understanding. That is your approach, which you falsely attribute to others because you know no other. I distinguish between bald bizarre and contradictory assertions, versus understanding the classical experiments and the conceptual and mathematical explanations of physics. I put a lot of effort into understanding and connecting all knowledge to ultimate observation, taking care to identify the facts that give rise to the hierarchy of concepts and principles. I know what the source of my knowledge is, retaining the distinction between what I have replicated first hand and what is reported by scientists who make and duplicate observations, committed to rational scientific method reproducible by others as opposed to 'reporting miracles'.

I don't believe in "atoms" or anything else only because someone "told me they exist" so "take it on faith", with no explanation of how they discovered it and why they think so or who else accepts it for what rational reasons. Science represents objectivity in method, not mental authoritarianism to be taken on faith. Modern physics texts are not sacred texts repeating myths and legends passed down from wandering primitives in the desert thousands of years ago. Those who cannot make the distinction or understand the explanations means that they have no rational claim themselves to believe in atoms, gravity and photons, and that as a trafficker in faith and the arbitrary that they have no credibility on anything as they nihilistically demean science as no better than themselves.

Newton certainly spent a lot of time thinking about how such a well-constructed universe could exist. You may consider that time squandered. He did not. It was the motivation behind his desire to study physics, as was the case with several of the Renaissance astronomers, some of whom the Catholic Church squelched (most notably Galileo).

I thought you would give a few specific objective examples to prove your claim. Not direct me to some non specific location(s) to search for myself, in some collective assortment of random opinions, all those many alleged people who you say believe that everything Ayn Rand ever said was the absolute truth.

Please do

Brat has said that he is "not a Randian" but "appreciates" some of her arguments for "political freedom and the free market". He is not a "devotee of AR and the ARI". There is no evidence that he believes your "theistic Objectivism" nonsense, and if he or anyone else does it still remains a contradiction and not a kind of Objectivism. There is no such thing as "theistic Objectivism", only religionists who contradict Ayn Rand's philosophy while stealing part of it and expropriating the name, calling the resulting mish-mash nonsensical "theistic Objectivism". That does not make the mish mash a kind of "Objectivism". Believe whatever you want, but at least have the honesty to disassociate it from Ayn Rand.

No, you cannot. But more fundamentally your assertion is irrelevant as you continue to dodge the discussion with diversions projecting your own mentality of thinking onto others.

No one said Ayn Rand was infallible or that "AR said so, so it must automatically be the final 'truth'". Drop the strawman arguments projecting your own psychology onto others.

AJAshinoff asked "how believing in a deity is not an Objective pursuit and cannot co-exist with Rand's philosophy?" and was given an answer, which neither of you have yet to acknowledge, let alone discuss. The answer requires knowing what Ayn Rand's philosophy is and her explanations for it. Your religious pronouncements contradict it.

Neither you nor anyone else has given "evidence" of a supernatural being. Existence is not "evidence" of the supernatural. The religious 'arguments' have for centuries ranged from overt mysticism to a long history in the Catholic orthodoxy of rationalistic fallacies regarding reason as a handmaiden to faith. The arguments are now used as classic examples of logical fallacies.

No "proof" of non-existence is required to reject unsubstantiated assertions, which is all atheism is: the rejection of a belief in a god.

Newton squandered most of his life speculating about religion (and alchemy), but kept that mentality separate from his physics.

I would add that those twelve men writing down their eyewitness accounts of what they saw as they understood them is equal to believing a scientist who claims something you will never understand or witness yourself (aka you are going on faith).

Yet, no one is worshiping Gilgamesh.

We are TOLD there are satellites out there (and we're told the Navy spends $500 on a toilet) and TOLD that they are finding planets that we will never set foot on. We are TOLD...and yet there are those who believe this is factual despite never seeing or experiencing them first hand.

I wasn't grasping at anything I was pointing out the fact in the existence of the person. Anything supernatural done is still a matter of eyewitness testimony and faith. Faith is personal choice - a selfish one at that made for rational reasons, no?

O-k-a-y.

Nothing I said was false, I think you're in denial particularly when it comes to the historical context of inalienable rights.

Arguing this is pointless, I've learned that atheists are some of the most closed-minded folks I've ever encountered. I'm not a very religious person, btw.

Writing sci-fi and simply thinking things through I've learned that its best to entertain a wide variety of ideas particularly when matters aren't settled (and they aren't).

I respect your position. I do not remotely agree with it.

Yep. Some folks don't need the faith in God to behave themselves, some do. Not all "human beans" are on the same path to whatever, thus the diversity of belief practices, or none at all. As long as they refrain from attempting to force their opinions on anyone, including the Gulch folks, Its cool with me. And I welcome their contributions to the discussions here, makes me think harder, and continue to learn.

The Bible is a book of thought. It's also history. It's also ethics and politics.

It's not about subtracting reality, it's about removing your pre-conceived notions.
Extrapolation is the ability to take existing thoughts and glean meaning from the patterns.
Abstraction is to use those patterns to see the future.

Show me someone who believes that everything Ayn Rand said ever said or did was right and I'll show you someone who is NOT an Objectivist.