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Posted on 10/31/2011 5:32:30 PM PDT by Misterioso
Is the Tea Party on a mission from God? Or are its principles applicable to the religious and the non-religious alike?
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
It isn’t taboo, it is about freedom as an individual. Her ability to freely choose her religious path also gives us the freedom to choose the faith we have.
Morals existed well before organized religion.
Some atheists are actually agnostics and have little or no problem with the idea of collaborating with outspoken believers in God. Believers can use this to get a greater audience for their views. Believers should be careful, though, because of the known problems with “unequal yoking.” They can’t let themselves be forced into compromise should push comes to shove and God actually matters to what they do. In respect to the role of money, this can be very important. Believers view money as a useful tool, but not as a thing that deserves to be served for its own sake. While the truly atheistic objectivist will be hard pressed to find a more worthy overarching goal of life.
It is not too many religions that believe in being unorganized. Almost all have a place for human teamwork.
Yes. Exactly. Well stated.
The principles of Objectivism are universal. Rand never once advocated Government force to stamp out religious beliefs simply because she didn't agree with them.
That sort of thing is the province of the Left. Anyone, including members of this fine Forum who attempt to discredit Rand and her philosophy are doing the bidding of Obama.
Period.
L
Don’t you mean exclamation point?
John Galt's Speech mini-version [ 964 words ]
For twelve years you've been asking "Who is John Galt?" This is John Galt speaking. I'm the man who's taken away your victims and thus destroyed your world. You've heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis and that Man's sins are destroying the world. But your chief virtue has been sacrifice, and you've demanded more sacrifices at every disaster. You've sacrificed justice to mercy and happiness to duty. So why should you be afraid of the world around you?
Your world is only the product of your sacrifices. While you were dragging the men who made your happiness possible to your sacrificial altars, I beat you to it. I reached them first and told them about the game you were playing and where it would take them. I explained the consequences of your 'brother-love' morality, which they had been too innocently generous to understand. You won't find them now, when you need them more than ever.
We're on strike against your creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. If you want to know how I made them quit, I told them exactly what I'm telling you tonight. I taught them the morality of Reason -- that it was right to pursue one's own happiness as one's principal goal in life. I don't consider the pleasure of others my goal in life, nor do I consider my pleasure the goal of anyone else's life.
I am a trader. I earn what I get in trade for what I produce. I ask for nothing more or nothing less than what I earn. That is justice. I don't force anyone to trade with me; I only trade for mutual benefit. Force is the great evil that has no place in a rational world. One may never force another human to act against his/her judgment. If you deny a man's right to Reason, you must also deny your right to your own judgment. Yet you have allowed your world to be run by means of force, by men who claim that fear and joy are equal incentives, but that fear and force are more practical.
You've allowed such men to occupy positions of power in your world by preaching that all men are evil from the moment they're born. When men believe this, they see nothing wrong in acting in any way they please. The name of this absurdity is 'original sin'. That's inmpossible. That which is outside the possibility of choice is also outside the province of morality. To call sin that which is outside man's choice is a mockery of justice. To say that men are born with a free will but with a tendency toward evil is ridiculous. If the tendency is one of choice, it doesn't come at birth. If it is not a tendency of choice, then man's will is not free.
And then there's your 'brother-love' morality. Why is it moral to serve others, but not yourself? If enjoyment is a value, why is it moral when experienced by others, but not by you? Why is it immoral to produce something of value and keep it for yourself, when it is moral for others who haven't earned it to accept it? If it's virtuous to give, isn't it then selfish to take?
Your acceptance of the code of selflessness has made you fear the man who has a dollar less than you because it makes you feel that that dollar is rightfully his. You hate the man with a dollar more than you because the dollar he's keeping is rightfully yours. Your code has made it impossible to know when to give and when to grab.
You know that you can't give away everything and starve yourself. You've forced yourselves to live with undeserved, irrational guilt. Is it ever proper to help another man? No, if he demands it as his right or as a duty that you owe him. Yes, if it's your own free choice based on your judgment of the value of that person and his struggle. This country wasn't built by men who sought handouts. In its brilliant youth, this country showed the rest of the world what greatness was possible to Man and what happiness is possible on Earth.
Then it began apologizing for its greatness and began giving away its wealth, feeling guilty for having produced more than ikts neighbors. Twelve years ago, I saw what was wrong with the world and where the battle for Life had to be fought. I saw that the enemy was an inverted morality and that my acceptance of that morality was its only power. I was the first of the men who refused to give up the pursuit of his own happiness in order to serve others.
To those of you who retain some remnant of dignity and the will to live your lives for yourselves, you have the chance to make the same choice. Examine your values and understand that you must choose one side or the other. Any compromise between good and evil only hurts the good and helps the evil.
f you've understood what I've said, stop supporting your destroyers. Don't accept their philosophy. Your destroyers hold you by means of your endurance, your generosity, your innocence, and your love. Don't exhaust yourself to help build the kind of world that you see around you now. In the name of the best within you, don't sacrifice the world to those who will take away your happiness for it.
The world will change when you are ready to pronounce this oath: I swear by my Life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine.
Text courtesy of Daryl J. Sroufe
If you’re really dealing with an agnostic, someone who might in principle be open to dealing with God and who is only upset with the existing religious structures she has seen, that’s quite different from the militant atheist who comes after your religious faith with both barrels. It wasn’t always clear what Ayn Rand really believed, but she often painted religious faith as some kind of mindless altruism, which it isn’t. And it cannot be, if God is real.
Well said. I don’t fault Rand for being an atheist, that was her choice. But God can use anyone for good purposes, no matter what that person thinks of God.
Be sure to read the article before posting, please.
Ayn Rand never experimented with what happens if you let God shine as the brightest light in your mind. If she had, she would have come out with a much modified philosophy.
You don’t have any idea who Rand was.
Such an assertion misses the point. Natural Law is felt and experienced by all people of all philosophical backgrounds naturally (except perhaps to the a tiny minority who are true psychopaths). As C.S. Lewis pointed out in "Mere Christianity", when people bicker even those who try to deny the existence of a transcendent moral law, inevitably end up appealing to it.
It should not surprise us in the least that there are some atheist who take good solid moral stands. Misconceptions about the cosmos does not necessarily make one amoral or immoral...even if they involve morality.
Blasphemer!!
Godfulness isn’t the same as this kind of “selflessness” that Ayn Rand bashes. The believer is free to accept the grace of God as he is free to share it with others, and most particularly the others of his household.
The Romans were very religious. They considered their slaughter and subjugation of other cultures and civilizations to be their moral duty. Read some of what they wrote at the time and learn a thing or two.
The early Catholic Church had no problem burning people at the stake, practicing the most hideous forms of torture, and slaughtering entire cultures in the name of their religion. Do you call that conduct "moral" or "religious"?
The Code of Hammurabi dates to roughly 1700 BC, well before what you consider "religion" was established, yet they thought their laws were the very height of morality.
Be careful confusing religion and morality. They very often have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
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