Lol exactly.

The stock answer to the unexplained is "God did it", which doesn't explain anything.

By the nature of religion. Great things are not created here on earth through mystic fantasy, sacrifice of human value, and subservience to and striving for another, non-existent imagined world. Observation shows what does lead to accomplishment and it doesn't include cognitively and ethically destructive means.

I fear you remind me of my daughter-in-law who blandly asserts that there's not enough anti-Semitism around to worry about. I encounter it several times a month, and I'm not out and about very much. It is also true about atheist hatred. I encounter it on various conservative webs. However, it's true that compared to all my encounters, it is miniscule. And militant atheists are probably the worst of the lot. It reminds me of Mel Brooks' explanation of the beginning of patriotism. It was an anthem the words to which were "Hooray for cave number 59 and to hell with everyone else." In any case, I've had the atheist/agnostic vs. religious believer argument more times than I can recall. Some of my very closest friends are highly religious, but they are good, intelligent people, some of whom pray for me whether I like it or not. Our differences do not interfere with our love for one another. Actually, I'd like to be religious, especially at my advanced age, but I find the bible, the rituals, so damned silly, so historically inaccurate and downright deceitful, that I cannot bring myself to it. I probably have written too much on the subject. Well, ad astra per aspera.

Unyielding does not mean faith in infallibility. Since R... does not understand either what they are thinking or Ayn Rand's philosophy he is no position to make such a sweeping statement, but he couldn't let the chance for another belligerent smear go by unexploited.

If anyone is still interested, we did engage again on this in a private thread and he still hasn't answered these questions.

I do in severe cases.

Deciding to be concerned with someone else is not the concept altruism, which literally means living for others as the fundamental ethical standard. The common misuse of the term as if it meant being nice to people is very dangerous because it package-deals simple benevolence with a deadly philosophical premise. So that's not a "form of altruism" to endorse either.

Whether or not you _should_ help someone else, and how much, depends on who and what they are and if they are worthy of help, what they may mean to you personally, and what you can afford to do without sacrificing more important values. If you don't take all that into account, and help because you "just wanna", then there _is_ something wrong with it, not because helping others is bad but because it's the wrong method and may harm you. There are options you take every day on minor things you do when it's what you want at the time, but it has to be optional and nothing important should be done because you "just wanna". In the case of helping others you could do enormous damage either by sacrificing something more important to you or by helping the wrong kind of person who isn't worth your efforts or worse.

It supports the idea that Christianity is not necessarily a virtuous belief system. That should be obvious, but one of the posters was citing supposed instances of Christian opposition to slavery, among other things, as evidence for the moral superiority of Christianity. I was citing an obvious counterexample, that's all.

If the shoe fits...

You should read the title essay in her anthology The Virtue of Selfishness and Leonard Peikoff's Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.

The a-philosophical libertarian 'non aggression principle', without an ethical basis, is put out as a kind of 'axiom' not resting on anything else, but that is not the case for Ayn Rand. She was very careful to show what facts of man's nature give rise to the need for ethics and what it must do.

Ayn Rand's conception of axioms, which is very specific, appears in her metaphysical basis identifying the fundamental starting point of her philosophy but not ethics. She very much rejected the idea of throwing out "axioms" that don't rest on anything else as if they came out of whole cloth (which turns out to be cloth with holes). You can find the axioms of existence, identity and consciousness discussed in several places, such as Galt's speech, but it's best explained in her book Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology and in Leonard Peikoff's OPAR mentioned above.

That's the point, some of them are not civil -- and occasional others are in so deep that for all practical purposes they are simultaneously epistemologically hopeless and obnoxiously inappropriate, creating a disvalue on the forum which doesn't belong here and which isn't rationally doing them any good either. (Can a Jehova's Witness type of mentality be regarded as "uncivil"? Beyond a certain point yes.) Giving the benefit of the doubt doesn't help with those types.

evw, if you believe that someone is trolling the forum, I would suggest that you flag the posts or contact the mods.

I'm sure if they determine that someone is out of line that they will address the problem.

Ordinarily yes, that is why religion is so profoundly worse. It regards you as metaphysically subservient to god from the beginning and demands that you accept that premise with complete subservience -- under threat of fire and brimstone, etc. The corruption is very deep. If you choose to not give it up you are contrary to the religion and regarded as doomed.

The constitution does not do anything on its own, only people can act and those in power are ignoring it. It is an illustration of how the constitution cannot protect a society that is no basically moral. This has nothing to do with sloppy metaphors about "fences"

I endorse the form of altruism, of the form where someone decides they are concerned for someone else. My problem is when they tell you it's a fundamental virtue and if you're a good person then you'll feel concerned for some other person. It's worse if they make you "share" at gunpoint. I also have a problem when it's misleading someone, i.e. giving them a job or something else out of pity without telling them the truth.

But if you want to give your time or money to help someone with no benefit to yourself other than you just wanna, I can't imagine anything wrong with that.

it does not regard compassion or charity as a primary virtue, and rejects a duty to sacrifice for it. But it does endorse benevolence in general -- towards those who deserve it.

The basic virtues are not 'social' at all since morality is required first as a guideline for how to live your own life. Since we live in a social context, that of course has social consequences.

The participants are welcome if they behave themselves. There is nothing wrong with discussing religious issues, and I would not discourage people new to the philosophy from bringing up whatever they don't understand, but proselytizing for religion against Ayn Rand's philosophy is obnoxious and contrary to the purpose of the forum. They know who they are and what they are doing.

What they get away with depends on where they are. Their goal of Sharia law remains the same.

The difference is that socialism is a political system of government ownership and control, and altruism is a standard of ethical theory making living for others the standard of morality. The collectivist politics is rationalized with and forcibly implements the altruist ethics.

Living morally does not mean "compassion". Subordination to a "higher power" is more than "compassion".