A Chance for Objectivists to ask a Christian ANYTHING.
Posted by trackman13 11 years, 11 months ago to The Gulch: General
I have been far too busy lately trying to run my business and stay ahead of the curve to spend much time on here. However, I have most of the day to myself so I thought I would try to strike up a nice conversation with my fellow Gulchers.
Yes it's true, although I'm not condoning a certain behavior, we all have our own weakness's. The only difference between a Christian and a person of the 'world' is we are forgiven for our sins.
What about the people who created penicillin, the Golden Gate Bridge, the automobile, the laser, transistors, the airplane, rockets, satellites, telephone? Yep, barely self-aware.
is irrational. That is on-topic and you Christians in here don't have a rational answer for it.
is irrational."
Why is that irrational? From a Christian perspective, the only way a grown adult can be saved is to accept Jesus Christ, if that was incorrect, then their would be no Christianity, obviously. And about the part of being barely self-aware, that's my opinion, not a christian one. I have been around some 50 odd years, I see people constantly do things that harm themselves, yet never stop, we call them bad habits. Often we are not even aware of our behavior until someone points it out, that's what I consider barely self-aware.
Rand is probably the best philosophy devised by man to cultivate and sustain a Society. I know of nothing else that even comes close.
Your struggle between the two will deny your true nature, which is Man's true nature.
It would be better, methinks, if the Christians here would do most of the question-asking instead of the other way around. And listening to the answers (i.e., actually considering them) would also be a Good Thing.
At this juncture, I'm inclined to be patient with them -- but, of course, firm. Some of them may be like me, and eventually see the light.
So this thread ends here. But the answer to your question is, "the latter."
I will say that if you have believed in Christ as your personal Savior, then that cannot be undone, no matter the amount of denial you give Him. It is the one belief system, often referred to as a religion, that you cannot get out of no matter how hard you try. You are my brother in Christ and I pray you will return someday.
Can an objectivist objectively reason there is a God?
Perhaps you should read it some day.
I enjoy reading the philosophy of man and intend to get around to it more of Ms. Rand's writings.
Again, my question stands...can an objectivist reason there is a God or not? If you cannot answer this, what does that say about Objectivism. You can say "no, yes, or it is possible," but WWJGD and khalling both haven't answered directly for some reason. I don't think it is a boring question, but that is my self-serving opinion.
Christianity has several facets. There are the basic morals and most of the basic philosophy, of which most are beneficial and the basis of much of our nations founding laws and principles. Then there is the mysticism and the altruism. These aspects are contrary to Objectivist doctrine.
“PLAYBOY: Has no religion, in your estimation, ever offered anything of constructive value to human life?
RAND: Qua religion, no -- in the sense of blind belief, belief unsupported by, or contrary to, the facts of reality and the conclusions of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the negation of reason. But you must remember that religion is an early form of philosophy, that the first attempts to explain the universe, to give a coherent frame of reference to man's life and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy. And, as philosophies, some religions have very valuable moral points. They may have a good influence or proper principles to inculcate, but in a very contradictory context and, on a very -- how should I say it? -- dangerous or malevolent base: on the ground of faith.”
“Christ, in terms of the Christian philosophy, is the human ideal. He personifies that which men should strive to emulate. Yet, according to the Christian mythology, he died on the cross not for his own sins but for the sins of the nonideal people. In other words, a man of perfect virtue was sacrificed for men who are vicious and who are expected or supposed to accept that sacrifice. If I were a Christian, nothing could make me more indignant than that: the notion of sacrificing the ideal to the non-ideal, or virtue to vice. And it is in the name of that symbol that men are asked to sacrifice themselves for their inferiors. That is precisely how the symbolism is used. That is torture.”
Excerpts from The Rand, Playboy interview, 1964
If I am to question a Christian, my questions would be how do you square your rational beliefs with the mysticism? How do you justify the inherent injustice of altruism, even though it is not the total of the doctrine, since it is morally inconsistent to set any ones life as more valuable than another’s, than your own, particularly when it is forced upon you?
Raised a Christian as many other’s here; I struggle with this as I have found no satisfactory answers to these inquiries. This is not to say that Christianity is without some worthy philosophical values. Values and morals many would otherwise never learn.
Regards,
O.A.
I am going to take a swing at an answer, but it will be long and still incomplete. This is a subject that really requires a lot of discussion and thought. It is not well suited to any thing but once a week face to face talks for an hour or so until many aspects of the answer have been explored. I will try to get that answer into as concise and clear as form as I can.
My believes are not accepted by most christens. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints (Mormons) and even all the members of my church do not fully grasp what I will attempt to explain. Most other churches that profess a belief in Christ do not call us christens. On a personal level, I would rather not be lumped in with all the other christens as our ideas of who and what god is are very different from any other christen group that I am familiar with.
To answer the question "How do you account for the symbol of sacrificing the pure to impure, the ideal to the non-ideal that is in Christianity?" Short answer is I do not. There is no need to if you understand the difference between what Christ did and what much of Christianity has been corrupted by collectivism/altruism to think he did.
To help with understanding I must first explain that by my belief we existed before this life in an existence as men and women of spirit. We learned, we grew we developed our reasoning skills... much like we do here. We developed ideas and increased our understating. The end goal of everyone rational spirit was to become like god in our knowledge; politically, philosophically, scientifically, psychologically and in every other way. We could not fully do this as spirits. God is a being of flesh and bone, to truly gain his knowledge we had to also go through a process of gaining a body of flesh and bone. This would allow us to become as he is, to understand what he knows, in short to become the ideal man or woman.
Our god introduced the idea of this world and our physical bodies to us. The idea that they would be flawed and imperfect and that most of us would make mistakes, its part of the learning process we all wanted to go through. to gain our temporary physical bodies, and then through resurrection gain our permanent and perfect physical bodies. (highly incomplete, hopefully enough)
Different plans of how to deal with this whole process of learning came about. Two leading plans emerged. One was Lucifer's (in short collective salvation and the first form of collectivism) and the other was Christ's (built around individual choice, we call it fee agency or agency in the church) that we call the plan of salvation or the plan of happiness. (again incomplete, but hope its enough)
What Christ did was not a sacrifice, it was a calculated move of rational self interest. His plan was to allow us all to gain our physical bodies and go through the process of learning right from wrong (rational form irrational) and grow and improve our knowledge and our abilities through the right and wrong choices we make. To progress and work towards the perfect knowledge (towards becoming the ideal man or woman). There was one problem. The natural laws that govern the universe (and god) demanded that justice be met, that for every action there is a consequence. This meant that those that were not ideal had to be cut off from the resurrected state (receiving the final perfect body) and from exaltation (becoming as god). The scales of Justice had to be satisfied.
Much like if you had a little brother who got in to deep into debt and you stepped in and paid the debt to keep him from facing the consequences of his choices and worked out a plan where by he could pay you back. The little brother would have to follow the plan, you get something in return for stepping in, some interest... The little brother gets a second chance. Christ is our spiritual big brother who stepped in as the savior. He gave us the ability to be saved from our mistakes, he gave us the resurrection (we all will git it) but exaltation is something we still have to earn. We have to pay our debts back to him. It is the grace verses works debate that Christians have. The truth is only the resurrection is by grace, exaltation is by works.
His choice was not to sacrifice himself for all of us, but to give us a chance where we had none so that we could be with him, and we could share in his happiness. No it was not a sacrifice, it was something he would have preferred not to do but did because there was no other way to get what he wanted, he did it.
If in Atlas Shrugged John Gult would have been the only person to understand the rational forces of economy and no one would have joined him how successful would the gulch be? The same was true for Christ. He gave us a chance, but we have to reach out, understand it and take it.
I am still not completely happy with the overall text here, but I have rewritten it at least 4 times today. I hope it is helpful.
I must point this out:
Hebrews 7:27 (NIV)
27 Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.
You have to realize the time line. The planning took place before anyone got a body. Christs plan covers everyone, even those before Christ after and anywhere in between. Just because they lived before him does not mean they cant get the same benefit. It does mean that some of those people were waiting along time to get there final perfect body.
Do mormons buy into the trinity deal?
This is the root reason why many forms of Christianity do not call us christian. We do not buy into the niacean (spelling?) creed and the trinity.
God and Christ are two seperate beings. The holy ghost is also separate but has not yet gained his own body, and will be one the last to do so. God and Christ a both men, just like you and I. They just have more knowledge and have learned to deal with and work in reality where many of us have not. They are perfect, or as Rand would have put it, Ideal.
I think I got it all, maybe not.
It was a wonderful read. I regret that I subject all of you to my hurried work. I seldom do more than one proof read, if any and apologize in advance for what I will undoubtedly unleash yet. :)
Now, on to your belief system: It is not completely familiar to me, except that it represents bits and pieces from many notable philosophers I have studied. It seems, as you describe, and practice it, as one of the most benign and tolerable interpretations I have heard. It may not be one hundred percent objective, by objectivist standards, but it is not something to fear and if it gives you solace, so be it. From what you have expressed I can see in it no way that it impacts me adversely.
If only my little brother paid me back…:)
Happy New Year!
O.A.
Why would any of us want to?
I personally believe Objectivists should run Politics and religion should not be involved. However there aren't enough Libertarian Candidates to take over.
I was hoping that that would be part of the discussion. I like to remind people that Christian is not "Denominational" and that there should only be one "Church" and not hundreds in every City sharing entirely different messages. Christianity is Christianity, not Catholic, Baptist or even Pentacostal.