BOOK REVIEWS: “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand (1957 - Part III)

>>I have always thought that Rand created Objectivism wholly from her own personal experiences.[...] Rand's life of growing up in Russia and seeing the revolution and then coming here had shaped her outlook. [...] with her ideas seemingly to come from thin air or on high depending on your perception of reality.<<

That's the sense I get. Admittedly my knowledge is pretty scant, but the more I read the more she feels like an angry ex-catholic undergraduate college freshman (Metaphorically speaking) than she does a real philosopher. You know the kind? They get pissy because daddy won't buy 'em a pony or Sister Mary Unpleasantdisposition told 'em they can't sleep with their boyfriend, or whatever, and as a result they reject everything they were brought up with out of petulance and not reason, and then they randomly decide all the world's problems are the fault of Religion/Capitalism/Deforestation/Republicanism*/Nuclear Power/Puritanism/The lack of a good sex workers union that strippers can join/insert your own pet annoyance.

I'm not saying that's *ALL* there is to Rand, but there's definitely a patina of that.

* Never Democratism, oddly.

>>>Whitaker Chambers and John Robbins (he was the fellow who you said had a "I hate everything" complex) argued that Rand's philosophy would eventually lead to gulags as sure as Soviet Communism.<<<

I have no doubt of that. Having once upon a time been a religious fanatic (I got better), I can kind of recognize things that are likely to inspire fanaticism in others when I see 'em.

Rand's philosophy really wasn't based on any observable data, or, insofar as I can see, any *real* study of historical trends beyond some superficial, and *highly* interpreted generalities. She produced a large body of extremely detailed holy writ, and made it deliberately resistant to interpretation. And of course all of it is utterly, wildly, self-righteously intolerant of any other viewpoint. Mix all that with a cult of personality, and there you have it.

>>>he ROC at this time had become a corrupt body and a tool in the hand of the Czars. However, the anti-religious zeal of the Russian Communists acted to purify the church and remove those elements which were in the church for political power.<<<

Interesting phrasing.

So prior to the second Revolution, you had your typical Ruling-At-The-Behest-Of-God Medieval Emperor kind of thing, legitimized by the ROC, and the Emperor protected the ROC. If I understand you, you're saying once the Communists came to power, the link between Church and State was severed, and the ROC became more pure now that it no longer had such temporal concerns? Or are you saying that the Communists simply killed everyone in the ROC that had political aspirations?

In any event, your point is that Rand hated the ROC because it was corrupt? But then wouldn't that mean that she *agreed* with the hated communists? I don't know why that seems odd to me, but it does.

>>>This is also a philosophy that, depending on which church you attend, takes on many drastically different meanings. [...]For instance, the Bible says to "Lift your voices and sing" but that's all it says. To some Protestant groups I know, this means sing ONLY.[...] Others will say that because baptism, although never expressly defined just shown through example, is shown as being through immersion then it is only valid in that way, even going so far as to say that if a soldier in Afghanistan asks a Chaplain to baptize him in the middle of the desert, and all the Chaplain has for water is a cantine, the Chaplain can not baptize that person because pouring or sprinkling is an invalid method of baptism and this soldier won't fit inside a cantine.[...] But again, this isn't a me vs you comment, and I'm not trying to say Catholicism is more valid than Protestantism, just trying to explain the Church from my point of view.

Oh, I agree. As I said in my last post, where things aren't clear we go by extrapolation and consensus, and that can rapidly get out of hand. For instance, there are groups who say that Jesus was crucified with three nails (Triclavinism) and attach a great deal of theological importance to this, and then there's those who say this is nonsense, and that they obviously used four nails (Anti-Triclavinism), and the Triclavinists seem to believe that believing in the wrong number of nails puts your mortal soul in jeopardy. Then there's people like me who think the whole argument is nonsense and unimportant. We get lumped in with the Anti-Triclavinists, and if I cared at all I'd probably react something like 10000li when he bristles at some of the ignorant stuff I sometimes say about atheism.

As for me, growing up, the only two theological issues were baptism, which we took to be immersion. Some take it further: Take me to the river, drop me in the water. If it ain't natural, it doesn't count. We never went that far. Historical and theological evidence would appear to be on our side, but as it is *never* expressly spelled out (As you say) then the method simply may not be important. Or, it's possible that so long as you're doing what you believe baptism is, that's enough. For instance, if a Medieval Catholic believes it's sprinkling, then, for him, it is. If a first century Christian believes it's immersion, then it is. If a 21st century Christian believes it's take me to the river, drop me in the water, then it is.

Just the same, for myself, I prefer not to be sure, so I'm gonna' go with the most conservative and ancient version of the ritual that I can actually practice, which is immersion. Just safer that way, you know? Obviously this isn't as sticky an issue as infant baptism, of course, which we regard as meaningless.

We also used to debate whether or not Catholics were observing communion or not, since (in some circumstances) the church wasn't allowed to eat the wafer for fear it would profane the host if they got a coughing fit or whatever, so the priest took it for 'em. This is probably a more serious issue than Baptism.

>>>It should also be pointed out that I was born into a Lutheran family, and while I've attended many different churches, basic Catholic teachings do fill my comfort zone of a Lutheran upbringing, so I completely understand if I get this stuff just a little more easily than people who were not raised in the Lutheran/Catholic faith. Lutheranism, to be, is being Catholic half-assed, so I'm Catholic. Never let it be said that I'm not a complete ass. Lol<<<

Heh heh. My daddy was a Lutheran. He got better. I kid. I kid. I kid because I love.

But seriously, there are a lot of "Romanish" things in Lutheranism that I'm uncomfortable with undoubtedly would make it easier to go from one to the other. I don't have a huge problem with this, since Luther was Catholic, and with a few exceptions his split from the Roman church was more about corruption and abuses of power and some specific doctrinal points like indulgences than it was the overall schema. (I mean, heck, some Lutheran prayers refer to Christianity as a whole as "Catholic") Thus he spent years wrangling with (sigh) transubstantiation when more modern low-church types like myself just shout "Kerl! Das ist gerade ein freakin' Metapher! Bewegung zu etwas anderem bereits!"*

What I find more confounding is the English church which was also quite "Romanish" at first, then moved away as time and pragmatism dictated. In the last two generations, however, they seem to be moving more and more towards emulating Catholicism, albeit a very liberal form. This seems to violate the point of the exercise to me, but, eh, their game, their rules, who am I to tell them what to do?

As for myself, I favor factionalism and discord. My thinking is that the reason there's so many different churches is because we *need* so many churches. Individuals have individual needs, and what I need from God is probably quite a bit different from what you need, or what an African Christian needs, or what a secret believer in China in the '70s needed. It's not a one-size fits all thing. And some of us are certainly wrong, but that's what judgement is for, right?

*-("Dude! It's just a freakin' metaphor! Move on to something else already!")

>>>Was just trying to flame war a bit to get replies, which were lacking with you on hiaatus from the thread.<<<

Yeah, sorry about that. Had a ton of other stuff I had to wrestle through. I was just replying to the stuff I felt I could do with a line or two elsewhere. I'm back now, though.

>>>by extension it makes the office of the Pope theoretically equivalent to the reign of Stalin.<<<

How do you figure? I'm not getting that.

Incidentally, "The Whacky Pontiffs" were a bar band I used to hang out with in the early '90s.

First up, sorry it's taken me so long to get to this. It's been a busy week.

>>>Dawkins and others like to point out that we're all atheistic with respect to some god or other. How many people still believe in Zeus? Or Mithras? Or Heng-o?<<<

It's cute, but it's sophistry that really means nothing. It's like when Dwayne T. Gish uses irrelevant strings of logic to disprove evolution and show that we're as closely related to a watermelon as we are to a monkey. (I misrepresent him slightly) It's cute, it makes the believers in the audience hoot and feel good about themselves, but it's just toying with words, it doesn't have diddly to do with the basic argument, just preaching to the choir stuff.

>>>After all our discussions, it still seems to me that R3 treats atheism (NOT "Atheism") as if it were a philosophy about anything other than the existence of gods.<<<

I'm using atheism as a catch-all for any philosophy that denies the existence of any and all gods. Likewise, when I use "Theism," I'm using it as a catch-all for any philosophy that assumes the existence of at least one god. (or more). Further, I use "Agnosticism" in the sense of "I don't know if there's a god or gods and, by and large, I probably don't care much." The finer points of these philosophies don't really concern me in the context of this discussion. I fully recognize that the atheism of Dawkins is of a different sort than of my granduncle Adolph (Yeah, Adolph. He was born in 1890 before the name had been sullied. From 1938 until his death, he went by the nickname "Pop"). Likewise, my own Christianity is quite a bit different than Sheldon's, and R1's views are quite a bit different from any of ours.

I do frequently and probably incorrectly use the word "Religion" interchangeably with "Theism." I'll stop doing that for clarity's sake.

>>It's not: nontheistic = atheistic and atheistic = nontheistic. They mean exactly the same thing.<<

Nah. Atheistic means a conscious rejection. Theistic means an acceptance. My neologism "Nontheistic" (Which I just intended as a shorthand thing for our discussion) refers to things like window glazing and radial tires which have no philosophical stance whatsoever. Can you have an atheist blender? No. Can you have a Christian cinderblock? No. These things are "Nontheistic." I suppose you could say "Nontheistic=Agnostic" but again, that implies a certain degree of intellectual process that is completely out of place.

>>>There is no moral philosophy that is a necessary consequence of being an atheist. People who are atheists can and do adopt any range of moral philosophies with respect to charity, nonviolence, honesty, gender equality, human rights, environmental protection, etc.<<<

Did I say otherwise? Again: There's a whole bunch of different ways to be an atheist, just like there's a whole bunch of different ways to be a theist.

>>There is no political philosophy that is a necessary consequence of being an atheist. People who are atheists can and do adopt any range of political philosophies from totalitarianism to libertarianism to liberalism to conservatism and every combination of these.<<<

Sure, I can cite any number of examples. You will probably note, however, that atheism in the US tends towards being a leftist thing. That doesn't mean it *has* to be, just that it generally works out that way here. In Australia or England it may be different.

>>>Implying tht if we all stopped believing in gods, then we'd all have to believe the same thing is exactly as valid as implying that if we all stopped believing in flying spaghetti monsters, we'd all have to believe the same thing.<<<

See, I think you're reading way too much into my comments. I don't believe I've ever said or implied that all atheists must, of necessity, have the same lockstep stance on federal redistricting. I can only assume that maybe you've met others who treat it as a denomination rather than a grab bag, and you're assuming that my unfortunate and illiterate tendency to capitalize random words means I'm doing the same thing, but I promise you I'm not.

>>My only problem with theism is that for some reason it carries along with it this tendency towards anti-thought and anti-human life.<<

Now, see, here I'll agree with you somewhat. There is definitely a thread of 'Don't ask questions,' particularly the more Fundamentalist you get. Anti-human life? I'm assuming you mean "Anti-humanism?" I dunno. The Enlightenment and the Renaissance were very humanistic and largely religious, as was the later trend to Deism. There is a thread of "you must do this and this and this and not wear that and only use this word on this day" that runs through some aspects of the theistic experience, but at least among my own people, it's looked down upon and treated as a kind of OCD. I know other church and faiths put more stock in it.

That said, I have known atheists who have basically taken the Pauline stance that if there is no God, nothing means anything, and they've become wildly nihilistic. In both situations, a lot of people tend to grow out of it (Like I did). To be fair: both of these results are probably not terribly uncommon, but they're far from the norm.

>>>The rogue's gallery of people who succeffully leveraged the religious beliefs of others to wreak havoc on the innocent extends back into the mists of time.<<<

No argument. The rogue's gallery of people who successfuly levereged the atheistic beliefs of others to wrak havoc on the innocent is admittedly a far more recent phenomenon.

>>>What perplexes me is that if religious-based morality is supposedly so superior to secularly-derived morality, why is religious morality so ineffectual at preventing such events as the Inquisition, the Jewish Holocaust, the Aremenian Holocaust, the anti-Sikh Pogroms, Jihadists, abortion clinic bombers, etc.?<<<

I believe I've said, repeatedly, that you can have a system of morality apart from relgion, "And you can do it beautifully." I've also said that it's contingent on a higher degree of education and self-reflection than most people are willing to put effort into, and that a religion-based system of morality tends to be the one that is more adequate for much of the population (Which you flatly rejected), and that theism (I actually said "Religion" but I'm not doing that anymore) tends to be kind of a default mechanism that turns up again and again.

>>>There is nothing good that comes from religion that we can't get without it, but there is lots of bad that can only happen when "wolves in sheep's clothing" take over the pulpit and lead the willing to do evil in the name of God.>>>

Let's assume you're right, and let's assume there's no God, which is really immaterial to our discussion anyway. We're talking about belief and not reality. Good behavior and Bad behavior are entirely human things, regardless of what we believe. You say there's nothing good from religion that we can't get without it. That's probably true, but it's *harder.* Also, I'd point out that there's nothing bad that comes from theism that we can't get just as well without it. You want to pin the inquisition on my tribe? That's fair, it's entirely our fault, but then you have to take responsibility for Stalin and Mao. The Crusades are definitely our fault, but the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1957 isn't. Human nature is human nature, and you're never going to get past the fact that a lot of us are angels and a lot of us are dicks and most are somewhere in between. Saying "So many bad things have happened in the name of God" is entirely true, but neglects to consider how many damn bad things have happened in the name of Man.

In the end, some people are gonna' do what they want to, even if God Himself said "Don't." Or if Dawkins said "Don't." Is it the fault of an "-ism" like either one of ours? Well, unless it's an expressly evil "-Ism" like Nazism or the Russo-Chinese school of Communism, it probably isn't.

Also: you're neglecting to consider the subjective benefit I get from theism. I'm fully willing to accept that you get something from atheism that I didn't, but we're individuals. You have to be willing to concede that I get something from theism that you didn't.

>>>Atheism is precisely the lack of theism. That's what the word means: "without theism.<<<

Not actually true. "Atheism" means "Without gods," and in its original Roman sense, it meant someone who didn't worship the gods, not someone who denied their existence, which, frankly, no one did. Likewise "Theism" means that there are gods hanging around.

I think the word you're looking for is "Agnosticism," which means "I don't know if there are gods or not." "Agnosticism" is the closest existing latin word for what you're talking about in that it doens't imply a conscious decision to believe or disbelieve. It's a tabled issue that isn't really relevant to whether or not the store has mayonnaise or sold out, so you table it.

Again, I suggest "Nontheism" as a convenient catch-all for stuff that is neither religious nor irreligious, like parking garages and 1950s cartoons.

>>>A-theism is not ANTI-theism (which would be the opposite of theism)<<<

Agreed.

>>>Sure, in the existential sense, there is no value in having values. It's a preference. I prefer it when people behave morally because it benefits me. Most people prefer it when I behave morally because it benefits them.<<<

I prefer to believe in a God. So what's the problem? If my belief in a God encourages me to be a better person, again, what's the problem?

I've mentioned a couple times that one of the most basic intellectual fallacies is: "This has no value to me, therefore it has no value to anyone." The fact is, not everyone is alike, and hence not everyone needs the same things. Some people need God, some people need Atheism, some people need Country Music, some people need to stay away from sex (Oddly enough) and some people need it, some people like tea, some people like Pepsi.

If you're one of the people who doesn't need God - or needs there to be no God - then, hey, whatever works for you, buddy. More power to ya! But assuming that everyone should hold the same moral and spiritual values as you is kinda' overlooking the fact that people are individuals. To heavily paraphrase Ursula K. LeGuin, "if everyone has to believe the same thing, then what's the point in having individuals?"

>>>Smart people like us? We're fine with looking behind the curtain and also seeing that the emperor is naked. (Eww!)

But those folks over there? We need to keep them in line. They may not be able to handle thinking too much. Who knows, if they have to decide for themselves, they may make wrong decisions!<<<

I never said nor implied that. There was never anyone in my life - even in my fundamentalist days - telling me not to think, and when I did start asking questions, no one tried to stop me. They tried to answer as many questions as they could (some answers good, some apologetic) and when we parted ways, they were just as happy to see me go, since it was clear to both of us that I didn't fit.

I'm sure religion *has* been used to keep people in line - Slavery is a fine example of that - but it's never been the case in my life. It does provide a moral code, but as any of my Jewish friends'll tell ya, that moral code is subject to a LOT of interpretation, and you're free to accept or reject it. No one is *forcing* you to do anything.

>>>There's no reason to believe that this version of society is the best we could have<<<

It certainly isn't.

>>>that religion, though it's mostly useless, is what keeps our society from devolving into chaos.<<<

No. We have guns and lawyers and cops to prevent chaos. Religion - *ALL* religion - provides some kind of moral code (Most of 'em mostly overlapping on the big stuff, interestingly). This covers simple things like "Rape is bad" and "Don't cheat on your taxes." It provides a set of consequences - "You'll go to hell, you stupid jerk!" - that discourages some people from, say, cheating on their wives or watching porn or whatever. I'm not terribly interested in that, but I *DO* know plenty of people who came up in the same kind of environment I did - in some cases, kids I grew up with - who got to college, said "There is no God," and then became drunken thieving fistfightng slatterns. I know others who didn't, of course, so it's not universal, but it *DOES* happen. There are *SOME* people who are clearly holding their id in place only by fear of God. You can't deny it happens at least some of the time. What our new friend is saying - and I agree - is that you need to ease these people into a new belief by degrees to prevent the psychological shock it can do to them.

As for myself, I think the larger function of religion (Beyond the personal relationship with God thing) is that it provides a sense of tribal unity and community, which is mostly lacking in a mass society. Knowing there's a hundred or so people who care about you, who might take up a collection for you when things get rough, or maybe let you sleep on their couch for a week, that's a huge, huge, huge deal. Knowing that there are people in every town who believe more or less as you do is a big deal. A buddy of mine from our church moved to a new town in a different state. Our church contacted the church there, and let him and his family sleep in the gym and use the kitchen and stuff until him and the wife found an apartment there. That's huge! People talk about how the 'us vs. them' mentality is a bad thing, but I don't really think it is. Taken to extremes, it is ("Die Parthian Dog! Die!") but on a more nominal level, it helps define who you, yourself are, which is, of course, of great psychological value.

>>>Sorry. There's zero evidence of this. What the evidence shows is that most people are de facto atheists. They take no notice of religion in their day-to-day lives. Most people use a combination of utilitarianism, modified tit-for-tat and pragmatism to get through their lives.<<<

So it's nonsense, then. Why get so upset about it? Let us have our imaginary friend and ignore us. It's as unimportant as "My Little Pony," and I'm sure you don't waste time thinking about that, so why all the hubbub?

>>>If you ask people directly, however most will refer to some vague version of a higher-power that is the source of their morality. When you question them at length, you find out that their main reason for believing is because they think everyone else believes and that they would be considered "weird" if they didn't.<<<

You live in a more urban area, so perhaps it's different, but around here, people believe because they believe. And if there are things you don't believe, or can't quite wrap your brain around (Because let's face it, some aspects of the Bible don't make sense), then you *still* believe because you trust God. And most people you ask about their beliefs here in Nebraska are pretty darn specific about 'em, nothing vague. I concede this might be a rural vs urban thing.

>>>R3 skipped over my examples that show that a behavior or trait can be detrimental to individual members of a species without leading the entire species to extinction. The only reason religion survives is because most people ignore it most of the time, especially when they have something important to figure out<<<

Skipped over? I wrote a thing about population implosion, didn't I?

Anyway: here's what I think: I think that religion survives in spite of the fact that most people ignore it most of the time. Like I said, it's a kind of default thing. People tend to pay most attention to it when they need to, and kind of ignore it when they don't. You live in a big urban area with lots of stuff to do, schools, you don't catch your own food, you're not too much at the mercy of the weather, you don't slaughter hogs, and your understanding of things is going to be quite a bit different than people who live much closer to nature in the modern world, and OUR experience out here in "Jesusland" is going to be much different than, say, an 18th century Indian. God matters to us, it doesn't matter much to urban folk, and it mattered more to the more primitive peoples who lived here before us.

>>>As an aside: I don't start a live discussion about religion with anyone. When somone wants to start such a discussion with me, I give them a choice: Do you want to have a rational conversation about it, or do you just want to tell me how to live?<<<

Can't blame you. I avoid that myself, even at church. If someone tries to tell me how to live, I always ask something like "So what's the Bible's advice on choosing an accountant? Because that's an important aspect of life, and I've got the whole 'don't steal, don't cheat on your wife, don't be gay' stuff knocked already, but I could definitely use help with the accountant thing..."

I think you're neglecting to consider human psychology here. And mental acuity, and available time.

>>>Prior to, concurrent with and after becoming an atheist, a person needs to use whatever philosophical outlook they choose to decide why and how they will lead ethical, moral and useful lives.

An atheist still needs to decide what mix of utilitarianism, existentialism, consequentialism, deontology, hedonism, humanism, anti-humanism, structuralism or whatever to define how they are going to lead their lives. Or not. Atheists can wing it and justify their actions later, like 99% of the rest of the world does. (The 1% being people who actually think before they act.)<<<

What if one simply doesn't have the ability or interest to do that? Religion, as a whole, provides a one stop shopping experience for this: You're assigned a religion and a language and a favorite baseball team at birth, you grow up with 'em, generally not questioning them too much, unless you're like me, where you wander off and poke under rocks looking for answers, or like you where you just chuck the whole thing. Both of us are pretty smart, we can do stuff like that, we can figure things out for ourselves, and we've got the disposition to do so, but my buddy Mark who took six years to get through college on a PE degree really can't. What works for him is the ten commandments because it's easy, because he's been raised with it. It works for him.

>>>Religion does NOT have to be a positive behavioral trait to get passed on from generation to generation. It just cannot be so self-detrimental as to cause the early extinction of a critical mass of humanity.<<<

I never specifically said "Positive," I said that it had a survival benefit in the same way (But to a lesser extent) that the universal ability of mammals to swim (At least a bit) is a benefit for survival. Granted, this is a holdover from our aquatic past, but it's one that Evolution holds on to because it is at least rarely useful, and the cost in energy is very low. Camels can swim. Generally it's not useful, but should they need to cross a river, or fall into Lake Chad, those as can survive, those as can't do not. Likewise I posit with religion: In certain circumstances the belief in God (or gods if you like) makes people more survivable than people without it, and, again, the cost in energy is very low.

>>>We still have the chance to find out which behaviors will cause extinction of a critical mass, by the way. But no one knows for certain what those behaviors are until they happen!<<

No argument. I never said that atheism would cause mass extinction, I simply said that theism gives a slight advantage in survival.

>>>If 49% of humanity were exclusively homosexual and would not breed with an opposite-gender human no matter what, so long as the 1% surplus being produced by the heterosexual breeders were enough to make up for any losses incurred through disease, accident or stupidity, then humanity could “support” a 49% population of pure homosexuals forever.<<<

Actually, wouldn't that lead to a population implosion? If that happened in the US for instance (And it will if population 27 passes in California this fall)*, with the average American population growth rate being about 1%/year, then that means that rather than 3 million babies a year, you'd have 1.5 million. Do that for long enough and the population declines because homosexuals tend not to reproduce, at least not as much as heterosexuals do, and as they grow older and die they generally don't repeat themselves. I'm not great at math (No sarcasm there, I'm really not) but it seems that a perpetual 49% homosexuality rate would lead to a perpetual population decline in general of about half per generation, leading to extinction (Unlikely). The alternative is for us breeders to have *more* kids to offset the 49%, which, of course, places considerably more biological, social, and psychologial strain on them, which, I'd imagine, makes them less survivable as well.

* I'm JOKING! It's a joke!

>>>>Some people honestly state that they cannot, so I say something along the lines of, "Then the best we can do is agree to disagree."

Some people dishonestly state they can, then proceed to do otherwise, so I say something along the lines of, "It seems as though the best we can do is agree to disagree."

Some people see how their thought processes are going, and put them on another track and we continue a mutually respectful dialog. (At least this is the ideal I strive for.)<<<<

Oooh! Which group am I?