Hi. My name is...Rick, aka, UncommonSense
Posted by UncommonSense 13 years, 4 months ago to The Gulch: Introductions
Greetings everyone. Just a few quick notes on myself: I'm 40ish years old, retired veteran, college-educated (private university), and a Christian, which makes me the worst possible life form from the Left's screwy perspective! Love to read, BBQ for my family and my firearms. I would love nothing more than to go back to a very small, limited-government in both the elected offices and unelected offices. Bring back Christian Values and some common-sense please.
I think you can see a pattern here. In Christianity you get none of that. Therefore, the idea that you may believe I would force anyone in the 6 categories I listed above, to agree with me is completely wrong.
Why do I concern myself with praying to those who don't believe in Jesus Christ? Because JC said I am to pray for anyone who does not believe, and that they may come to know the Savior and that they may receive eternal salvation. Ultimately, anyone can go to their death, telling me they don't believe in JC. It doesn't impact my salvation, just yours. And even those who recently passed away not believing, we Christians are to keep praying that they receive the mercy of JC. Isn't that cool? You won't get this from any other religion.
Well, I think this subject has been thoroughly discussed. I really have nothing else left to say on the matter. You brought up some good points, and I think you've stated your argument and as I have with mine. Meanwhile, why are my Steelers 7-8??
Don't you see that you're one step away from force though? If it's a personal decision by the person, why do you concern yourself with it and announce that you're praying for them? Ultimately what it comes down to is a lack of respect for their humanity. If they don't believe, their life is necessarily not good enough, so they deserve the empathy of believers. In contrast, a respect for reason and reality results in a respect for individuals and their approaches to truth. If there is a disagreement over truth, you don't think about the other person and hope they find the truth you know. You state your argument, they state theirs, and you both move on to find the truth on your own.
Also, your recounting of the Adam and Eve story reveals it's absurdity. They were supposed to command the world and seek truth, but not seek knowledge (of good and evil). How do you command without knowing what is good and bad? How do you move toward truth without knowledge? You can't. Point blank. There is no way to argue or rationalize around that fact.
Ayn Rand wrote little on the process of Evolution. We mostly have 3rd party conjecture and hear say. She did say that it was a theory, an hypothesis. Many have interpreted her uncomfortableness with the process of Evolution as "missing" an essential explanation for the divergence of physical changes in the animal to mental capacity changes. She wrote an interesting article called "The Missing LInk" in '73 and she is sort of careful and shy about this topic. This does not change her explanation of Man's creation of religion.
"The power to rearrange the combinations of natural elements is the only creative power man possesses. It is an enormous and glorious power—and it is the only meaning of the concept “creative.” “Creation” does not (and metaphysically cannot) mean the power to bring something into existence out of nothing. “Creation” means the power to bring into existence an arrangement (or combination or integration) of natural elements that had not existed before. (This is true of any human product, scientific or esthetic: man’s imagination is nothing more than the ability to rearrange the things he has observed in reality.) The best and briefest identification of man’s power in regard to nature is Francis Bacon’s “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.” In this context, “to be commanded” means to be made to serve man’s purposes; “to be obeyed” means that they cannot be served unless man discovers the properties of natural elements and uses them accordingly." Ayn Rand, Philosophy, Who Needs It?
Concerning the old Catholic church and it's past: every single organization throughout mankind's history has been corrupted in one form or another, no matter how noble the idea or purpose for which it came into existence. Christ was perfect, but the men who ran the Catholic church weren't and never will be. Mankind is fallible! Look around you, everywhere we look we see Power Mongers: the UN (U.S. need to defund, and kick out of NY), Congress, EPA, and yes, even the Catholic Church. What the Catholic Church did in it's distant and recent past is despicable. Do not assume just because I'm a Christian that I endorsed their actions - I don't and the morons who abused their positions and the temporary power it held get whatever they deserve, both in this life and in the after.
Concerning Sin and what Ayn Rand's view: I suggest you go and re-read or read for the first time, the Book of Genesis. In it, you'll find God's 2 what I call 'General Orders' to Adam and then later Eve: 1) You are to take charge of all living creatures in the earth and 2) Do not eat the from the Tree of Knowledge. That's it. Everything else God left to Adam and Eve to figure out. Doesn't sound much like the robot-like mindset to me. Did God say how they were to command the things in the earth? No. Certainly, to be in charge of these things would take some form of effort, wouldn't it? God gave Adam and Eve Freewill from the beginning. How do we know this? Both Adam and Eve MADE THE CHOICE OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. If they were truly 'robots' from God, they wouldn't have had the free will to choose. Unfortunately, they were DECEIVED. And that is what we all must be on guard for. Avoid deception. Seek the truth, speak the truth. Finally, sexual desire isn't sin, it's only sinful when you're seeking sex with someone who isn't your spouse. Oh, yes, that would be between a man and a woman. That's not my rule, that's God's.
In any case, I appreciate the comments and am looking forward to the New Year and wish everyone here a happy, secure and safe New Year.
As I said elsewhere, evolution is the purview of science, which is an application of reason.
Christianity and Objectivism are not compatible.
I know, I was also a Christian when I read Atlas, and I, too, tried to mix the unmixable. Someday you, too will also see the contradictions that you are attempting.
The definition of religion cannot both deal with Christianity and all other belief systems because Christianity is the only belief system/faith where salvation is 100% taken care of by another person where simply believing this provides salvation. If work were involved, then you could never know till you die whether you are saved or not because you never know whether you did enough work. Of course, this all implies you believe in God/higher being, etc....
Well, I can understand that...the exclusivity and absolutism of the Bible and the concept of God can be rather striking to some.
The interesting thing is that we are believers are just messengers of God's Word by restating it here and there in various conversational contexts to spread His light in the darkness. We don't come up willy nilly with this stuff and wouldn't be capable of it. God's Word is very biting and caustic because since we are all made in His image, we cannot truly deny He is there and He is not silent. Just the way it is.
I know that you can retort with something like "well, man's ability to reason within himself is just the way it is and there is no God, or God has nothing to do with it, etc...."; however, I continue to wonder how does objectivism deal with origins? Evolution? Does reason support evolution? At some point, you have to deal with origins/bases, or else, the philosophy is built on sand.
As I have talked to my wife about many times, I have explained that what Christianity teaches and what Ms. Rand teaches only differs at the most basic level and that is this: Objectivism, paraphrased, holds the highest ideal is man's ability to reason within himself; however, Christianity holds as the highest ideal as man's choosing to follow Christ as a perfect man, God incarnate, as instructed by His Word, the Bible. Both do not require altruism for altruism's sake, but start with the individual and the purpose for doing things for others. An objectivist can still do for others without seeking payment if that is what they seek in their self-interest; as well, a Christian can seek to do for others because it is in their self-interest to please God.
I am sure others who are much more well versed in Ms. Rand's philosophy can fill gaps as their self-interest directs them.
Those values ARE feelings. Treat others as you would treat yourself is relative to the individual. What if you practice self mutilation, should you mutilate others? Using yourself as the measurement is a way of backdooring the primacy of consciousness. No, the real statement should be "treat others how they deserve to be treated." How do you determine what a person deserves? Based on reality, you judge them.
"1. The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods.
2. Details of belief as taught or discussed."
Espousing that a relationship based on faith with a creature that is metaphysically higher than you and you're supposed to model your life after is individual is a misunderstanding of the terms individual and relationship.
Ayn Rand on Original Sin:
"Do not hide behind the cowardly evasion that man is born with free will, but with a “tendency” to evil. A free will saddled with a tendency is like a game with loaded dice. It forces man to struggle through the effort of playing, to bear responsibility and pay for the game, but the decision is weighted in favor of a tendency that he had no power to escape. If the tendency is of his choice, he cannot possess it at birth; if it is not of his choice, his will is not free.
What is the nature of the guilt that your teachers call his Original Sin? What are the evils man acquired when he fell from a state they consider perfection? Their myth declares that he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge—he acquired a mind and became a rational being. It was the knowledge of good and evil—he became a moral being. He was sentenced to earn his bread by his labor—he became a productive being. He was sentenced to experience desire—he acquired the capacity of sexual enjoyment. The evils for which they damn him are reason, morality, creativeness, joy—all the cardinal values of his existence. It is not his vices that their myth of man’s fall is designed to explain and condemn, it is not his errors that they hold as his guilt, but the essence of his nature as man. Whatever he was—that robot in the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love—he was not man.
Man’s fall, according to your teachers, was that he gained the virtues required to live. These virtues, by their standard, are his Sin. His evil, they charge, is that he’s man. His guilt, they charge, is that he lives.
They call it a morality of mercy and a doctrine of love for man."
Ayn Rand, Galt's Speech, Atlas Shrugged