Humans have cornered the market on knowledge. I agree with your first statements but then "to center the world around the human world is to live in a bubble.." how absurd!
"Philosophy studies the fundamental nature of existence, of man, and of man’s relationship to existence. As against the special sciences, which deal only with particular aspects, philosophy deals with those aspects of the universe which pertain to everything that exists. In the realm of cognition, the special sciences are the trees, but philosophy is the soil which makes the forest possible." AR Philosophy Who Needs It?
not a bubble. I don't buy into the ethic that all things are created equal. I am a humanist.

What a bunch of nonsense. Coal is cleaner today than at any time in our history. In any rational balance of the equation coal provides an enormous benefit. Yes, there are trades. Nothing comes for free.

Lana, you are not pro-human, not pro-reason, and not objectivist. This is not the Huffington Post, perhaps you should learn some history and logic..

Fountainhead, you clearly did not read carefully. K was saying environmentalism is a religion, not Rand.

Funny, to ignore you are a human is silly at best. Knowledge is a uniquely human activity, so all knowledge necessarily revolves around humans.

That is "you are" not "your are" .
Everything changes.... Take a yeast culture. Sugar is good, it's food, but as the yeast eat the sugar they release waste. At some point the culture grows until it's environment is filled with waste and the culture dies.
Coal was a good thing many decades ago BUT we are smarted and more informed and we have choices to make. Today coal,as an energy source, is not such a good choice. So should we continue to use coal? I read about the recent smog in China where people are wearing masks, a good thing, but health is being negatively affected. So those of us , who are not man-hating, can witness the consequences of continuing to burn coal. We who are the living, want to continue living without carrying around oxygen dispensers, another good invention.
Dbhalling if you are not the author of this site and do not contribute to this site then you have no right to tell me to go elsewhere. I'd say you were angry , at what I am not sure. You may want to consider Prozac.

You're welcome Lana, and you are exactly right.

I was taught that philosophy encompasses a never ending series of questions (unlike religion which is a finite list of answers). It is the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and most of all, the totality of all existing things.

To center the world around the human world is to live in a bubble and leads to thinking one has all the answers. This turns philosophy into religion.

I see many of those on the conservative right treating Ayn's philosophy as a religion for their own selfish purposes, and those on the liberal left condemning her because of that.

Reading the dialogues of Plato, there is never a negative response to the issues raised. There is always a never ending series of questions which may or may not arrive at a conclusion but, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Life is a journey, not a destination.”

Thanks for the connection!

Thank you Fountainhead24. I just don't like when we settle into an intellectually limited box and quit thinking for ourselves. It's ok to be open to looking at opposing beliefs and then using your own mind decide what really has value.

Please don't attribute to me your silly musings and off base speculations. I believe in man, intelligence, responsibility BUT you cannot assume everything we produce, even with good intentions will always be free from harm to our environment. I do not worship nature BUT if you think that we are somehow apart from nature then let me buy you a ticket into deep space and let's see how far apart from nature you can get. Our bodies are colonies upon colonies of bacteria, fungi, mites, etc etc. Hell not only are we part of nature, we ourselves are a wonderfully diverse ecosystem.
And your last statement is just plain, I want to say stupid but I will not....there...... it's always proper to exhibit restraint.

Do you live in a lean-to? Oh wait, that would involve burning wood for survival. Do you walk everywhere? Do you grow your own wheat and grind it by hand? Are you a caveman? If not, then you're a hypocrite. I don't think there would be very many hypocrites in the gulch...no...I'm sure there wouldn't be ANY. Why are you here?

Yes...and we're among a bunch of lazies. Sad.

Lana, khalling doesn't get it. Ayn's philosophy was not meant to be a religion. It, like all philosophies, is meant to provoke curiosity and not be myopic.

Philosophy encompasses a never ending series of questions (unlike religion which is a finite list of answers). It is the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and most of all, the totality of all existent things. To center the world around the human world is to live in a bubble and leads to thinking one has all the answers. This turns philosophy into religion.

learning takes effort.

Susannah, look around a bit before you complain. We argue, but it's usually civilized. Stoning is initiation of force, so we don't do it. Flagged? I don't see any flags.
We do have an unwritten rule [often bent] that threads will stay on topic. Abortion is not the topic of this thread, or of every thread.

Yes every inventor and your are clearly a man-hating environmentalist. Sure we would be better without coal industry - because we would have never had the industrial revolution. Inventions are the only reason we no longer live on the edge of starvation (Malthusian Trap). But you are not interested in objective facts, the facts that inventions have allowed us to live longer, healthier, wealthier and yes MORE OF US.

Please take Rousseau BS and head over the Sierra Club website with the other haters of mankind. I sure you will find company in their goal to kill off 5.5 billion people. This site is for rational people, who love life and humans.

Every inventor .... Every producer is improving our environment? Really? Are ALL inventors and producers benign? While some ideas start out great others turn out to be pretty destructive.
You ask like?
Just a small list... So much for All inventors and All producers:
Cigarette industry
Coal mining
Genetic engineering. - like Monsanto
Paper industry
Utility Companies - not all but enough
Here are some of the worst polluters:
Archer Daniels Midland
AES
PPL
Progress Energy - how ironic
Duke Energy
Southern
Bunge
First Energy
ConAgra Foods
Peabody Energy
I can go on and on.
Your assumptions are incorrect. Your statement is incorrect. Not everyone realizes the implications of their products and good intentions.
Plastic bags... Etc etc
Some detergents are poisoning our water... Please think before spouting off.

Bravo. A rational and intelligent argument!

I think we are seeing how people can believe contrary things and confuse them as both being correct. Some of the things we are talking about are foundation beliefs that can wreck the lives of the inhabitants if they questions those beliefs. Nice points!

Pantheism IS A RELIGION by definition. Are we re-defining words? Alice in Wonderland. what does being "green" mean? Hoping to wipe of billions on the planet because we are over-populated? I mean, what are the opportunity costs associated with your faith?

It doesn't have to be one or the other. Man's mind can save the Earth (which we all call Home) from the destructive corporate looters who are motivated only by their irrationally selfish greed. Where are the Ayn Rand leaders we need to save the Earth and enhance the Minds of all Men?

“Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his own destroyer - and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.” - Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism

Rand was discussing about philosophy not environmentalism. See my comment on the Anti-Industrial revolution

"Now observe that in all the propaganda of the ecologists—amidst all their appeals to nature and pleas for “harmony with nature”—there is no discussion of man’s needs and the requirements of his survival. Man is treated as if he were an unnatural phenomenon. Man cannot survive in the kind of state of nature that the ecologists envision—i.e., on the level of sea urchins or polar bears . . . .

In order to survive, man has to discover and produce everything he needs, which means that he has to alter his background and adapt it to his needs. Nature has not equipped him for adapting himself to his background in the manner of animals. From the most primitive cultures to the most advanced civilizations, man has had to manufacture things; his well-being depends on his success at production. The lowest human tribe cannot survive without that alleged source of pollution: fire. It is not merely symbolic that fire was the property of the gods which Prometheus brought to man. The ecologists are the new vultures swarming to extinguish that fire."-AR, Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution

Thank you very much for that little period at the end of this discussion.

There are very few cases where the economically rational thing to do results in more damage to the environment. Waste products in a capitalism are just opportunities for more profit. A dirty smoke stack means you are wasting energy. Take a look at waste grease, which the fast food industry paid people to haul away as little as 10 years ago, but now has to be locked up because it is so valuable.

Environmentalism is not about a better environment for humans, it is about an evil, man hating religion.

Lana,

What a bunch of nonsense. Every inventor, every productive person is improving the environment. The inventor of the light bulb is making light so people have a better environment at night to do productive work or to avoid dangers. The inventor of the steam engine provided us with the ability to move our goods to make life better for human beings. Even by the absurd standards of environmentalists, the richest, most economically free countries are the best “stewards” of the environment. But you are not interested in the environment as it relates to man, you are interested in an environment free from man. Environmentalism is an evil, mind hating, man hating, religion that thinks killing 5.5 billion people would be a good start.