-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
The GOP hearts Ayn Rand. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and his father Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), all mention the works of Ayn Rand as being influential in their lives. Even Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas references her work as influence in his autobiography. Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, is an acolyte of Rand’s thinking and knew her personally.
I would like to focus on one aspect of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism, and its implications for Christianity.
Rand saw the role of any philosophical system as the understanding of reality. Reality (existence) and the ability to understand reality (consciousness) are at the heart of Objectivism. Considering existence (reality) and consciousness (man’s awareness of it), Rand assigns primacy to existence, “the universe exists independent of consciousness (of any consciousness).” In other words, “wishing doesn’t make it so.”
For Rand, consciousness is the faculty of perceiving that which exists, “consciousness is consciousness of an object.” Eric Johnson, in a review of chapter one of Leonard Peikoff’s book Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, wrote:
Since the nature (identity) of consciousness is to be aware of reality, existence is prior to, necessary for, and not subject to the control of, consciousness.
Consciousness cannot be conscious only of itself because you run into the chicken-and-the-egg problem. Consciousness requires objects to be aware of in order to create consciousness. Sensory deprivation does not validate the notion of consciousness without anything to be conscious of. Consciousness of objects, and their associated memories, were already formed before any experiments with sensory deprivation.
Rand’s primary axiom of Objectivism is the Primacy of Existence. In contrast is the Primacy of Consciousness, “the notion that the universe has no independent existence, that it is the product of a consciousness (either human or divine or both).” Rand’s Primacy of Existence is the reason for Objectivism’s position of atheism with respect to religion, especially Christianity and its “creator God.”
The Christian concept of God as a disembodied consciousness that created everything, except itself, is antithetical to Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. Objectivism provides a solid philosophical foundation for rejecting the Christian worldview.
The Primacy of Existence hasn’t received the media attention that it deserves, and I doubt that Rand’s fans in the GOP/Tea Party would understand its ramifications.
H/T: AlterNet, Anton Thorn, Dawson Bethrick, Objectivism Wiki, Ayn Rand Lexicon.
Should have said the DC TCA area. That level of coverage is not available all over the country, where there really are gaps in radar coverage.
I got over Ayn Rand in high school….but even then, I don’t think I ever interpreted ‘objectivism’ in the same manner the GOP seems to…Wikipedia stub states ; “In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed all forms of collectivism and statism, instead supporting laissez-faire capitalism, which she believed was the only social system that protected individual rights.” So, it seems to me that we have a real time screaming science experiment that disproves all of the above.
Plus, her taste in art sucks and betrays her Nazi sensibilities…
Buddha, I think he has an OCD problem. On top of that, he is both immature and not very smart. A three time loser.
Apparently has nothing better to do that come bother the grownups.
He gets the idea that some typo is more important than the big picture. He reminds me of some of the bad lawyers I know who jump on a small error in a file and then posture and preen before the jury as if they had solved the Jack the Ripper case. I always had a lot of fun with those types, especially if I could get them to lose their cool and get called down by the judge.
Like the track of Flight 77. ATC kept a detailed track, as shown in the NTSB documents. On top of that the DC area is the busiest area in the entire ATC system with more restricted airspace areas than just about anywhere except Area 51. I am all too familiar with the ATC system, having flown in it for decades. The only time there will be a dead spot is if an aircraft goes below the ability of the radar to see it. The flight profile was from the Flight Data Recorder. Damn, Larry is gettin tiresome.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB196/doc02.pdf
Who cares what it’s about?? Dodging the issue doesn’t make your version true.
If 12 states were incinerated tonight by nuclear bombs, and I mentioned it on this thread, would you say “this thread isn’t about that”??
LOL
It’s all dodge and deflect.
What’s funny is this thread isn’t about 9/11, Larry, yet you keep talking about it.
Are you married to Kay by chance?
Funny how you think I’m a “nut” but isn’t it ironic how the “nut” provides links, pictures, clips [evidence] of what I’m saying—-all you fools provide are ad hominem attacks.
Where’s your PROOF? It doesn’t exist. What’s REALLY funny is the fact that your OWN words is what kills you in these debates. You said 35 minutes between take off and crash time——-LIE [78 minutes]. You said ATC knew the plane’s location at ALL times—–LIE, it was off radar for a good while when it came back, the plane was near Washington.
You said parts were “all over the place” but can provide NO pictures of that. You IGNORE all my excellent questions.
You guys really make the “nut” look good!
Here’s a picture of what the amazing all powerful indestructable nose of Flight 77 did on 9-11:
http://guardian.911review.org/Pentagon/exit-above-1.jpg
It went through THREE rings of the Pentagon, without “shredding” or its pieces going “all over the place”.
Notice at the top of the picture is the collapsed wall, at the bottom right [where the red box is] is a huge hole on the other side of C Ring, where supposedly the nose of the plane came through. How did the weakest part of the plane [nose] go through this much concrete without shredding OS?
And one thing you NEVER explained——you said the wings “sheared off” at impact and never pierced the building. What makes wings shear off?? Those wings would have went right into the building with the plane. What evidence do you have that the wings “sheared off”???? Pictures of the wings on the lawn??? Pictures of the pieces ANYWHERE???? Just your good word huh?
Let me guess…you “don’t have time” for me? LOL
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Sorry, Larry.
Most of my lunatic time on the blog is currently being used up by another lunatic.
Good Pentagon video here
http://www.pentagonstrike.co.uk/flash.htm#Main
You also IGNORED my comments about the nose of the plane [the WEAKEST part of the plane] being strong enough to go through THREE rings of the Pentagon—-when the engines [the strongest part] apparently vaporized or shredded according to YOU.
Why didn’t the nose shred into a million pieces and go “all over the place”?? Why was it strong enough to puncture THREE rings of the Pentagon if any impact of the plane against building [according to you] causes plane parts to shred and go “all over the place”?? Why did the nose NOT shred through THRE rings of concrete?????
Hmmmmmmmm???
Let me guess…you “don’t have time” for me? LOL
Larry, you need to wipe the drool off your chin.
One day you will discover how irrelevant you are. As well as being a jackass.
Did someone mention tinfoil hats?
Larry,
And I love how you wear aluminum foil.
It looks good on you.
Larry: right.
BIL–I love how you take one section out of my entire paragraph and leave the rest ignored—love it, love it. You left off the part RIGHT BEFORE part you addressed where I said “So, Im asking YOU, where’s the wings in ANY pictures? Or PIECES?”
See? I DID mention the PIECES! But why would you INCLUDE that part? That would have destroyed your attempt at a rebuttal—so you leave out huge chunks of my post as if I didn’t mention the content in your response. I DID. Do you have PICTURES of these PIECES????? Hmmmmm???????
OS said:
“Larry, just as I thought. You are flailing away. Making a typo early in the morning does not invalidate the item. Suggestion. You have no intention of learning anything. So, it is a waste of time to even try to have a discussion. You are, quite clearly, not interested in dialogue, but in making a rant.”
Translation: Larry crushed me with facts [especially the part about me LYING about take off to crash time of Flight 77 being 35 minutes when it was really 78 minutes], so because he completely embarrassed me and exposed my lies, I will focus on an irrelevant issue like the witnesess saying they saw people in the windows—which I know Larry was just saying that the OFFICIAL story of the gov’t says that witnesses saw people in the windows—NOT that Larry REALLY believes that—in fact, he already said he didn’t believe it—but I will keep bringing it up to avoid Larry’s exposing of my lies about take off to crash times and my huge lie about the ATC knowing where Flight 77 was at ALL TIMES—–which they didn’t, and Larry refuted that, so I won’t mention ANY of that. I will focus on bullshit, irrelevant things because he embarrassed me by exposing my lies.
Pretty accurate translation OS?
Now, will you tell all your idiot friends on this blog that you LIED about take off to crash time being 35 minutes when it was really 78?
Will you tell them that you LIED about ATC knowing where Flight 77 was at all times????
Hmmmmmmm????
Oh, that’s right. You don’t “have time” for me. LOL
Ayn Rand’s Pseudo-Philosophy
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/87328/ayn-rands-pseudo-philosophy
Excerpt:
David Bentley Hart, writing in First Things, skewers Objectivism:
And, really, what can one say about Objectivism? It isn’t so much a philosophy as what someone who has never actually encountered philosophy imagines a philosophy might look like: good hard axiomatic absolutes, a bluff attitude of intellectual superiority, lots of simple atomic premises supposedly immune to doubt, immense and inflexible conclusions, and plenty of assertions about what is “rational” or “objective” or “real.” Oh, and of course an imposing brand name ending with an “-ism.” Rand was so eerily ignorant of all the interesting problems of ontology, epistemology, or logic that she believed she could construct an irrefutable system around a collection of simple maxims like “existence is identity” and “consciousness is identification,” all gathered from the damp fenlands between vacuous tautology and catastrophic category error. She was simply unaware that there were any genuine philosophical problems that could not be summarily solved by flatly proclaiming that this is objectivity, this is rational, this is scientific, in the peremptory tones of an Obersturmführer drilling his commandoes.
Bob, most of the damage to that wall was done by the two GE J-79 engines. They are dense and have a lot of mass compared to the airframe. The J-79s did punch through the obstacle. What you see emerging from the other side of the block in the side view are the engines, followed by an amalgam of small bits and pieces of the much lighter airframe. An airframe must be very light, and is light compared to the engines and landing gear struts.
The Pentagon plane weighed in the neighborhood of 250,000 pounds, so even though it was built with very light materials, 200+ tons is still a lot of mass. It penetrated the outer ring but not the next inner ring. The smaller hole in the inner ring was made by a landing gear strut and not the airplane itself. There was not enough of the plane left by that time to do really serious damage. 200 tons is about the same mass as an average steam locomotive. That much energy focused on a relatively small area will do a lot of damage, even as the object itself is pulverized. The excess energy has to go somewhere and although a lot of energy was dissipated by the disintegration of the airframe, there was plenty left over to pulverize the outer ring.
In comparison to the Boeing 757, an F-4 weighs about 50,000 pounds at nominal takeoff weight, one fifth the mass of the airliner.
I am reminded of the carpet manufacturer who was asked to design carpets for some of the first luxury airliners. After doing some research, he remarked with some dismay that a 100-pound woman in stiletto heels had the same penetrating power on a carpet as a full-grown elephant.
‘just this one case’
What I find most intriguing about topics like this is observing how fear and denial rear their ugly heads seeking to make exceptions ‘for just this on case.’