" it's not knowledge and has no place cluttering one's mind."
I don't believe in it, but it doesn't stop me from respecting people who do. I don't have the answers to the fundamental questions that religions try to answer. My not having the answers does not make other answers right, but I feel humble. I respect people's search for truth and meaning, even when they're on paths I disagree with.

I am often amazed at how hard-working religious people seem to be. They tend to see themselves as empowered to solve problems rather than as victims. It doesn't make religious claims correct. It's just that traits I admire seem to crop up in people who believe in religion.

If I point out to people how illogical their religion seems to me, it will often been seen as a personal attack, unless they asked for my opinion. In any case, I try to be accepting of people's faith and reject only bad actions or irrational claims.

Religion is not "any set of ideals which drives your life". Blarman's definition is false. He refuses to acknowledge the essential difference between reason and faith. He fallaciously includes all philosophy in his anti-concept for "religion" in a package deal, then parlays that into his self-contradictory claim that atheism -- the rejection of religion -- must itself be religion. He reaches his contradictory conclusion by employing contradictory anti-concepts.

Common word usage described in dictionaries does not distinguish between valid and invalid concepts and is not the basis of rational philosophy, but the dictionary link Blarman pretentiously intones to "please see" is the opposite of what he claimed.

"Definition of religion
"1a : the state of a religious a nun in her 20th year of religion
b(1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural
(2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
"2 : a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
"3 archaic : scrupulous conformity : conscientiousness
"4 : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith"

"Definition of religious"
1 : relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity"

Blarman contradicts himself again even in his own appeal to authority.

"Don't bother to examine a folly, only ask what it accomplishes". Yet we have examined it. It has been examined and refuted over and over following his repetitious and inappropriate faith promotions here for years. He keeps coming back with his evangelizing as if nothing had been said rejecting it, which he refuses to acknowledge. It is not honest. It is obsessive, repetitive evangelizing oblivious to all rational response.

What is it intended to "accomplish"? He is his trying to rationalize religion as intellectually impregnable by claiming it includes everything, even the rejection of faith. That is the package deal. We supposedly can't reject religion without rejecting all of philosophy, inverting the hierarchy, leaving us with a false premise and no choice but to argue over what kind of religion rather than reject his faith out of hand as cognitively worthless.

But there is a sense in which it is deeper than that logical flim-flam: In proclaiming the rejection of religion itself to be religion he's foisting the notion that all thinking is the same psychology of arbitrary, rationalistic, religious thinking, and in that respect objectivity, as we know it, in science or anything else, including atheistic rejection of religion, can be no better than the religionists and not essentially different. As long as he and others of the embedded religious ilk remain entrenched with that psychology of thinking they will never be able to know the difference.

"So you can't get anything out of religion using reason."
Is reason all that matters? Maybe the answer should be yes. If something outside the purview of reason matters to someone, such a person could get something out of religion.

Belief: The hardest obstacle to move, destroy or change in the universe.
Were you raised in a culture where theism was prevalent? I'm going to make that assumption with the next question. What process, significant events, emotional, intellectual changed your awareness?

The question is in earnest....not prodding.

Isn't narcissism wonderful?

sorry...my sarcastic font lock is in-op

When Ayn authored The Objectivist's Ethics she got very close to a comprehensive expression on values, morality and ethics. I don't know if the permutation, to the use by or manifestation, in community was an oversight in this work or not. I see a couple of interstices where Nurture, Freedom and Liberty, expressed and defined, create a self-evident sound expression of objective equitable interaction.

Welcome your insights.

"what standard of value will replace the "God" in their moralities?"

You asked me if I was working on authorship regarding ethics. I'm working on your question. Objectively self-evident and teachable. That is the most valid Quest-I-On to ask of all humanity of all time.

If there had never been expression of Diety or Creator how might we live in community equitably?

I'm posting this again to your thread. I'll entreat dialog if there's perceived semantic.

The first five pertain to the myth. The latter five pertain to the conceptualization of metaphysical Theft regarding living in Community.

And if I'm psychopathic or narcissistic? Pretty ambiguous.

From 30 man-years of research and interpretation of Tao te Ching

If I keep from commanding people they behave themselves
If I keep from meddling with people they take care of themselves
If I keep from preaching at people they improve themselves
If I keep from imposing upon people they become themselves

This was a starter course at age 14. A lot of experience in living was necessary to understand the philosophy. Still....the hundreth monkey principle applies in order that it manifest in any community.

The first five pertain to the myth. The latter five pertain to the conceptualization of metaphysical Theft regarding living in Community.

Well done! Self-evident.

"But that's not religion. You can't choose your own definitions."

Please see definitions #2, #4 on Merriam Webster's site: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dicti...

"Atheism is a rejection of religion, so is not a religion of it's own."

See above. BTW - an anti-definition is not a definition of what something is.

"Whether something is a set ideals for life or not, is not alone sufficient to define something as religion or not."

The Supreme Court begs to differ with you. Their protection of atheism under the First Amendment was based entirely on this rationale. If you would prefer not to have your ideas protected...

"Religion is the specific set of ideals that reject reason, in favor of mysticism."

You do precisely what you accuse me of. And yet your proposed definition is poisoned from the start. When you start with an obvious straw man definition, you will reach erroneous conclusions.

Defining atheism as rejecting religion is not an "anti-definition". It is defined in terms of the concept religion because without the theism it is not there to reject. There is no a-theism without the theism. It also shows why atheism is not another religion as you repeatedly assert without logic . Forming concepts in a logical hierarchy does not "take zero thought" and does not "provide zero useful information".

"I define religion as any set of ideals which drives your life."
But that's not religion. You can't choose your own definitions.

"Atheism is as much a religion as any theistic creed, as it drives one's values and choices."
Atheism is a rejection of religion, so is not a religion of it's own.

Whether something is a set ideals for life or not, is not alone sufficient to define something as religion or not. Religion is the specific set of ideals that reject reason, in favor of mysticism. That reject life on this earth, in favor of an after life.

I think you are trying to redefine terms to try and reverse engineer them into your preset conclusions, instead of thinking rationally and honestly and arriving at the correct conclusions.

That would be a contradiction.
Using reason, you reject religion.
So you can't get anything out of religion using reason.

A rational philosophy provides principles, not a "blueprint" for "beliefs". That no one has a political right to impose beliefs does not mean that it doesn't matter what you believe. Principles matter and consistency matters.

Mischaracterizing Peter Smith's support for a consistent philosophy as "hogwash" forcing you to believe anything is a strawman smear. You choose what to think and live with the consequences. Follow bad principles and you get bad results.

"Ask it should be we are the sovereign authors of our own philosophy and it need not be 100% consistent to anyone but you" is not a coherent sentence.

The denial of systematic principles in philosophy, including consistency, is Pragmatism. Pragmatism opposes principles, let alone coherent consistent principles, on principle. It's a false but entrenched philosophy resulting from Kantian skepticism and corrupting thinking in this country for over a century.

Denouncing principles of consistency in Ayn Rand is typical status quo Pragmatist dogmatism posing as anti-dogmatism.

No one is "playing defender of the community". You are smearing people with baseless false pronouncements. Your calling people here "sharpest minister quoting scripture" and equating Objectivism with Biblical scripture is false and a smear. Rejecting your smears is not "sling personal attack". Rejecting your personal attacks is not a personal attack.

Religion is not "any set of ideals which drives your life". Religion is based on faith. It is primitive pre-philosophy, not philosophy. You may not invert the concepts to include reason as a kind of religion.

Atheism is not a religion. A-theism means rejecting theism. It is a consequence of reason. It is not "nihilism". This has been explained to you many times here and you continue to return with the same nonsense and no acknowledgement as if nothing had been said.

Rejecting your faith is not "fundamentally unreasonable". Religion does not "resolve contradictions", it creates them. There is no "end game to existence". This isn't a game at all. Telling us that people "want to matter" is not an argument for rejecting reason for faith. It is not "fundamentally unreasonable" to acknowledge that people die after a finite life span and does not mean that people "don't matter". This is not the place for you to repetitively promote your faith out of psychological desire for immortality.

You have "gone into this subject", repeatedly. It's what you are doing now. You were asked for a definition and refuse to give it with the evasive excuse "arrogance get ugly". Logic is not arrogance. Rejecting your faith is reason, not arrogance. But the evasion doesn't matter because none of the promotion has any place on an Ayn Rand forum. You correctly say you oppose Objectivism, over and over. You do. We know you do. So stop the faith pronouncements. Please return to something relevant to this forum that you have something in common with.

She was looking for a plane she knew was there. It was not
"faith". This is an Ayn Rand forum, not a place for your obnoxious, repetitious promotions of faith. We have been through this before. Please take it somewhere else.

Blarman's rambling rationalizations have been refuted many times here. Rejecting faith as incompatible with reason is not a mere "bias".

People do not "want to hear" his repetitious rationalizations because they are very old and still make no sense. No "counterexamples" to his faith are required.

What you call "foundational and fundamentally flawed" inability to observe a god is the position of the religionists themselves, who invoke it to rationalize why they have no evidence. You are going on about what is "required" and the alleged "same powers and intelligence" of a mythological entity for which there is no evidence and no basis for your rationalization.

Ashinoff does not have a "solid stance". He, and you, have been refuted many times for your arbitrary claims. There are no grounds to believe in the alleged "possibility" in which you have faith. Nothing is required to dismiss out of hand the arbitrary hand as cognitively worthless, and the contradictory cannot exist.

that gets you a down vote from me. See that's how it works. You play defender of the community and sling personal attack when discourse fails. Typical. Back to obscurity.

Faith is the opposite of reason. It has nothing to do with confirming hypotheses. Hypotheses are framed based on evidence, leading to possibilities in the context of the state of knowledge, not faith. The motivation is to find out. Rational pursuit of knowledge is not faith. Faith is belief in the absence of evidence, not the "motivation to act". It is the opposite of reason. Stop telling us what we "have to understand" as your false premise.

In the novel Dagny did not pursue John Galt based on faith. Your arbitrary religious pronouncements contradict the entire basis of the novel and the nature of rational knowledge.