any rational individual learns that consequences outweigh most bad behavior. Of course, wee are being pretty vague here as to what you see as bad. Perhaps you would put homosexuality into that category and I would disagree with you.

I take your points, however, the argument is discrediting through association. Organized religions are partly a social structure and with any social structure, you will have predators. How else do they find prey? That is the way of the world. A number of years ago, a supposed "objecctivist" was preying on Objectivist females whom he "met" through forums like this one. He preyed on several women (physical abuser and thief). Initially, they were very impressed with his knowledge in Objectivism. What people call themselves and who they really are can be very different .

we should also make the distinction between systems based in reason vs. systems based on the spiritual, mystical, etc.
In political terms, the US is the ONLY country founded purposely on reason. Even in GB, the premise of many of their fundamental documents (like the Magna Carta) are based on the premise that their rights are derived from the King who has a divine right to bestow. Even Margaret Thatcher took Queen Elizabeth's role very seriously.

The worst people I've ever known, the worst of the worst, all went to church every Sunday. I'm surprised that organized religion has done as well as it has. And, given their record with little boys, I don't know how anybody could keep attending a Catholic church.

No thread hijack intended...

All religions have faith. There is no element of faith in the philosophy of Objectivism

A religion is any belief system based on faith. Whether that system is considered "moral" is a subjective judgement. The Aztecs practiced human sacrifice, and most other belief systems would consider that immoral, but they were definitely practicing religion (ie. faith-based).
Buddhism is a set of spiritual practices and observations on the human condition. So I would not call it a faith-based system, although the spiritual side makes for a blurred distinction. Maybe its basis of observations could classify it nearer to Objectivism? (as a system classification, not as a comparison of its resulting beliefs)

But most likely doesn 't. TSA is initiation of force for exanple. Conservatives support initiation of force in the name of safety or nationalism. It stands in direct contradiction with economic freedom which Conservatives really don 't support either. They do support limited govt. But by that they just mean limited services. They tend to be for lots of laws and regs

What is that supposed to mean? What if being good brings no reward? The Christians (and others) do assert that being good does bring a heavenly reward, even if you suffer on Earth.

Immanuel Kant's theory of deontology was "good for the sake of being good." It is always wrong to lie, so if someone is hiding from an attacker in your bushes and the attacker asks "Where is he?" then you have to tell the truth. That is "good for the sake of being good" without reward. I trust that you do _not_ advocate that.

Ayn Rand's Objectivism asserts egoism that leads to happiness. Your own life is your standard of value. Something can be "good" for you in one context and bad for you in another. Some people find fasting to be healthful, but death by starvation is bad (almost always; but not always). The standard of judgement is the value of your own happiness. That is ethical egoism.

Politics and religion are not disjointed. Political systems exist to realize theories of ethics and morality. Those depend on questions of epistemology and metaphysics. These cannot be separated logically, though they can be studied separately, for focus.

It is true that people who claim to be Christians can claim to be socialists or capitalists. Those contradictions are their own. However, if you look at explicitly religious states such as Saudi Arabia the matter is clear. In most times and most places, most rulers claimed divinity or divine mandate. Ancient Greece was an exception. America followed in that by declaring freedom of religion: it was not a matter for the federal government to determine, though various states did have state-supported churches.

Most of the "conservatives" here are libertarians, not traditionalists. But if you consider traditionalists such as Patrick Buchanan and Ann Coulter, you see that explicit religious beliefs do lead to explicit political claims. Traditionalists believe that you must subordinate yourself to God's Chosen Society.

The video really never defines the term conservative or what is being conserved. Rush Limbaugh defines conservatism as a stool supported by three branches (or dowels): strong national security, social (predominantly religious) conservatism, and economic conservatism.

I was ripped recently for stating that the human-human interactions of the Ten Commandments were non-contradictory. The person ripping me came up with some very unlikely, but not impossible, cases where those commandments could be in contradiction. Regardless of their origin, any society that would not be self-destructive would come up with similar rules, with the possible exceptions of envy (implied in the last commandment) or adultery. Are the human-human interaction commandments self-evident? If they are, then there is no reason why an atheist cannot be conservative. If they are not self-evident, then contradictions would occur between conservatism and atheism.

Is what is being conserved the society or the individual? If it is the individual, then AR's philosophy is entirely reasonable. If it is a society that is to be conserved, then that means that either a) the society's leader must be preserved (a dictatorship) or b) the society must be carefully limited by a written constitution and upheld by people of honor (like us and like Americans before 1900). Both are somewhat unstable, for different reasons.

The national security branch of conservatism has grown out of control over the last several generations. The US has an extremely well-trained military, and enough of both conventional and nuclear weapons to wipe out the entire world many, many times. However, its weak underbelly has been exposed (like a dragon's) in the recent invasion by children from Central America. While I support a "strong national defense", we could easily have a strong national defense with 10% of the current budget. In addition to its weakness in being too tolerant, particularly with regard to children, America is most vulnerable economically because of its huge debt.

The economic branch of conservatism is generally consistent with AR philosophy.

:)

As a Conservative the answer is YES. I've known several.

Be good for the sake of being good. The end.

jbrenner keeps smiling at me.

Wow. These guys have a lot of logical fallacies in a short video. These five claims stood out.
1. Christianity produces states that respect liberty, therefore we should believe it's true. -> Argument from final consequences. Things can be false and have good consequences.
2. Christian promotes liberty, therefore all liberty comes from Christianity. -> Error of the converse. There could be other things besides Christianity that promote liberty.
3. It's arrogant to think we know everything about the universe, therefore we should believe in God. -> Argument from ignorance. They're saying we don't know where the universe came from, therefore we must accept a particular possibility.
4. We would rather believe a baby girl's soul will outlast the earth than that it will be gone billions of years before the earth. -> Argument from final consequences. Sometimes the truth has consequences you don't like.
5. It's better to believe in god than toil endlessly for the benefit of state. -> False choice.

I strongly agree with salta that these guys are trying force together unrelated things. I agree with them on personal liberty, ideas they call "conservative", but I categorically reject the falsifiable religious claims. All those logical fallacies IMHO do a dis-service to a movement based on rationality.