Posted on 12/27/2001 2:31:24 PM PST by Chuckmorse
You are right that her idealized plots necessarily left out the mundane negative consequences of sexual intercourse, but it wasn't Rand who invented that literary device.
My problem with her idealizations of sexual relations is that they appear to be from a female point of view. She seems to put more emphasis on the intellectual motives for sex with little realization of the mundane, preprogrammed, biological ones.
OK... if it isn't infinite, what contains it... what is outside of it?
; )
Why don't you ask him?
God-haters crack me up, seriously.
Holy sh!t! If they're right, then we're all screwed!
Without a basis for truth, you know what happens? Every molecule in your body explodes! Yeah, just like crossing the beams in Ghostbusters. Really.
These forces have always existed and that at the time of the big bang they came into contact with each other and that the big bang was the result.
And do you feel that this is a possibility? If you do, then you accept the possibility of the existance of the supernatural, and then you're just a small step away from accepting the possibility of God's existance.
As for me I wont claim to know how the Universe was created, just that I perceive its existence, try to understand it and operate accordingly.
Well, same here. But I also know that something doesn't come from nothing, and so I don't rule out the possibility of a supernatural creator.
What if there has been an infinite series of gods, each of which gives birth to the next one just before he dies? Is that rational?
What purpose does this question serve?
Here's a better one for you: is it rational to believe that something can spontaneously come from nothing? This is the question whose answer undermines the rationality of your atheism. I don't see any way you can get around it.
On the other hand, it is certainly satisfactory to the mind to imagine the universe standing still and ourselves moving, so that's the way we see it.
It's all relative. Neither perspective is absurd.
And just undermines the rationality of your atheism?
The 5th dimension is surrounded by an infinite number of universes of infinite size. The higher dimensions are "wrapped up" - they probably do nothing more than define the sizes of the hadrons and various quantum manifestations.
We live in one of the universes. It seems to have banged into another universe at some point. This created heat, and with it hadrons. 90% of our gravitational background derives from universes outside our own. They are much hotter. Kind of like our classically intuited image of "hell" - more like the Buddhist "hell" than the Zorastrian "hell".
Now, where is God? Is He inside our universe, or outside it. Is he astride the 5th dimension? How does he communicate with critters on the inside of one of the infinitude of infinite timeless universes that border the 5th dimension?
What should your typical atheist make of this situation where the "hardware" that used to be assigned solely to the invisible world of God is now something subject to the analysis of mathematicians and the examination of physicists? Remember, the atheists said the "hardware" didn't exist either, and there was nothing beyond the first three dimensions, with an ending and beginning of the 4th dependent solely on an ever regurgitating "big bang".
St. John noted that even the devils in hell know that God exists. So, once we can define and examine hell, and maybe even start communication with one of its residents, will the atheists continue to deny the Creator?
We'll all find out, eh?!
Something can't come from nothing, yet things exist, so a supernatural creator must exist.
Ayn Rand would fit more in line with an agnostic, professing to have no knowledge of the existence of God.
It seems to me that unless you are willing to believe that something can come from nothing, you must accept the existance of some sort of supernatural God. Once you've crossed this logical threshold, it's a matter of getting the nature of God right, which is tricky. I think anyone who is rational must be a gnostic (intentional space between the a and g) regarding God's existance, but I think everyone's knowledge about God's nature is incomplete.
Since you can not know or understand God through a completely rational process...
Can you know or understand any consciousness outside of your own through a completely rational process? It's a leap of faith just to believe something about your own brother's personality, much less God's. You can gain no knowledge of your brother's consiousness through any of your senses, so do choose to believe that you can know nothing about him? Is it magical or shamanistic to believe that a consciousness exists within his body?
Regardless, your logic is sophomoric. I hope you meant:
Something can't come from nothing, yet things exist, so something must always have existed.
There's a bit of a logical leap from "something must always have existed" to "a supernatural creator must exist". You either have a some unstated premises, or you are seriously logically challenged.
Now, looking only at the image in the mirror, reach your hand over and pick up a bean.
Virtually all birds can do that trick every single time without fail. Virtually no mammal can ever do that trick correctly the first time - not even human beings.
Bet that's something you'd never observed before.
The difference between your view of things and that of a bird's is profound - yet both birds and men are able to navigate around without all that much trouble. The reality of the world remains unchanged no matter how birds or men view it.
So it is with the universe as a whole. No matter how you view it, or examine it, the impression you come up with is yours, not necessarily mine.
By a similar token I could ask you as a Christian: How can a God that cares about Mankind allow evil in the World? If you are unable to give me a complete explanation does that disprove that the Christian God exists. Just because you can not answer every question does not invalidate a concept.
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