The details of different sects of Christianity are irrelevant to rejecting it. They are all Christianity and share the same essential characteristics that are wrong and destructive. That is not a "fallacy of association". They are associated by their own essentials.

Authority matters to Christians. Your assertion was that the Catholic church is representative of all Christians and I was correcting that. That's ALL. You were equating all religions based on Christianity and I was pointing out that that is a fallacy of association. I wasn't advocating for any Christian faith, just pointing out that just because one of them embraces socialist leaders is not justification to lump all of them in. Good Grief. You're not even reading what I'm writing.

"any belief/faith system without a means to prove or disprove it, is a path to a wasted life and is of absolutely no credibility or merit for a properly working mind to pay attention to"

I agree. Can you understand that? I AGREE!

You claim that authority matters and I disagree. If you're foolish enough to accept someone else's assertion of authority, I guess you deserve the problems you seem to have understanding Objectivism.

As to Christian religions, there is one Christian religion, there are as you say hundreds of sects and even cults based on that one religion. But it really doesn't matter, any belief/faith system without a means to prove or disprove it, is a path to a wasted life and is of absolutely no credibility or merit for a properly working mind to pay attention to, other than to reject it and the person espousing such as a person not worth listening to.

As to equating Libertarians with Objectivists, there is no overlap of principles. Libertarians don't seem to have any solid principles other than non-aggression which is probably closer to pacifism than anything else. They as well as christians, operated based on belief in and faith that all people would want to live as they do, if just shown the way.

Your arguments are simply nonsense and I'm done reading them.

Important?...to understand that beliefs, or the acceptance of ideas, which contradict existence are beyond validation and have authority over nothing.

Existence can't be proven, it just is, regardless of any presentation.


http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/pri...

"It is implicit in any awareness, but it has to be grasped conceptually and held as an absolute."

"You don't accept his authority, why? Because you're a different sect/cult?"

Yes. Only Catholics view the Pope as authoritative. No other Christian sect recognizes him as anything more than a political figure.

For example, if you travel to Portland, you are subject to the Portland mayor and police - not the LA versions. Same difference: each sect is equivalent in this example to its own city.

I was not advocating for the Pope, just trying to clarify that there are hundreds of Christian religions that should not get lumped in just because the Catholic Church's leader becomes a socialist. It doesn't matter whether one ascribes to religion or not, it is important to recognize that there are critical differences that separate the various faiths from one another because their individual principles and doctrines differ. To lump them all in together is like equating libertarians with Objectivists - there is some overlap of principles, but some distinct differences that separate them.

I would appreciate then if you would clarify for me.

Which is more important: the belief or the source of the belief?

What you said indicated to me that you placed the origin of the belief of higher importance than the belief itself and I wanted to make sure I wasn't reading you incorrectly.

To me, the principle validates and proves the authority of the person presenting it, not the other way around.

What I wrote was the opposite of an appeal to authority. That fallacy illustrates the flaws found in many beliefs. I didn't propose that anyone accept anything because someone said it.

The acceptance of an idea which has no basis in existence, as knowledge, because it is attributed to 'God', a vision, a dream, an infallible pope, or any other floating abstraction is making a similar error.

I do not "advocate for a cessation of consciousness". Your comments are increasingly looney and anyone can reject them despite a handful of religious trolls cheering for your nonsense. Religious wishful thinking demanding immortality in the name of faith in "thought experiments" despite all evidence to the contrary is your problem. This is a forum for Ayn Rand's philosophy of reason. You can't buy turning it into it's opposite.

You said in a blanket statement that you respect the Pope, which is praise. You said nothing about his being a "decent person" and nothing separating him from his role as pope. It is clear to the rest of us why he deserves no respect in the essence of his behavior, as Ayn Rand pointed out.

Your lumping Objectivism with fascism is irrational and dishonest. Christian religious sects are all varieties of the Christian religion based on faith in and duty to a supernatural god. They agree in essentials and are all rejected because of what they are in essence. Variations in dogma between competing sects, no matter their being at each others throats over nonsense claimed to be "diametrically opposed", is irrelevant; differences over what you have faith in are arbitrary and of no concern to the rational.

This is a forum for Ayn Rand's philosophy of reason, not for you to "exercise" your mind on religion and personally smear and misrepresent those who reject your obnoxious, inappropriate posts. You know very well the difference between "every other person who is not an atheist" and your militant proselytizing. The only "value" to some of your earlier posts on this topic has been to show how easily they are refuted. Pushing faith and religion has no value especially on an Ayn Rand forum. Don't push your luck. Your militant appeals to religion as you misrepresent Ayn Rand are beyond the standards of rational discussion and the purpose of this forum.

Independent thought is not a "crime" and no one has ever told you to "religiously" or otherwise "hang on every word written by Ayn Rand and stop thinking after that". Your spewing dishonest crap like that means you don't belong here or in any civil discussion.

You are a religionist in fundamental contradiction with Ayn Rand's philosophy of reason that is the purpose of this forum. You can believe whatever you want to by any arbitrary means of "weighing evidence" you feel like, but persistently evangelizing faith while misrepresenting Ayn Rand, as well as others here, does not belong here and you know it.

I wonder if Pop's Mercedes limousine has air conditioning.

It did seem that his alliance co-opting the viros to retrogress to the Christian asceticism of St. Francis of Assisi by endorsing carbon credits was an attempt to get back into the Indulgences racket -- but the ideology prevailed (Marx was wrong again): *Common Home" denounces the "carbon credit" scheme for not being enough -- they demand wallowing in poverty and the retraction of the Industrial Revolution as an absolute, with no loopholes for industry buying its way out of poverty in the shakedown.

You don't accept his authority, why? Because you're a different sect/cult? Or because he's the epitome of blithering idiocy claiming to be guided by some ruler of some spiritual realm, not any different from some backwoods hoodoo preacher on TV claiming the same ruler of the same spiritual realm told him to preach the word and wanting your money so he could buy a plane to spread the word farther, or some story about an ascetic, wandering preacher thinking he's the son of the same ruler of the same spiritual realm here to give you immortality, or for that fact any other schizophrenic claiming the voice of god tells him what to do? It's all nonsense.

For myself, I accept NO authority. I am a free, individual with a mind that works, living in reality, and I have all I need within myself required to make my way through this life without a bunch of nonsense getting in my way.

What I said was that I could respect John Paul because he honestly appeared to be a decent person. And yes, the sect does matter. If one is not a Catholic, one does not hold Catholicism to be representative of Christianity's true nature nor authoritative. One would not allow a fascist to pretend to speak for Objectivism any more than a Methodist would allow a Catholic Pope to pretend to speak for them!

"The Catholic Church formulated Christian dogma for centuries. It is representative of Christianity in all fundamentals, including its ascetic, other-worldiness, and duty to sacrifice."

"This is why you fail." - Yoda.

You can not separate in your mind one set of beliefs from any other. You just lump them all into the same category irrespective of their competing and often diametrically opposed views on various matters. You fallaciously assert that A = B = C ad infinitum. You more closely represent the very point I make than you could possible know. And yet you do not know it.

No, I don't misunderstand, I disagree. You seem to have this idea that anyone who participates in this board should religiously hang on every word written by Rand and stop thinking after that. That seems pretty silly to me. I take it to thought, then decide for myself by weighing all the evidence at hand.

Further, I have read Piekoff's work "Objectivism". And again, I take what is said and weigh it against my experience and my knowledge and come to my own conclusions. Independent thought should not be such a crime to an Objectivist.

People can be bad for none or perfect. That includes church-goers.
God is good.
Jesus is the door to salvation.
I did not give you that -1 = 0 by the way (as seen at the moment).

Then why don't you request to have me banned? If I have provided so little value to this community, then ask for it. Ask for every single person who is not an atheist to be summarily dismissed.

You miss the point of these forums entirely. They are to discuss possibilities. They are to exercise the mind. They are to invent and to explore - not mindlessly parrot with a zeal that you claim only possible of the "religious".

You choose to advocate for a cessation of consciousness. I choose not to. Which is more rational: to belief in self-dissolution or to believe in self-preservation?

I do ignore you, because you refuse to contemplate the alternatives. You aren't even willing to have an honest thought experiment on the matter and so must resort to serially down-voting my every post simply out of spite. It is wholly unbecoming. One can disagree amiably without being so thoroughly disagreeable, and I will warn you one last time to amend your ways or as a paying member I will seek your censure.

You have not broken from the evil of the church as you claim to by swapping sects. Any rational person is capable of recognizing and denouncing the evil of faith in the supernatural and its destruction of human life.

No, his alleged "authority" does not matter. His claims to infallible faith only further illustrate the absurdity.

Your mangled reformulations show again that you don't understand Ayn Rand's philosophy. For the basics read her "Faith and Force". For the philosophy listen to Leonard Peikoff's lecture course on Objectivism and the history of Western philosophy, and read Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. They will disabuse you of many of your confusions to the extent they are honest.

Atheism does not "dictate" anything. It rejects the arbitrary as cognitively worthless.

Every mystic faith does not have to be examined in detail to know to reject faith in the supernatural for what it is.

Your claimed history of Ayn Rand's thought process in rejecting religion is false. You are misrepresenting her. You don't dictate what she should have said to be "safe" on behalf of your religion. No "safety" is required in rejecting your irrationalism, whose obnoxious repetition does not belong on this site.

This has been explained to you many times and you continue to ignore it. Ignorance of what is not known does mean you get to tell us what it might be, along with speculations of supernatural "powers". When someone utters an arbitrary assertion on faith it is cognitively meaningless and in logic properly rejected out of hand as not to be taken seriously in any form. Atheism means rejecting belief in the supernatural. Agnosticism, as you have just illustrated, means you aren't sure whether or not to embrace the arbitrary. That is not rational.

You just praised the Pope and now pretend he doesn't matter because it's a different sect. Ayn Rand did not reject religion because of the Catholic Church. She rejected it because it is region.

The Catholic Church formulated Christian dogma for centuries. It is representative of Christianity in all fundamentals, including its ascetic, other-worldiness, and duty to sacrifice.

Your religious wars between competing sects are irrelevant, and so is your constant proselytizing for religion and claims that Ayn Rand was "mistaken" for rejecting it. Religious faith is fundamentally antagonistic to a philosophy of reason and egoism and there is no excuse for your obnoxious evangelizing on an Ayn Rand site.

"The source of the beliefs is critical; the "values, doctrines, and merits" are window dressing after you've moved in."

If I've read you correctly, what you are actually saying is that the source of the value is more important than the value itself. I can't have read that correctly because that is the fallacy of appeal to authority. That is the kind of logic that says since so-and-so said A, that A is correct solely because I believe in A's authority. I disagree with this idea and would suggest that it is the other way around entirely - that it is the idea that gives merit and authority to the individual. It is precisely the values, doctrines and merits of a given philosophy that lend credence to its originator! As such we should avoid the trap of appeal to authority by focusing not on who said it, but on the position itself. This further helps us avoid the trap of prejudice as well by uncoupling our preconceptions about the source itself.

"In this case, you are mistaking logical analysis for conflation. Rand did not imply, "that intelligence and existence are primary." Quite differently, she wrote that "existence exists, i.e., that the universe exists independent of consciousness". This is a "crucial distinction" between what goes on inside and outside your head."

I am not quite sure what your assertion is here. I was restating using your own words. I used intelligence to indicate consciousness separate and apart from the rest of existence. But without consciousness/intelligence, there is no perception of existence separate from the consciousness itself. Thus both must exist for anything to be considered at all. Existence without a consciousness to perceive it precludes this conversation, rendering it null and void.

"Accepting beliefs attempts to shortcut our ability to identify things that exist by replacing knowledge with thoughts and notions not anchored in reality. Ideas, based on any variant of Existence being created by something outside of Existence, will undercut your ability to understand everything...and that would be hell."

Not sure what you're trying to say here either. I'm familiar with the statements, just not sure where you are trying to go with them with respect to the sub-thread. I'd appreciate an explanation.