And the Survey SAYS...
A few weeks ago we asked you, the Atlas Shrugged community, to fill out an anonymous online survey. Thousands of you responded and, while we will NEVER divulge any personally identifiable information about any of our members, following are some very interesting meta results.
Gulch, here's who we are...
- - -
Sex
29% Female
71% Male
- - -
Age
6% Under 30
26% 30-49
43% 50-65
23% Over 65
- - -
Marital Status
15% Single
4% Cohabitating
66% Married
10% Divorced
2% Widowed
- - -
Political Affiliation
2% Democrat
18% Independent
23% Libertarian
35% Republican
16% Tea Party
- - -
Voted in the 2012 Presidential Election
93% Voted
3% Did not vote
3% Not registered to Vote
- - -
Gulch, here's who we are...
- - -
Sex
29% Female
71% Male
- - -
Age
6% Under 30
26% 30-49
43% 50-65
23% Over 65
- - -
Marital Status
15% Single
4% Cohabitating
66% Married
10% Divorced
2% Widowed
- - -
Political Affiliation
2% Democrat
18% Independent
23% Libertarian
35% Republican
16% Tea Party
- - -
Voted in the 2012 Presidential Election
93% Voted
3% Did not vote
3% Not registered to Vote
- - -
Previous comments...
Jim Wright
Also, and this just may be because I come from Northern Virginia, an extremely liberal democratic area, but this one-sided, us-versus-them, judge-from-view type of mentality is exactly why republicans have a bad name and why younger people are leaning towards the democratic party
PS: I ignored this thread after the stats were posted. I'm very glad I revisited it tonight.
BambiB: I've enjoyed reading your posts here more than in any other topic in the Gulch!
You OWN this one ;-)
What was the Move States too?
As a long time Objectivist, I am totally in favor of doing what John Galt did, but I see nobody doing anything of the kind, except Ron Paul, perhaps, although he’s not one of us (unless it’s undercover). He is conducting his own Revolution, despite being shackled by being a Christian. However, he is fighting for much of what we are wishing for. But, “wishing will not make it so”.
I propose that we back Dr. Paul for the next two, or more, years, and then run an Objectivist for President in 2016! We need to get the story of Objectivism out to the world at large, it’s Metaphysics, it’s Epistemology, it’s Ethics, it’s Politics’, even it’s Esthetics. And do it as a “Crash Program”! We really don’t have a lot of time.
As our Bible what better book than Leonard Pickoff’s “Objectivism; the Philosophy of AYN RAND”? Her novels are important but only “for easy reading” along with lectures and speeches promoting Objectivism. Philosophers of Objectivism should be retained to write a series of (say) ten lectures (each?) which covered the basics of the philosophy, showing the average man/woman what it is and what it means to him/her. (Copies of the lectures should be made available.)
I have a strong belief in the average American that he/she would understand and respond, if it were explained to him/her in terms of its effectiveness and fairness and reasonableness, etc., etc. He/she is the juror on Howard Roark’s jury, or the average worker on the Taggert Transcontinental.
???
Jim Wright
"For the record, I shall repeat what I have said many times before: I do not join or endorse any political group or movement." AR
and after that, she ripped into Libertarians. lol
Objectivism is a philosophy, not a political party. The war of ideas will not be won through a midterm election
Jim
look at how the rest divide out. you can tell gulchers are a herd of cats :)
Republicans only have a little association with small government, but there is at least some talk there.
I do have a hard time seeing how one can be associated with both the democratic party and the a radian group. The two seem rather opposite from one and other to me.
Your comments betray a lack of understanding of science as great as the lack of understanding of Mormons by those who say, "The only reason to be a Mormon is to shtup multiple wives". The two are equally valid.
For openers, the greatest desire of most scientists is to discover something that no other scientist has yet revealed - and if it's something completely at odds with everything we thought we knew, so much the better. This is the absolute opposite of anyone in the clergy of any religion and in stark contrast to the desires of the devout. Sure, a lot of science is learned "using the same books" - but that's because it's not likely that the fundamentals will ever be overturned. 1+1=2. Fight that all you want, but you won't get far.
The major difference between science and religion is HOW people know things. Religionists read things in a book and "believe in their hearts" that it's true. They never think about it. They're never critical. They just accept it. Dissent is officially discouraged, and if your theory doesn't fit official dogma, at some point, you're just cast out - regardless of the evidence.
Scientists review (and perhaps repeat) experiments that explain aspects of the physical universe. A prime example of the difference between religion and science was the report a couple years ago that a project at CERN had detected neutrinos traveling faster than light. The commonly accepted science is that no physical object can travel faster than light - so there was a bit of an uproar. The general consensus was that IF it was true, it would upend much of what we thought we knew. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...
And yet, the scientific community embraced the challenge. They tried to replicate the results. They analyzed the project and they hoped to learn the TRUTH. No one was punished or cast out for challenging the accepted standard.
Compare that to what would have happened in any religious context. For centuries, anyone daring to counter the preachings of their church was labeled a "heretic". Many were torture, burned to death, crucified or cast out of their church. The Mormons aren't any different. If you stand up in church and make announcements that new evidence proves Joseph Smith was a con man, a horse thief and a liar, odds are, you WON'T be invited to discuss your heresy in a civil manner.
Where are religions' repeatable experiments? There are none. Where is the proof of religion? There is none. There are only stories. You cannot validate any religion by doing the experiments yourself.
Then there's the REAL appeal to ignorance: "Why do we have eyelashes? If you don't know, then science must be invalid and god must exist!" Hogwash! I can immediately think of one evolutionary advantage: The eyelashes are a "warning system" for the eye itself. Something touching the eyelash prompts one to blink, perhaps preserving the eye from damage. When did the first eyelashes evolve? I don't know. But I won't ask you to have faith that we will know some day, because it's possible we never will.
I'm not jousting with your straw man.
The fact that the "other side" keeps coming up with hair brain "proofs" does not mean you are correct. As an (admittedly imperfect) example, suppose the religionists attempted to prove that pi was equal to 2, then 15, then 56... you could easily prove them wrong. But that does not mean that pi is equal to whatever number you say it is. If you say pi is equal to 3, and successfully prove that pi is not equal to the infinite number of real numbers that exist between 4 and 5, you're just as wrong as they are! You have to PROVE your case, or it has no more validity than the pro-god arguments.
And that's my point. No one... Not the buddhists, or the christians or the shintoists, or the druids, or the atheists, or the satanists - have proven their case. None has evidence that is empirically better than the other. The most anyone can say - logically, rationally, honestly - is they do not know whether there is a god or not. My personal belief is there is no god. But I'm honest enough to say that belief is only a personal opinion.
And yes, I understand and generally accept the premise of Occam's Razor. But it's not an immutable law of the universe. Take classical physics. It's very simple. You have electrons and neutrons and protons whizzing around making up matter... until some goofball named Richard Feynman comes along and makes the entire thing a lot more complicated with stories about quarks - and not just quarks - up quarks, down quarks, strange quarks with color and spin and charm (oh MY!) Was the simpler explanation of classical physics correct? Yes. As far as it went. But the more you look at it, the more complex the question becomes.
We pretty much know everything there is to know about classical physics. But there are still some very critical question about quantum physics that remain unanswered. I submit that had we stopped with "the simplest" explanation, we would have missed the entire picture... and so it is with the "god" debate. The fact that all of your opponents are wrong is not proof that you are right. To think otherwise would be a logical fallacy that assumes that the set of positions so far advanced was in fact the universe of all possible positions. Until you've defeated every single version of "god" that can be proposed (my personal favorite is that "god" is a purple dinosaur who runs around singing, "I love you, you love me" - but who didn't have the foresight to get his book out before the other guys), you have NOT proven your case.
Let me make that even more clear: In order to prove there is NO god, you must prove that every single possible god construct is FALSE. Not just today's established religions. Not just belief sets that may have fallen into disfavor. Not just the individual personal belief sets of every person on the planet, or who has every lived in the history of the planet, but every conceivable (and perhaps even inconceivable) description of god that anyone (including life forms on other planets, or in other universes) might have of god, including the idea that "god" may simply have created our universe with no more concern than someone tossing an apple core out the window of a moving car - that the seeds sprouted and we now enjoy the benefits of what (to god) was inconsequential act of no importance.
Please check out Mr. Locke on your choice of argument:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_fr...
PRECISELY.
Science (or religion for that matter) presents no evidence for or against the existence of god. Therefore, we must withhold judgment - which is what agnostics do. Another way of saying that is, "There's not enough evidence, so I don't know."
Irving Copi, in his book "Informal Logic" argued that there are circumstances where it can be assumed that if something exists or something occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by researchers who are qualified and knowledgeable. In those cases, it is perfectly legitimate to state that the absence of proof of the existence or occurrence is positive proof of the non-occurrence. Therefore, since no biologist or aircraft pilot or naturalist has ever observed a reindeer flying about, denying the potential of flying reindeer is a legitimate deduction.
At the same time, James Randi's assertion that "you cannot prove a negative" slaps both of them in the face. Neither the Sagan/Rees or the Copi statements can be true in Randi's paradigm. His assertion is that unless every single reindeer on the planet has been personally checked and proven incapable of flight, it is never a legitimate claim to say a flying reindeer does not exist. This is the train of thought BambiB used above -- unless every single potential construct of anything resembling a god has been tested and found to fail, it cannot be asserted that there is no god.
All three have very limited application, though. In probability theory, for instance, the Sagan/Rees comment is false. If you are playing cards, just because you have not seen the ace of spades does not mean it has not been played.
In criminal justice, just because there were no witnesses to an event does not mean the event did not happen. It is, however, quite possible to "prove" something did NOT happen. Thus all three are potentially wrong.
In medical research, just because no patients had a particular reaction does not mean that reaction does not mean it is not a potential risk. It can, however, be proven that a particular regimen will not perform, thus Randi's assertion is false.
And, finally, when it comes to deity, there is, by definition, a personal aspect to the belief. If one chooses to not believe, there is no proof which will be persuasive. If they choose to believe, there is no proof which can be dissuasive. Logic fails where faith abounds.
Correct. In point of fact, if you want to prove there's no such thing as flying reindeer, it does not suffice to say, "no one has seen one".
And yes, if researchers are able to limit the universe of possibilities, eliminating each element in that universe DOES prove non-existence... within that universe of possibilities.
The "proof" there are no flying reindeer does not hold - unless you can prove that if flying reindeer did exist, they MUST have been seen by biologists, aircraft pilots or naturalists.
More to the point, is this a real species? http://english.people.com.cn/mediafile/2... How about this: http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf...
Oh wait, prior to 2008, neither species had been observed by a biologist, aircraft pilot or naturalist. But they both been discovered since. Along with dozens of other species. So the "no one has seen one" argument doesn't... "fly".
Regards the "Ace of Spades", assuming a fair deck, the universe of all possibilities is KNOWN. If someone could define 52 possible varieties of god, then it would likely be possible to prove (or disprove) the existence of god... that is if testable hypotheses are possible.
In criminal justice, it's possible to prove something did NOT happen by proving a mutually-exclusive event DID happen. "My client cannot be guilty of a murder at midnight on New Years in Germany because he was in an interview on television in Times Square". Of course, this does not address the "absence of evidence" comment.
In the medical case, the universe of possible reactions is not known. Therefore, the absence of evidence (in a subset of the population) is not (conclusive) evidence of absence. It may tend to make the likelihood of reactions more or less likely (the same as flying reindeer).
Regards the existence/absence of a diety - it is ENTIRELY a personal belief - unsupported by objective evidence.
"Logic fails where faith abounds." is equivalent to "faith is illogical".
Doesn't look that way to me. Any more than anti-abortion Conservative Republicans are "anecdotal."
My observations lead me to a fair generalization that those are truths.
ETA: I did have a link; I actually had two. The second went to error, and the first magically became a pro-life favorable link. I give up. Something is screwy here. My fist article was about the Republican candidate in Indiana in 2010 who lost Tea Party backing because he was not pro-life. He was blasted at a Tea Party rally by the pro-life faction. But in all fairness, we are too large of a country to all sit down at the same table.
thanks.
Some religious influence tries to co-op tea party for a religious agenda. that is not the original grass roots movement of tea party. There is much we can agree on.
The second biggest problem is related to the first: The top-down power structure that has the Feral government making decisions for every community in the Nation. I see this as a direct (and indirect) result of the Supreme's decision in Wickard v. Filburn where they basically decided that every action that "affects" interstate commerce, regardless of how tangential or trivial the effect, is itself "interstate commerce" and subject to congressional control. Whether you have sex with your wife is, under this definition, "interstate commerce" because you may or may not have a child who will someday buy or sell or do something that will affect interstate commerce.
To resolve a large portion of this Country's woes, the first step should be to hold politicians accountable (as in, "send the crooks to prison"). The second step should be to cut the Federal government back to its Constitutional roots - that is, slash its budget by 85%-95%. If a power is not explicitly granted by the Constitution, it is not a legitimate power of the Feral government.
and you still haven't told me how you can be so hot on the abortion issue and totally ignore how Obamacare owns your body now.
We have a mixed bag here. All but some of the trolls value parts if not the whole philosophy; but few are truly doctrinaire. Some accept all except the abortion position and/or the atheism. We are generally glad to have them here regardless as they examine their premises they may or may not change their opinions; yet it is of benefit for all exposed to the discussion.
The tea party is not monolithic either. The common thread is the desire for a limited government that does not take from the producers that which is their property.
I do feel that some of your statements are generalizations. For instance, are all pro-life people condescending? I believe that would be most difficult to quantify and prove. Even if so, it would not be a convincing argument. It would be an ad-hominem/generalization and no more persuasive than condescension. Your comment regarding the tea partiers and their principles also leave me wondering. I see many who are pro-life, but I would call it a generalization to apply it as common principle or a “platform” of such a diverse group. Nor would I call them all racists because the MSM will go to great lengths to find the one idiot with an offensive sign to broadcast.
If you expect everyone on this board to be doctrinaire, then this would indeed be a dull place to be since there would be no need for discussion. Everyone would think the same anyway. Some of us are still developing our philosophy while others are firm in our beliefs. Such is the nature of a public forum.
Please keep expressing and supporting your positions with rational arguments and your argument will be won in the eyes of import.
I have enjoyed the discussion.
Respectfully,
O.A.
I look forward to your commentary.
A day is a waste if I learn nothing new.
You too!
O.A.
In truth, I am often surprised at how entire groups of people seem to forget what their goals are - and how easily sidetracked they are. There seems to be nowhere, except among the enemies of freedom - any single-minded drive towards... anything.
Then a demonstration of the two systems: The scientists can predict and demonstrate while the religious types could show how their beliefs operate by praying a miracle into being.
If you tolerate stupidity, you get more of it.