Objective Aynd Randy...
Happy New Year!
I hope that everyone who reads this has taken time to reflect upon the events of the past year and has unearthed the comfort that comes with feeling pride from a year without regret. If there have been obstacles or trials in your past year, let them be stepping stones to a higher ground of enlightenment.
Speaking of individualistic empowerment and reasoning to happiness, I watched a spectacular documentary last night called "Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life"; I highly recommend it to anyone. For those not in the know, Ayn Rand was a Russian writer who wrote about Individualism to such a powerful degree that she could be considered a great philosopher in her own right.
Ayn Rand labeled her school of thought as "Objectivism", where the main posit is that there is an objective and concrete reality. Man's responsibility to himself, is to objectively interpret reality with his mind through logic and reason. She viewed science as one method of interpretation of reality, however has inherit limitations in its research and methodology. She viewed religion, god, communism, socialism, altruism (in the sense of sacrificing ones' self for the group), and selflessness as all evil!
The main tenants of her philosophy are that the individual is to be held above all else, idealists are stronger than conformists, logic and reason are essential for happiness, one must weave their dreams into reality, and that capitalism is the only government system that may allow an individual to truly be happy.
My questions to the intellectuals are the following:
It appears that Ayn Rand preached of "Individual Intellectualism", where in order to attain true happiness, the individual must approach his/her life with logic and reason.
With that said, is it really true that "ignorance is bliss", or is it wasted life?
Ayn Rand questioned, "people intuitively want to find out why things exist and how they have come to be, and some attribute it to god...but why are people so fearful to question where god came from and why they naturally feel they must make sense of things." (paraphrased) Ayn Rand attributed the belief in god to intellectual laziness and the inability to conceive of an infinite reality.
Is belief in god as a creator intellectual laziness? Is reality infinite? Which do you think is more probable?
Discuss. I need to go take a deuce.....
I hope that everyone who reads this has taken time to reflect upon the events of the past year and has unearthed the comfort that comes with feeling pride from a year without regret. If there have been obstacles or trials in your past year, let them be stepping stones to a higher ground of enlightenment.
Speaking of individualistic empowerment and reasoning to happiness, I watched a spectacular documentary last night called "Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life"; I highly recommend it to anyone. For those not in the know, Ayn Rand was a Russian writer who wrote about Individualism to such a powerful degree that she could be considered a great philosopher in her own right.
Ayn Rand labeled her school of thought as "Objectivism", where the main posit is that there is an objective and concrete reality. Man's responsibility to himself, is to objectively interpret reality with his mind through logic and reason. She viewed science as one method of interpretation of reality, however has inherit limitations in its research and methodology. She viewed religion, god, communism, socialism, altruism (in the sense of sacrificing ones' self for the group), and selflessness as all evil!
The main tenants of her philosophy are that the individual is to be held above all else, idealists are stronger than conformists, logic and reason are essential for happiness, one must weave their dreams into reality, and that capitalism is the only government system that may allow an individual to truly be happy.
My questions to the intellectuals are the following:
It appears that Ayn Rand preached of "Individual Intellectualism", where in order to attain true happiness, the individual must approach his/her life with logic and reason.
With that said, is it really true that "ignorance is bliss", or is it wasted life?
Ayn Rand questioned, "people intuitively want to find out why things exist and how they have come to be, and some attribute it to god...but why are people so fearful to question where god came from and why they naturally feel they must make sense of things." (paraphrased) Ayn Rand attributed the belief in god to intellectual laziness and the inability to conceive of an infinite reality.
Is belief in god as a creator intellectual laziness? Is reality infinite? Which do you think is more probable?
Discuss. I need to go take a deuce.....
posted by Don the "Head Chimp" at
7:42 AM
17 Comments:
Well if Greg Graffin is to be believed (I love that a punk rock singer (bad religion) has become a power house in evolutionary biology) then Intelligent design happens to be the most probable explaination. Personally I believe in intelligent design. However one must take a step back and realize how the different religions have been "jacked-up" -technical term. I'll give my take on God. God doesn't create play things as the Christians may have you believe nor does God choose a race of people as the Jews and Muslums would have you believe. I believe that God is an omni-present being and just as God has always been life has strewn to and from. These events cannot be helped. Personally I think ooze combining with amino acids then being struck by lighting is a little to easy and intilectually lazy. The math and the odds are very difficult but the concept is elementary. Damn I am a poor speller. Is there anyway we can include a spell checking in this thing?
By
Anonymous, at 10:15 AM
i love ayn rand. have you seen the passion of ayn rand? i've got it on vhs & can lend it to you if you like.
-melissa
By
Anonymous, at 12:19 PM
Ignorance can be bliss. In the right context. I mean...when was the last time you saw an unhappy retarded person? My guess is never.
It can be wasted life, in the right context. Sure, I've had my moments when I thought, "Would it be rude to stare?" But you have to note that 99% of retards don't go to college...therefore subjecting themselves to bagging groceries at the supermarket.
As for beliefs in God, I don't think that is laziness. Not all people were raised to be religious. Some people believe in "school" as their "church".I mean, they go "religiously" to it, read "religiously" for it, and discuss amongst their peers what they have learned. Same thing, different topic. While I have attended church services a whopping 2x in my life (once, when I was three years old); I don't think there is any way for our mortal selves to know the answer. I don't know the answer. This is why I define myself as Agnostic.
I don't believe humans, any humans, can appreciate the vastness of our universe. As scientists say, it's too big. They can't see most of it. Maybe one day they will, but they just recently discovered Pluto wasn't a planet....long holding the previous thought that it, in fact, was. They stuck to that shit, man.
Religion, the Bible, is a book. A very long book, but a book that has come to be appreciated by millions of people from, jeez, whenever it first made it's appearance. A book that stands alone as the one that everyone knows. A book that is used in courtrooms when a witness is being questioned.
I don't know the answer. But I couldn't possibly.
Life doesn't make sense. It isn't supposed to. But no one, not Ayn Rand, not Sigmund Freud, not J.D. Salinger, not Isaac Newton, not Charles Darwin, know the answers.
And..intellectual laziness? In what context? I know some (very) religious people who are very intellectual, smart, witty, etc. They aren't intellectually lazy. In fact there are a couple that I would venture a guess that a couple of them are a couple of the smartest people I know.
I think being intellectually lazy is: spending time debating whether or not God exists when that time could be spent finding a cure for cancer, hunger, poverty, illness, figuring out what to do with DNA, etc. Most of that is science..or at the very least, social science.
By
Anonymous, at 12:37 PM
This is my favorite summation of Ayn Rand… it’s talking specifically about the Fountainhead, a book that Rand wrote and uses as a demonstration of Objectivism. I stole this passage from Ruthless Reviews:
“Has anyone ever seen a photo of Ayn Rand? I've done a little search, and yet am I to find one on the back of her books. There's a reason for this; she's ugly. I'm talking seriously homely and ugly. Thus the conundrum. Who would be the perfect real embodiment of Objectivism? My take is this: Ayn Rand is an ugly woman with power domination issues. She writes her ideal character as an cold beautiful woman with no interest in sex until raped by a not so good looking Howard Roark and then falls in love with him. Once they do begin a relationship, the entire thing is a power play, struggle to destroy, and all about dominance and masochism. Not the "tie me up in chains and whip me kind", but an emotional and mental combat. All throughout the book Dominique uses her beauty and artic manner to display and define the values of Objectivism. Ayn, would never have that as a tool, so why was her elevated female be given it as her strongest weapon? Ayn was bitter and didn't like herself. She created an ugly philosophy that over does self-interest and self-gratification as a coping mechanism to handle self-disdain, and basically thinks all people suck, because she couldn't get a hot date to the prom, or turn of the century Russian equivalent.”
- mdbm
By
D a n i e l, at 12:41 PM
Facts for the Factually inclined
Terry,
- The Earth formed 4.56 Billion years ago
- Very primitive single-celled organisms (nucleus free) formed 4 Billion years ago
- Plants developed around 470 Million years old
- Animals around 425 Million
Now, I never sang in Bad Religion, but my calculations tell me that animals have only been around for the last 9.3% of the historical length of the planet, and evolution had 4.56 Billion years to bring us where we are now....
Is it all that improbable?
By
Don the "Head Chimp", at 12:52 PM
Quotes...
That is certainly a very funny quote, yet completely off kilter; since Ayn Rand was married to a fellow actor at the age of 22 (not a bad looking guy).
I would argue that although The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged (voted the second most influential book in America, after the Bible), are not complete and fully accurate encapsulations of her philosophy. They are "novels" with philosophic undertones.
By
Don the "Head Chimp", at 1:05 PM
Question: Were you around at the beginning of the last 9.3% of the Earth's historical length of the planet? Do you know anyone who was? Ahh....that's what I thought.
There are a lot of holes in BOTH theories. First: The hole of "Intelligent Design", when people don't believe in the "higher being"...but let's face it -- did you believe that there would be things as iPods 10 years ago?
And, TiVo in the '50's? No way, man.
As for Evolution, sure, people died in the 1800 from the flu...something we get all the time. People lived to be about...35. People were shorter.
However:
Absolutely no transitional forms either in the fossil record or in modern animal and plant life have been found. All appear fully formed and complete. The fossil record amply supplies us with representation of almost all species of animals and plants but none of the supposed links of plant to animal, fish to amphibian, amphibian to reptile, or reptile to birds and mammals are represented nor any transitional forms at all. There are essentially the same gaps between all the basic kinds in the fossil record as exists in plant and animal life today. There are literally a host of missing links in the fossil record and the modern world.
--Because of the lack of evidence for gradual evolution in the fossil record, more and more evolutionists are adopting a new theory of evolution known as macroevolution. The theory of macroevolution teaches that animals and plants changed suddenly from one kind to another without going through any gradual or transitional process.
That's just some of it.
Read the article at
http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/evid2.htm
By
Anonymous, at 1:46 PM
What's with the gaps in both?
I say, let's simply say that there's a POSSIBILITY for both...and call it a day.
One question I have: If humans were formed so long ago...why, all of a sudden, has the past 150 years suddenly shot up in intelligence and technology?
Just wondering.
By
Anonymous, at 1:49 PM
Ok so stars started to burn out and super hot gasses of copper, aluminum, hydrogen, carbon, etc were thrown off into orbet. These gasses then colided with space dust (probably more carbon) and collected around larger objects that were orbiting this dying star. More gasses were trown off and the gravity of a larger newer star started to pull these gasses and hunks of space debris tword it. as these items spun the formed the most efficent shape, a ball. That ball and other balls violently colided with each other to eventually form some planetary system in some galaxy with in our universe. Right I got ya, big bang and all that jazz. I still say the whole concept is pretty easy to grasp where as omicent is much much harder. Perhaps it is untrue but still even thinking about forever .......
By
Anonymous, at 1:57 PM
The heavy Hit...
Deez Nutz
Were you around in 1945? No? Didn't think so.... oh yea, the Hollacaust? never happened, because you never saw it.... ever hear of photoshop?
I don't buy the first part of your arguement; it's elementary and stupid. If there were unrefutable evidence we wouldn't be having this discussion.
In regards to the second part, your "evidence" is from a "Christian Science" website (poorly constructed, I might add), that in itself is not all that wrong; however, the extrapolations that are drawn are partially erroneous and blatantly biased, as the publishers of the "supporting evidence" for creationism are all religiously funded (a.k.a. - "Intelligent Design", absolutely ironic given who created the concept).
Did you happen to glance at the books predominantly cited? Let me do your work for you lazy-ass....
18. Morris, Henry M. Evolution and the Modern Christian, Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1988.
22. Ranganathan, B.G. Origins?, Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1988. (another christian-funded publication)
It's called religious propaganda desguised as "scientific evidence"; don't waste my fucking time if you don't feel like doing your homework.....
Les
Because, up until the last 150 years, medicine and science were not very good; not that they are even close to perfect as of yet, or ever will be for that matter. People worried about survival more than they did about computer viruses back then. We are fortunate to be born in a generation of markedly good fortune, opportunity, and health....
Oruga
I think religious thought is a natural contemplation of any human being (psychological research evidence supports this); however, those who created and organized religion may have done it for two reasons:
1. to give people a sense of hope, relating to the survival and horrific things that were prevelent to modern medicine, science and technology.
2. For control. Ayn Rand saw Christianity being used for controlling the people of Russia, among many other people of the world. She knew that religion can be a deadly and evil thing if used to brainwash and control the masses; most of whom are uneducated.
Terry
There is no point of argueing about an "Omniscient" (i believe the word you were looking for) being... because my friend, it is improbable... We look for answers to questions that we have created due to our lack of understanding of the true nature of things....
I'm not preaching, just shedding a perspective. There is no need to argue; our opinions are meaningless to existing objective reality...
To believe biased brainwashed psuedo-objective garbage that satisfy our needy emotions is ludacris...
It is when we give up the search for our own personal understanding that we become what is known as "intellectually lazy"....
By
Don the "Head Chimp", at 4:39 PM
Sorry dude, but for you to say that the quote I posted is "completely off kilter" means that you have never seen a picture of Ayn Rand. Seriously fugly. I'm suprised they didn't have one in that movie you saw.
By
D a n i e l, at 7:12 PM
I'd say Ayn Rand was very plain looking, not necessarily ugly.
Of course, later on, she did gain a little weight, and as most people do, get old. And "yes", there were a lot of pictures and footage of her, "young" and "old".
Oh yea, this is also from Tori's "Ruthless Review":
"Perhaps people have a hard time separating the plot from the message, and thus find it inexplicable. Understandably so. There's no argument that it's a well written complex piece of literature. The development of people and personality types, social patterns is intricate and stunning. I'm not going to rehash the standard pro and con arguments for the theory of Objectivism, that's been done to death for the past few decades. Allow me to offer a different slant...."
By
Don the "Head Chimp", at 7:59 PM
For everyone above:
I think it's our differences that make the world go 'round. Can you dig it? I can dig it! I mean, I take the philosophies of Kevin Smith as gospel sometimes. Not to mention, I think I see God sometimes in a cloud of bong smoke. I guess it depends on what's important to you: sometimes people just need to believe in something. Anything. (Especially when they don't believe in themselves.) Jesus, Lord Ganesh, 72 virgins. It makes sense. Sometimes people don't want to believe they're responsible for their own failures. In those cases, they blame God. Or maybe they pray for a winning lottery ticket. Some people may be too lazy and/or poor to take Biology 101. Some people may have been raised in the Bible Belt and don't even question the existence of god. I don't know. This is a question that is difficult to define. I mean, people on this entry have consulted Ayn Rand, Bad Religion, Ruthless Reviews, Russian writer Griboedov, some Christianity thing from the 1800's, in addition to the ideas they already had when they began. I am probably the only person on here that has never read Ayn Rand. I'm simply not interested. If that makes me ignorant, so be it. I prefer true crime stories. I don't think that anyone can answer this and come to an agreeable medium. Any time religion or politics come into debate, there's always opposition.
I don't think that religion should be taught in school. Go to church if you want to learn about Adam and Eve. Go to school if you want to learn science.
I also feel really sorry for those 72 virgins. Be a slut, and you're good to go.
With the exception of respecting everyone's opinions on here, that's all I wanted to say.
By
Anonymous, at 11:02 AM
The last part came out wrong. I respect everyone on here.
By
Anonymous, at 11:04 AM
I never said that the Fountainhead wasn't a good book. If you'll recall, I recommended it to you several years ago after I finished reading it.
What I am trying to bring to light is the fact Rand had a face that made babies cry, and that fact had a significant impact on the formation of her philosphy.
That you cannot admit that Rand is ugly just shows me that you are wearing the intellectual equalivent of beer goggles. Its fine that you like Rand and her philosophy, but don't let your crush on Objectivism blind you. Thats just not rational.
In summation: Ayn Rand is ugly.
By
D a n i e l, at 10:51 AM
Ya the lady is a bit of a dog. She isn't the ugliest perston I've ever seen, but she isn't Liz Hurley by any streach of the imagination.
By
Anonymous, at 9:48 AM
What a crock you can't you can't insert pictures.
Picture
By
Anonymous, at 9:51 AM
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