Thank you for going back through old posts. I'm starting with The Romantic Manifesto

This country, with its American sense of life, was founded on the ideals of the Enlightenment, with its emphasis on reason, individualism, and the rights of man, not Christianity. Christianity was the ideology of the Dark and Middle Ages, embracing superstition, mysticism, sacrifice, other-worldliness, and duty to the supernatural with head bowed in meekness. Enlightenment rejection of that is not "hate" and not "destructive".

Most American Christians are better than, retaining some of the old mythology in the background, with mixed, contradictory premises, but largely living as self-reliant, productive, benevolent, proud, independent individuals. That overwhelmingly better values were generally absorbed into the culture and then called "Christian" does not make them religious. They are secular, pro-man values with no basis in religion. Turn the other cheek "kindness", indiscriminate sacrificial "love" and "charity", "unselfishness" and duty to "commandments" were not the basis of this country and not what built it.

What people act how as if Ayn Rand were "infallible as if she were the Pope"? Ashinoff's misrepresentation of "fluent with a Rand reference(title, chapter and line) as the sharpest minister quoting scripture. That ability, Biblical or Objectivist" is all a vicious smear. No one was that Ayn Rand "holds all the answers or every thing". It's a dishonest strawman. Ashinfoff does not acknowledge, let alone try to answer, the actual reasons given for rejecting his faith.

"We all enjoy reading about brave people" and being surrounded in a "courtroom with hostile people" is not germane to the incompatibility of religion with Ayn Rand's philosophy of reason and individualism.

Another rash of cowardly, mindless 'downvotes' attacking a simple question asking 25n what she intended her comment to mean in the context of the post she responded to has no rational justification. The simple question has still not been answered.

I once congratulated a gentleman (a Unitarian) on being a Christian. He quickly corrected me. I responded, 'ok so you aren't a Christian, but you constantly perform what are considered Christian acts!' Kindness, love, charitable acts, unselfish acts, all are identified as Christian acts. Our Country was formed and has maintained a certain Christian attitude toward our fellow man. Hate if you will, but that is destructive.

It is related. I went back and found several posts that you may be referring to:

https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

Objectivism rejects religion regardless of "assumptions accepted for God and religion". It's a matter of essentials, not differences between religious sects.

Being committed to a philosophy, i.e., consistent, is not "religious". It depends on what it is. Objectivism is not a religion no matter what you think of "some people who call themselves Objectivist" and regardless of why you think they are "committed". You don't need social agreement to have a rational concept based on essential similarities and differences. Objectivism rejects faith and belief in the supernatural. It's not a religion and not compatible with religion.

A Baptist neighbor who plays with theological contradictions debated by Medieval religionists pondering the nature of their god is not an example of someone who is not religious. Contradictions in religion do not make it nonreligious. The one you cite was the theological problem of "if god can do anything then can he do something preventing him from doing something"? There are many more. It didn't make it not a religion.

Until one has agreement on exactly what religion is this is a question that can't be answered rationally. I would offer as an example that some people who call themselves Objectivist are so committed as to be religious about it. So, define what you mean by Religious. Not all recognized religions believe in supernatural powers for example. If by religion you mean people who believe that "there is a god who can make a rock so big he can't lift it," then I'd say there is no place for them here. BTW, that quote is from a former neighbor who was a Baptist and he thought it was both funny and true. I think it is better to talk about baseball or the weather with people with such beliefs.

Even fun can't make his three false assertions and haughty "suggestion" partly correct.

You don't need convoluted descriptions
I do it for fun. I do not speak for Aristotle.

Well, I genuinely think he was right in his later post and people sure do act as if she were infallible. I'll give credit where it's due, and I thought that applied to his later posts :)

You made me laugh haha... I was going to say he missed the point of my original response but decided to just play it off lol...

This may or may not be related, but can you remind me of the name of the reading/audio CDs you recommend related to Objectivism?

There is nothing correct about his assertions. His premise that it's an "anti-definition", i.e., not a definition, is false to begin with. You don't need convoluted descriptions in term of class membership to observe that rejection of theism is a perfectly valid definition identifying the concept "atheism". The genus is "rejection", the differentia is what kind of thing is being rejected.

His claims that such a rejection takes "zero thought" and is "zero useful information" are false. It takes thought to judge what you accept and what you don't, and the "information" is identifying the choice you made.

He is also still confused over the fact that atheism does not say what you are for. People may be atheists for good or bad reasons or none at all. Here we are basing discussion on a rational approach to knowledge from which atheism is a consequence, not a "religion". He uses his confusion over that to rationalize calling atheism "nihilistic" because he wants everything not religious to be damned as nihilistic. Whether or not someone is a nihilist depends on what, if anything, he is for. Being atheist doesn't imply anything about that either way. It doesn't make it "nihilistic".

By what standard? That some mystic thinks his faith "matters" to him doesn't justify it. People hold all kinds of self-destructive false values they pursue by all kinds of false standards. Their delusions don't mean that anything good is coming out of their religion. Reason is based on perception of reality with the five senses, not trying to extract knowledge from mystic fantasies. Comprehending reality is what reason matters for.

Your repeated accusations of "intellectual dishonesty" for rejecting your arbitrary assertions are tiresome. Stories in which something happened that surprises you or anyone else are not evidence of divine intervention. Arbitrary assertions with no evidence are cognitively worthless, to be regarded in logic as just that -- which is not a sign that someone doesn't understand something with the claimed superior wisdom of your arbitrary faith. Every assertion requires evidence to be taken seriously, including assertions of "possibility".

Rejecting the meaningless does not require "denial" of anything but the falsely claimed cognitive worth of your own arbitrary assertions and illogical demands to be taken seriously, along with your attempted moral intimidation dramatically accusing those who reject you as dishonest.

No one has said "we know all". No one. Knowledge does not mean omniscience. We start with reality and proceed to build knowledge with new discoveries, not by working backwards from the arbitrary claims of mystics and whatever you feel in your faith beyond knowledge.

Your dramatic injunctions against those you keep insisting think we "know all" are irrelevant. Your repeated accusations that rejecting the arbitrary is a claim to omniscience are a false, dishonest strawman, not a basis for your accusations of "intellectual dishonesty". It is your own claims based on your faith and feeling, and your false accusations, that are intellectually dishonest.

"Is reason all that matters?"
Yes.
I mean, asking such a question of a rational being is like asking a fish if the ability to breath under water is all that matters.

Reason is the means by which man lives and flourishes. What could be outside that?

AJA thanks for that story, I didn't know about it, I like stories.

This particular story is part of a set preserved and promulgated in order to prove that god is always on the winning side, whatever happened it was caused by or with permission of god.
The twin towers were brought down as the occupants were evil like the traders in the temple, Romulus and Remus were nurtured by a wolf as god wanted to start the Roman Empire, Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake by the inquisition as god did not like him, god (as well as Obama) was on the Persian side when Lysander the leader of the Spartans at Thermopylae was captured and decapitated, etc.

The concept is put in one word in Arabic - insha’Allah
'an event in the future will happen only if God wills it', but it works in retrospect as well.

I prefer the view of human life an a heroic adventure.

Correct (in part).
If membership of a class is set by defined attributes of an individual entity, then the absence in an entity of that attribute precludes membership of that entity in that class.

To accept one's end is the only rational outcome. To irrationally create a non-entity for comfort to placate fear is insane. Religion is the creator and predator of irrational fear. And religion takes on many aspects. Monetary systems. Legal systems, Public address systems, Educational systems.....to believe in anything is to expostulate Can't to others in the face of possibility or probability.

"ethical standards which lead to constant guilt because they are impossible to follow"
Catholics have perfected it. They're born guilty because the first humans sought knowledge. If they break the rules, they can just confess.

Blarman's assertion that "You do precisely what you accuse me of" is patently false. We have nothing in common with his rationalizations for faith. Recognition that religion is based on mysticism, i.e., faith, in rejection of reason is not a "proposed definition poisoned from the start" and not "an obvious straw man definition". It identifies an essential characteristic of religion and has been known for centuries. It is not a "proposal". Faith is the opposite of reason. The "poison" is faith rejecting reason, not identifying it for what it is.

The Supreme Court did not endorse Blarman's absurd claim that rejecting religion is religion, nor could it: The Supreme Court rules on law, not philosophy. It does not "beg to differ" with us in rejecting Blarman's religious proselytizing, with or without his pretentiously stilted language about the court "begging".

The Constitutional protection of rejection of religious belief under the law falls under freedom of thought and speech, in particular in the realm of religious debate and thought, i.e., about religious topics. It does not mean that rejection of religious belief is itself on religious grounds.

Obviously, his "if you would prefer not to have your ideas protected..." is a non-sequitur. The Constitution is not based on religion and the Bill of Rights does not depend on subservience to religious belief, let alone Blarman's promotion of faith.

Blarman continues to refuse to acknowledge that "Atheism is a rejection of religion, so is not a religion of it's own". His refusal to acknowledge the simple logic is not justified by his non-responsive circular "See above" referring to his own contradictions as an authority. He has no argument, only the clinging to a contradiction desperately and dogmatically trying to brand atheism as religion. Rejecting religion is not religion.

His "by the way" -- as if he had never tried it before and had not been refuted many times -- repetitive dismissal of the definition of a-theism as rejecting theism by pronouncing it to be an "anti-definition" that "is not a definition of what something is" is patently absurd. Of course it is says what something is: "the rejection of religion". As a definition of the concept it has a genus and a differentia: "rejection" and what is being rejected.