I get your point. But come on don't be like that, i said I agree with most disagreed with a few points, I'm not doing it because I believe I have to. There are people I look up to and respect, but also have different opinions from. Its a fact of life everyone gets some things wrong. I do too

if we let him rest maybe he will go away.

In addition to "reading and research" you should also understand what Ayn Rand meant by what she said and her reasons for it.

Neither your ideas being the same nor different than hers says anything about thinking for yourself versus blindly accepting what you read from her or anywhere else. It depends on whether or not you are in fact understanding and thinking. Disagreeing could just as well mean that one blindly accepts or has been manipulated by what someone _else_ said.

"Disagreeing" with someone is not a sign of independence. Believing you have to disagree in order to be independent is just as dependent on what someone else says as believing you have to agree.

I don't think he argues for the sake of arguing. He is a repetitious, annoying religious zealot. Jehovah's Witnesses don't argue for the sake of argument either.

"A is A" seems to be some kind of dogmatic slogan for him, open to sanctioning any arbitrary assertion he wants. His bizarre statement, "You cannot state that one form of moral beliefs is one thing and another is something else, as some are very fond of stating: A=A", is false. "A is A" does not mean that "one thing" and "another" must be the same whenever he wants them to be.

any other human beings ideas and beliefs should only be a jumping off point for you to form your own beliefs, ideas and world view. People tend to migrate toward" another" and then make a religion out of it

I don't know if you were responding to me (I have never said I am not an Objectivist) and I don't see much to quarrel with in your post except your definition of your "moral code" which seems to lack much in the way of content. Hitler could agree with it.

You guess wrong. I believe both Buddhism and Taoism assume a force outside this world. If I'm wrong then to whom or what are all those adherents praying?

Many years ago I read about Budhism and came to my own conclusion - that it was a philosophy and not a religion. Sure, it's packaged and churched up, but it didn't seem like a religion to me. Just one dummy's take on it.

I support everyone's right to pick and choose.

Then I guess you don't consider Buddhism or Taoism to be religions either?

Assumptions of causality (the "post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy) are for mystics, too. Peikoff's "Ominous Parallels" is a great example of exactly that.

Depends on how rational the selfish person is. I'd like to see Ringer's "Looking Out For #1" taught as part of Objectivism.

"selfishness" i.e. qualified by elaborating as "Rational Self Interest"

Well stated!

ewv,
thank you for your response. Robbie is just argumentative for the sake of being argumentative. He will not go away regardless of how often you present reality to him. he has yet to understand that A is A.

Equating philosophy = religion is a false equivalence. Philosophy tries to discern underlying principles upon which reality is based; religion tries to guess at a series of guidelines that will produce a positive outcome in a non-real scenario (ie 'go to heaven'). There is no advantage in philosophy not changing as our understanding of reality improves. There is a compelling reason for a religion that thinks it has found a Truth to not change it.

That being said, one of my strongest complaints against Objectivists and Randists is that they begin to treat philosophy as religion. I have even been told that I cannot 'pick and choose' amongst what Rand said with respect to what I want to represent as my philosophy.

Jan

The Brandy of Objectivism. :)

It is also true that that we cannot be expert in everything. We might make assumptions that when we run up against areas of disagreement the expert has looked in depth at that area and may have more facts than we have or spent more time logically addressing the issue.

Hello, B,

Again, I think, there is a confusion here because of imprecise terminology being used.

Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism etc. are religions, not philosophies and not ethics theories. There are philosophical aspects and ethics issues in them. But, without a doubt, their bases are faith. Faith is by definition not a rational proposition.

As I pointed here recently in a different context, I have a moral code, not based on a specific philosophy or on a specific religion. It is: nobody has the right to DECIDE what is good for me AND I AM responsible for ALL my actions. You can advise me, but I am the final authority.

I vigorously disagree that none of the religions or of the philosophies is better or worse, just different. In my opinion, there are huge differences in goodness or badness among both religions and philosophies. The beauty of this life is that I am entitled to that judgment. I learned long time ago that is nearly impossible to reason about religion with religious people. Here, among us Objectivist (which you said you are not), we can analyze and analyze forever the details of goodness or badness of religions and philosophies and "measure" them on some kind of "scale". Still, we would in the end part, each with our own opinions, perhaps somewhat improved, but friends as before.

Do you see the differences I am trying so quickly to describe?

By the way, this whole subject is the reason why I recently posted the little piece about the quote from Augustine of Hippo. I am surprised how little rational reaction I provoked. You only pointed out that clean of heart does not mean free of sin. That is only a tiny side issue.

Friends as before (I hope)!

I will assume you are not joking. A Christian is an altruist who believes God commands him/her to sacrifice themselves to others (even as Christ supposedly did for all of us). An Objectivist rejects this notion and believes that man should live for himself selfishly and, further, that altruism is inherently evil and contrary to man's nature.

Although I do agree with her on a lot of things I do disagree with her on some I can see their point. Just because ayn rand said it does not automatically make it true, you should read and research and discover your own opinions. If some of those are different than hers good for you! That means you are thinking for yourself and not blindly accepting everything you read as truth.

It isn't true because she said it. It's true for all the reasons that have been given many times and which you continue to ignore. If you cannot contain your hatred for Ayn Rand's philosophy and cannot stop your misrepresentations and personal smears then go somewhere else. It doesn't belong on this forum.

Ayn Rand has been the biggest influence on me, because she saved me so much time and effort in creating a rational worldview. I'll love her forever.