I view her contributions as uniquely clear in the
process of learning how humans should live on
earth, and among one another. . she is the only
person who has ever explained and demonstrated
capitalism -- a societal virtue which we have never
tried. . we should. -- j

right back at'cha! . and Happy Hanukkah, Happy
Kwanzaa, Happy Festivus and rejoice all ye who
are here for another year!!! -- j

Then don't ever say, "By Jimminy!"...

Jan

Then everyone is religious and believes in God. As I mentioned, this runs counter to the generally accepted definition. Use of the term in such a way will undoubtedly induce confusion and miscommunication. You might want to think about using or inventing another term to describe the phenomenon you are trying to delineate.

I can only be general in my comment here as my retorical skills are no as finely honed as I would like but... as a former president famously said.."I depends what your definition of.......is" what I mean by this is, that a definition of God in general can mean something intangible and larger than oneself and all powerful and that certainly is a factor in all of these things which I have labeled as religions. In communism you have the state, and environmentalism you have "Mother Nature" for certain liberals at one time there was the "vast right wing conspiracy." I submit that anything that someone can seize upon which is nebulous all powerful and invisible can be "God"

I see your point and it is reasonably made, however the the particular belief systems I presented as religions, are more often than not devoid of reason or any actual scientific analsys.

I love her so much-
she never ceases to inspire!
Happy Xmas to all- and Happy Festivus for the rest of us too.

You apparently have a very broad definition of "religion" that does not include as an element a belief in God. That runs counter to the dictionary and the generally accepted use of the term. Could you set forth and defend your idiosyncratic use of "religion"?

Hmm lets see, I could claim senior moment, but that would not be true. Honestly, its because I do my best to not let that social fracture line bring down my enjoyment of the Gulch.

Happy Holidays to you and yours Khalling.

Whichever greeting you prefer to eveyone in the Gulch.

Lets all enjoy the holidays in good will.

Religion is a primitive form of philosophy. It is distinguished from reason and a philosophy for life on earth. It is not true that all so called "belief systems" are religion.

how could you have missed flanap's lectern banging? Merry Christmas to you Technocracy! Merry Christmas flanap!

"Merry Christmas" is much more and better than just being civil or good manners. It's a good, national holiday which can be celebrated by whatever people have in common, not a relativist endorsement of a religious sect.

I'm going to be really selfish this afternoon.
I'll act like Scrooge did on Christmas Day.
There are four little kinfolk kids I want to see smile as they open their presents.

I really enjoyed your post. It was well reasoned..particularly the statement......."I cannot make anyone change their mind, and the existence of God can be denied; however, not extinguished from man's thinking.".......You went on to state....."The most convincing proof of this is the conviction that some thought processes in life are right and some are wrong".......The people among us that puport to have no religion are always moralizing to us about what we ought to be doing for our fellow man when in point of fact they are often trying to tell those of us with "means" what we ought to for "them". As such they are really looters in the guise of being "sefless" Yo finally went on to make the point that....."A society cannot exist without absolutes and the difficulty that many on this forum have with what they see going on and want to "Go Gulch" is because there are absolutes that you cannot deny, set in place by institutions God has established from His creation of man" ....... I think you could actually substitute the word "individual" for society. The anti religious amongst us wish to believe thay they actually have no religion...but in point of fact they do. Communism, environmentalism and atheism are all belief sytems that qualify as religions. Other religions that I could point to would be anti americanism, anti capitalism and race victimism.

It is called courtesy. That little social lubricant that becomes rarer by the day. Which is one of the little things that contributes to the rampant rudeness and general nastiness in society today.

I was not the one that pointed you down by the way. I wonder if you down voted mine.

Not sure what you mean or what it has to do with the topic of the post. Here is a link to the full context of awebb's quote: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/christ...

Considering your initial offended post you appeared to be on the Atheist side. If That is a mistaken assumption on my point, I apologize.

Your chip definition works for this discussion.
Your initial post in here was flinging an adamant position in the community's face.

Was your intent to posit her position as a big "A" Atheist, rather than a little "a" atheist? If so, that is not how the post reads. It reads more as an Atheist deliberately taking offense where none was intended.

Big "A" atheists by my definition are the ones that seize offense at any mention of God, or anything associated with same. For example manger scenes, ten commandments, etc. Little "a" atheists would be the tolerant, let people believe what they want ones.

Think of this like Ayn's interview with tom Snyder. He said God Bless you, and Ayn said she liked that expression because it meant "of the highest order".

Your proselytizing religious objective does not belong here and is an obnoxious intrusion. The original post has it right. You even ruin the happiness and celebration of the Christmas holidays.

Is the philosophy of Ayn Rand a 'all or nothing at all ' philosophy?

In your case the chip of your Atheism, in the other side's case the chip of their Theism.