I've always liked Albert Einstein's quote about matter: "Concerning matter, we have all been wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter."

Bohr and Tesla made similar comments. And Einstein went further to state that (paraphrased) 'Energy can neither be destroyed or created'.

So, quite possibly the greatest mind(s) of the 19th and 20th century, kind of answers your question about the applicability of Objective philosophy to the issue of life. And I'll note, (though I have serious questions about the recent report of gravity wave detection), every prediction of Einstein's Relativity and Special Relativity has passed the test of observable proof.

j, Rand had extremely strong opinions about words. Words have meanings (definitions) "Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense against the chaos of mental disintegration." So to state that Rand 'redefined atheism' is a stretch, anymore than she redefined 'selfishness' or 'altruism' or 'free market capitalism'. Further, to require proof of a negative or null set is a juvenile response to assessment of an uncomfortable reality. It's like the never ending response of a child to an answer or description of __Why"". Rand went further to accept the definition of God as determined by theologians, "God....a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive."

And your posed "most important philosophical question" of "From whence have we come?" ignores the most basic and powerful principle of Objective Philosophy--Existence Exists and A=A, and leads you to search for answers to your question, from a being (or those that claim, with no objective or factual proof, that they are his prophets to whom God spoke and explained) that by definition "is beyond man's power to conceive". So you've placed yourself in a contradiction of premises that you can never resolve or escape from, much as the age old 'Which came first, the chicken or the egg?'.

I'll go further and question your 'agreement' that 'the big bang' happened and brought 'existence to existence'. A theory that has never matched with observational evidence and has required continuous adjustments to fit and the additions of more godlike answers like 'Dark Energy and Dark Matter' and 'instantaneous expansion/acceleration'. Furthermore, a theory that originated from a French Catholic Priest astronomer, from the Catholic theologian concept of the 'Primeval Egg'.

But most of all, I think you're continuing to misunderstand Objectivist philosophy. It's a philosophy of life for the individual. It's not an answer or study of what can't be conceived, it's a system of how to gain knowledge of reality and can never give one direction on searching for answers within the supernatural and non-conceivable.

Both those aligned with Peikoff and those aligned with Kelley are in agreement on the atheism issue. It would be hard for someone to be accepted as an Objectivist, even if they were accepted as a valued member of the Gulch, without being an atheist.

I agree with your analysis regarding biases and motivations with regard to the poll. We do have the right to the pursuit of happiness and no right to happiness itself. However, the question of whether Objectivists are happy is a valid one. For the most part, I am happy for many of the same reasons that you are. However, there is many infringements beyond my control (or perhaps even ability to influence) outside the Gulch that really ticks me off. To say that I am truly happy would not be completely accurate.

Putting my "own happiness as the moral purpose" of my life presupposes that such happiness can still be achieved. Over the last 15 years (and perhaps considerably more) I see many more unhappy people in America than I did even during the Carter years. I hopefully have long enough to live that such happiness can still be achieved in the remainder of my life, but when I apply objective reality as my metaphysical standard, I can no longer conclude that such happiness is still achievable. Mere existence is not enough for me.

Some might argue that George Southwell was the first to define atheism in the way that Rand does, in 1842.

http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/s...

Certainly no one prior to Rand defined atheism in her way as succinctly as you quoted her. “There is no evidence of a creator, so there is no reason for me to believe in one, so I don’t.”

On the agnosticism vs. atheism issue, the Atlas Society web site states, "Agnosticism—as a general approach to knowledge—refuses to reject arbitrary propositions. This is the general position behind the agnostic approach to the question of God's existence. Agnosticism holds that claims should be evaluated on the basis of evidence, and that claims should not be rejected unless there is sufficient evidence against them (in other words, a claim should not be rejected outright even if no evidence exists either to support or refute it).

The primary problem for the agnostic is that he allows arbitrary claims to enter his cognitive context. The fully rational man, on the other hand, does not seek evidence to prove or disprove arbitrary claims, for he has no reason to believe that such claims are true in the first place."

I reject atheism because I do not accept the premise that no evidence exists. The very existence of what exists begs for an explanation for both how and why it exists.

Can you show some supporting evidence that Rand invented that definition of atheism? Atheists have been refuting the alleged evidence of a creator for centuries.

It is not logical to state that an argument fails if something exists for which you provide no evidence. It's the equivalent of my saying, "There is no invisible elephant standing next to me," and then your replying, "Your argument fails if there really is an invisible elephant standing next to you."

If I see a ghost or aberration I can't explain I may say i saw a ghost. Some would try and explain that it is the "spirit" of some person who lived and died in that location. I would say I don't know how to explain what I saw. I would be open to more scientific explanations but without something definitive I would say I don't know.

The reason that I focused more on religion is that the person who referred me to the Michigan study asked me, "What do atheists have to be happy about?" In a society where Objectivist values are rewarded, the answer would be easy. In an entire world now that rejects Objectivist values, I did not have a good answer for my friend. While it certainly is the proper goal of all humans to remain alive and improve their quality of life, it is not hard to see how the cognitive dissonance of living a life in a society that is anti-life (such as Rand's early Soviet Union) could result in a very high suicide rate, as seen in Atlas Shrugged, for example.

The origin of the universe, or at least where we come from, is a question that any philosophy should either answer or admit that it does not have an answer for at this time. The comparison to astrology or ghosts is not a good one, unless you are willing to consider the possibility that we are a colony of some far off planet. That is a possibility I am willing to consider, and is why I am interested in NASA's efforts to find life elsewhere in the universe.

Rand invented that definition of atheism. Now it is a well accepted one, certainly well accepted amongst atheists.

At this point, I reject Rand's premise that there is no evidence of a creator. The fact that the universe exists at all, let alone in all its detail from the nano to the scale of the universe is argument enough for an intelligent, powerful cause.

Regarding the infinite regress argument, it is the best argument on behalf of atheism. The argument fails if an intelligent, powerful being has always existed and was self-sufficient on its own. The question is whether a creator has always existed, or whether matter invented itself. The concept of matter creating itself is an absurdity.

it assumes one thinks the concept is important enough, objectively speaking, to entertain. like astrology or ghosts

I've been doing that and will continue to learn and integrate new knowledge both to gain a better understanding of things and to develop my next invention.

I have to agree with that.

Actually, the study breaks the demographics down by far more than just religion.

I am happy in what I do, or I wouldn't do it, but I was at one time more productive and happier having a small business. Once that ceased being profitable, my colleagues and I sold the business because we no longer were happy.

That was very helpful, MikeM.

Self-declaration of being an Objectivist has never been sufficient for being an O. There are quite a few people in the Gulch that consider themselves O's, or even students of Objectivism, who have been told numerous times (probably rightly so) that they are not.

We are in agreement, mamaemma. I, on the other hand, have been downvoted many times, mostly about a year ago, for taking the "I don't know" position regarding the origin of reality.

That is my point exactly. I am not ashamed to admit that there are some things that I just don't know yet, and perhaps never will.

I must say that being with Objectivists does make me happy as well.

The problem for me is that the answers are subjective and could vary from day to day. Multiply small variances by thousands of responses and the results are meaningless.

You need to define "subjective" and "objective." You seem to accept that "subjective" means "personal" and "objective" means "independent of the observer." That is well enough, but once we speak technically, those definitions are as fallacious as the common notions about "selfishness" and "capitalism."

If you understand "subjective" as "arbitrary" and "objective" as "in accordance with your best interests" then the seeming contradiction is resolved. Happiness is personal; it is not arbitrary. While slipping on a banana peel is a time-honored gag, laughing at a car accident is not "subjective happiness" but an indication of neurosis, i.e., the non-objective in personal psychology.

Objective happiness stems from reflections of yourself and your selfhood in the external world.

The numbers are what they are. Individuals can differ. We know that they do. Groups still exist. Some people are this and other people are that, and if this and that can be measured, then those are facts.

And I think that all bridges are pretty good and trying to prove that concrete is "better" than steel proves nothing, especially when you can use both in the same structure.

My point is that your denial of statistical fact is a statement of ignorance.