"This is not a matter of an intra-religious war of competing other-worldly dogmas subjectively accepted on faith. The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in one's own life pursued by reason here on earth is the opposite of all of them, and was not possible, let alone necessary, with an essentially religious mindset."

The evidence I just gave you plainly states otherwise. Ignore it at your own risk.

"You have no regard for the _content_ of the ideas that developed across history. It matters _what_ one reads, not the act of reading whatever is at hand."

You've never really _read_ scripture, then, have you. It is a profoundly philosophical text that touches upon every part of human existence, behavior, and value. That you choose to discard it so easily just because it proclaims the existence of a God you would rather not deal with seems rather short-sighted, given your obvious attention to many of the other worldly scholars of the ages. I would have expected any real seeker of truth to have at least given the most published book in history more than a passing glance, but that could be nothing more than pure speculation on my part.

When have I proselytized? I have not. I have only sought to correct misperceptions like yours about what Christians like myself believe and why we choose to believe differently than atheists. If I were proselytizing, you would be able to tell me exactly which of the myriad Christian sects I belong to (can you?). If I were proselytizing, I would be posting articles advocating religion. I have quite a lengthy history - please find any such.

What you seem to not be able to get over is that we actually agree much more than we disagree - you just choose to focus on the disagreement part. We both agree that identity is key. We both agree that values lead to decision-making. We both agree that natural rights such as life, liberty, property, and pursuit of our own gains (as per our values and desires) are inherent. We just disagree on the purpose of life.

I would also point out that I have actually PAID to participate in this site. I find it interesting that you have not yet done so.

In Piekoff's book, he defines Objectivism (as per Rand) as being the search for absolute truth. What IS. That means discussing possibilities - even ones some may rather ignore. I am here because I find most of the conversations here stimulating and logical and because they present things for me to think about as well as fairly sound reasoning for such, but not because I will ever embrace atheism. I believe that Rand should have advocated agnosticism instead as it fits more with in line with her rejection of formal religion (and antipathy towards such), but also acknowledges the unknown. But such is not for me to decide. I am here to present items for thought. You are welcome to accept or reject as you see fit.

As to my "snarky" comment - there was no "snark" intended. By your own words, atheism is nothing more than the pronouncement of a negative. I was only observing that your statement was both profound and defining.

They are only opposites because you adhere to Rand's definition as such. I reject such a definition for what it is - a strawman. You choose not to look for the very proof you claim does not exist. I have found it and KNOW it exists.

"Rational people accept their '"dissolution" at death because every observation confirms it."

So I'm really curious: how many people have you met have passed through the Doors of Death and confirmed your hypothesis? Answer: Zero. So how many observations actually exist confirming your hypothesis? Zero. And you want to call that confirmation or proof? Really?

On the other hand, I have many witnesses who say that life does exist after this - of which I am one. It is not wishful thinking or superstition. You choose to disbelieve the witnesses because you prefer the alternative. Such is your conscious choice. You are entitled to it and (contrary to what you might think) I do not seek to take away any such. We each lay our plans for tomorrow, investing in what we each think will bring us the greatest return. I invest in a future with friends and family in which I plan to enjoy that investment. I hope your investment brings you all the returns you anticipate.

On the contrary. To anyone with any desire to persist and maintain identity - which even Rand admits lies at the heart of any sane and logical being - the notion that one should willfully accept obligatory and eventual oblivion is equivalent to suicide of self. If that is not the most anti-Objectivist thought, I can not put my finger on it!

You don't have to believe in God. I'm not trying to tell you to. I'm trying to point out the meaninglessness of the alternative. If you choose to ignore it because it doesn't fit your preconceptions, that is your choice. I live for life and the possibilities it brings. Any who choose to live for death may similarly enjoy that privilege. I just can't reconcile such a desire with a simultaneous desire for being and identity. To me, it is a stark contradiction of logic.

And you make "claims". Ayn Rand did not make baseless claims. So why are you here? Subjectivist hedonsim has nothing in common with Atlas Shrugged.

What you frantically want is irrelevant to what is. Your subjectivism is not "logic" and your imagination does not represent an "identity" of what is.

The concept faith means belief against or without regard for proof based on the evidence of the senses. Reason is the faculty of knowing based on evidence of the senses. They are opposites. That is why we have two different different concepts to distinguish them. None of your tortured rationalizations, imagined "possibilities" in the supernatural, and wishful thinking changes that. Fantasy is not a method of cognition.

Rational people accept their '"dissolution" at death because every observation confirms it. There is zero evidence of consciousness existing apart from a material, living body. Your wishful thinking and speculations about a supernatural existence don't change that. Your perceived lack of achievement does not imply that you keep going.

Wanting, thinking, and seeking are all different. I clearly want to live forever. I don't think I can live forever. Seeking to continue life means avoiding/delaying disease, accident, crimes, and other perils.

I did not "equate" Christianity with "Catholics", and I did not say that "America would have been impossible if its creation was just another vassal of the Vatican". The Protestant-Catholic war is all yours. America was not and is not the vassal of any religion, mysticism, asceticism, duty, sacrifice for another world, or the supernatural in any form espoused by any sect. I said that the variations are irrelevant. Stop making things up and then accusing your target of "dishonesty".

Christianity has been mystical, sacrificial, ascetic and otherworldly in all essentials since its beginning in one of the many mystery cults in primitive times. Christianity, in both its earliest form and the sects into which it evolved, is in all essentials the opposite of the founding of this country. It led to and was the philosophy of the Dark Ages, not America. It is the opposite of the distinctive American sense of life of individual pursuit of one's own goals and happiness for and in accordance with life on earth, and obviously the opposite of Atlas Shrugged.

This is not a matter of "guilt by association" connecting "the Vatican" to "Christians" at the expense of "Protestants", or any kind of wars between religious sects, it is a matter of fundamental ideas and their role in history.

The sordid sense of life of the likes of Tertullian and Augustine were not "the Vatican". They were the early intellectual expression and development of the original crude mysticism, long before the theocratic rule of "the Vatican". All of it was rejected by the Enlightenment emphasis on this-worldly reason and individualism enjoying and pursuing life on this earth.

You have no regard for the _content_ of the ideas that developed across history. It matters _what_ one reads, not the act of reading whatever is at hand. The Enlightenment, contrary to your bizarre assertions, was not caused by people reading the Bible, and truth and science did not arise from competing religious sects. Your "history" -- Catholics Bad; Protestants Good; read Bible and lo, truth, science, and America appeared -- is hilariously preposterous.

Enlightenment thought was made possible not by serfs reciting the dogma of sacred text with subjective "interpretations" when they could personally read a translation of the Bible, but initially by the more intellectual elements in the Church breaking away -- notably Aquinas who re-introduced Aristotelian ideas of reason and this earth, which ultimately led to the overthrow of the likes of Augustine and the domination of life and culture by religious faith and dogma, though that had not been his intent. The rabidly anti-reason Martin Luther of the Protestant Reformation rejected the rise of Aristotelianism in a reversion to the worst of Augustine: "Aristotle is to theology as darkness to light" and "reason is the devil's harlot, and can do nothing but slander and harm all that God does and says."

The founders of this country did not have the mindset of other-worldly Christian ascetics, and they were equally as opposed to the tyranny of the Church of England as the Vatican or any other sect. Their first order of business was to establish a secular government with limited powers in order to protect the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, of every individual here on earth, from government in any form -- not just from "dogmatic/religious control" by "the Vatican" against those who want to subjectively interpret the Bible in a mystic frenzy. There was no "God of opportunity and equality, hard work and just reward who was there for the pure seeker of truth", which is a contemporary conservative religious slogan that is false, a-historical, and a hopelessly inadequate, anti-intellectual "faith-based" defense of the rights of the individual.

This is not a matter of an intra-religious war of competing other-worldly dogmas subjectively accepted on faith. The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in one's own life pursued by reason here on earth is the opposite of all of them, and was not possible, let alone necessary, with an essentially religious mindset. Neither is Atlas Shrugged. The Dark Ages was and is.

You should stop imagining things in snarky pronouncements and pay attention to what people actually are and stand for. This is a forum in support of Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand's philosophy of reason, self interest, and individualism for life here on earth, which made the novel and her view of man possible. Atlas Shrugged is in fact quite eloquent, and is the opposite of your religious proselytizing, which does not belong here. Robbie53024, and now your snide insinuations, are trying to evade that Ayn Rand's philosophy exists as you hide behind empty attacks on "atheism" as if it were a philosophy.

obsequium religiosum

Unless you've seen the other side of the Door of Death, I'd say it was a bit prejudiced - or maybe "arbitrary and subjective" to make any kind of assumptions or proclaim one's self an expert on the matter.

Really. Do you _want_ this life to be transient and meaningless? For Death to be the point at which nothing you did ever mattered at all? That anyone you ever cared for or who cared for you was similarly a fleeting, passing fancy? An ephemeral wind?

Why does it bother you so much when I tell you that I live for an extension of my being beyond the Door of Death so that I can continue to enjoy the company of my friends and family? That I seek for a continuance of my intellect - my intelligence, my identity - beyond the close of this chapter of my life? Why should I NOT seek to continue what I value and hold dear? Wouldn't that betray the single most important principle of logic itself - identity?

Religion is a way of life. Objectivism is a way of life - they just don't like to call it a religion because of the inference of an association with God. But both very explicitly define rules for behavior and rewards for doing such.

The point I was trying to make was that the difference branches off very quickly at Death. For those who do not believe in an afterlife, at that point, existence becomes entirely meaningless. Nothing one ever did in life matters one whit. It wouldn't matter if one was the "saintliest saint" or the "vilest of sinners". It wouldn't matter whether you were a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muslim, or an Objectivist. That's the whole point: the meaningless of it all. Without existence after death, any investment in morality I make and its aggregate returns will be nullified instantly.

Instead, I choose to live for myself. I choose to live assuming that my actions here determine the possibilities which will open up for me after the Door of Death swings shut. I choose to live so that the investment in my actions here will pay dividends both now AND then. I just refuse to buy into the mentality of oblivion when there is the so-obvious alternative which has so much more appeal!

comsguy: It is actually very easy to entirely destroy the argument that faith is the opposite of reason. You can use either one of the two following logical fallacies: the classic strawman or a negation. Both apply. It is the classic strawman because those who seek to use it use an illogical definition in the first place then claim that because it is illogical, that it can't exist. The other problem is that it's not a definition at all - it's a negation, which doesn't count for any kind of definition at all! One can say that black and white are opposites, but one can define black independently of white and one who has seen neither can correctly identify both without seeing the other. A real definition describes what something IS - not what it is NOT. Logic and nonsense are opposites.

Faith is merely a foreign word to those who refuse to think of anything in terms of possibilities - especially anything beyond this life. That to me is the main area where atheism falls on its face in a big way. If there is nothing after this life - no amount of achievement in the present will matter one bit. If one is living for themselves, how can they possibly claim to believe in one's own dissolution at death as being a viable alternative?

And just what was the dominant religious mentality of the Dark Ages? I will answer: Catholicism. The problem is that you continue to equate Catholicism with Christianity. Catholicism is an interpretation of Christianity, but only one of many.

Enlightenment came as a result of people being able to READ (due to the Gutenberg press). What was (and still is) the most widely printed book? The Bible. What happened during the Enlightenment? People read the Bible (because most families could only afford one book).

But then something happened. They compared Catholic dogma with that of the Bible and found inconsistencies and contradictions. Then when they brought up their concerns to their priests, the priests were unable to reconcile these differences. So the people began to look outside the Catholic Church for truth. They began starting over - looking at EVERYTHING without the Catholic official seal of approval, which led to all kinds of unrest and persecution. All kinds of mental and scientific revolutions (not to mention all the Protestant religions) followed which eventually overthrew Catholic control of Europe. THAT was the Enlightenment. It was the study of truth unsuppressed by Catholic ideology and enforced by the nation-states of Europe.

Aristotle and Plato knew the world was round and rotated around the sun nearly two millenia prior to Columbus. Why were sailors in the Dark Ages afraid of falling off the edge of the world? Because they had grown up under a ruling religious culture that was more interested in control than in truth. The Chinese had sailed all over the world prior to the 1400's, amassing a massive trade empire in the process and creating very detailed charts of the coast of Africa and Indian Ocean. There is also significant evidence that they may have sailed the Pacific as well. Columbus was relying on these charts as much as anything when he set sail across the ocean. Why? Because the map-makers of his time were beholden to Catholic dogma and couldn't include much of this information.

You continue to see the entire Christian religious world as being Catholic. It's not. I don't have any problems with you pointing out the inconsistencies of Catholic religious dogma (it's been done for several centuries at least) - or any other you want. But to be intellectually honest, you first have to understand that Christianity is not exclusively Catholicism. You will continue to fall victim to the logical fallacy of guilt by association by projecting your criticisms of Catholicism onto other Christian sects.

The Founders of the United States were overwhelmingly Christian and overwhelmingly NON-Catholics. See [http://candst.tripod.com/tnppage/qtable.htm] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United_States] (Heading: Religion)

You are 110% right in that America would have been impossible if its creation was as just another vassal of the Vatican. Were the Founders influenced by Locke, etc.? Unquestionably. But their primary belief was in a God who created all men equal and wanted all to have equal opportunity in the land of America (see Declaration of Independence). They had seen what dogmatic control of government had done (and was still doing) for more than a millennium to the nations of Europe (among others) and so as their very first order of business set about establishing as their first constraint on government a prohibition against dogmatic/religious control. They crafted American individualism as the key tool to allow all to escape the burden of government-imposed religious dogma not because they refused a belief in God, but precisely because they believed in a God of opportunity and equality, hard work and just reward who was there for the pure seeker of truth - unrestrained by the limits of man.

Your arguments have been thoroughly refuted, which you continue to ignore. Your idea of "reason" is to rationalize belief in the supernatural in the manner of the dogmatic medieval Scholastics. Yes, you are impervious to reason.

... and Christmas has been a secular holiday enjoyed by millions for a very long time. Easter bunnies and hunting for brightly decorated eggs are also fun.

No one "came out of the woodwork" to "attack the faithful". This is a forum in support of Atlas Shrugged and the this-wordly philosophy of reason and individualism that made it possible. It is not a site for "the faithful" promoting supernatural, animistic "explanations" in the name of the "productive and good" and "logic".

The source of the philosophy underlying individual rights and the constitutionally limited government was the Enlightenment, not god and the Middle and Dark Ages. The Enlightenment overthrew the dominant religious mentality and replaced it with reason and individualism. That some founders made vague references to a god as the source of creation and lingering slogans is not endorsement of or reliance on a religious mindset and life, which they clearly did not embrace and which is incompatible with Enlightenment values and American individualism. If the otherwordly, ascetic religious mindset of the Middle and Dark Ages had continued, America would have been impossible for the same reasons that it had not in fact occurred earlier in the misery and squalor of a religious dominated world.

There was nothing to avoid or evade. Their concept of rights had nothing to do with religious supernaturalism.

The Constitution is a secular political, not a philosophical, document. There was no place for philosophical discussion in it. It didn't arise at all; it wasn't "avoided". If the government were founded for theocracy, the Constitution would have had to include religion.

His argument is hopelessly irrational. Not only is he trying to base his actions on a presumed other world, destroying life in this one, his notion of his other world is entirely arbitrary and subjective. That is how the lack of objective criteria under claims to faith leads to violence as their only means to settle disputes between the arbitrary.

I liked the rest of your comment. I still don't get this part.
"roper role of government must by definition, be limited. to try this or that program to bring down a perceived crime rate spike is not the govts role"
Then how is it acceptable for the gov't to pay for policing (i.e. this program or that program) to reduce crime?

two things. 1. proper role of government must by definition, be limited. to try this or that program to bring down a perceived crime rate spike is not the govts role. the private sector can easily provide those things
2. the govt takes your money to do these things with. If you do not limit their role, pretty soon they need more of your $s to try this or that program and before you know it, you are paying 40-50 percent of your earnings to this or that of which you have no benefit but you are now a slave. tht's right-you do not get to break your slave role from the US without a rigorous exit process and lots of money. Do not forget the goal. It is most efficient for the market to decide this or that program. and there is incentive. people, ie police payers, will leave if the city can't keep crime under control. any 8 year old playing SIM city figures that out after a couple of games

I love the speech.
My point is the same motivations for using tax dollars to stop crime with guns and jails allows us to use tax dollars for things that sound like helping people if they achieve the same goals. I can see reasons why it might be contrary to objectivism, but it's very hard for me to understand that if evidence shows gov't can protect us from criminals by jailing people or providing job training or drug treatment, the objectivist says gov't must to limit its toolbox to things that are punitive.

well rarely do we practice capitalism. what is your point?