The Thread for philosophy and ideas.

Amen to that, children should be taught the facts so they have the opportunity to form a decent opinion as they grow, i like to think we are better at that kind of thing in the UK, but its been a while since i was at school.

 

Great video, this idea that creationism needs to be taught alongside, or even instead of evolution is absolutely stupid. Religious zealots are going too far, they want our children to be morons.

I am getting close to simply laughing at people who profess their religion as truth


Atheist:

Someone who does not believe in magic

 

Ayn Rand - The Fountainhead (1943)

Yes, my threat comes true, here's a brief review:

I've just finished the book, and it's definitely too long. Many of the things could have been written in one third of the pages. But Rand's style, despite some lengths, never gets boring, and the characters, though highly artificial, are well worked out.

Ayn Rand thoughts: her observations about "second-handers" (people who live for others, by the opinion of others etc.) are important up until today and apparently were necessary in her epoch against an upcoming collectivistic movement. She propagates the opposite: a radical individualism that is completely independent from society, its necessities, considerations and concern for others.
The protagonist, Howard Roark, the epitome of Rand's ideal, feels entitled to bomb his (!) building, as he is its creator, and is afterwards, in a fair trial (!), acquitted by a jury? I feel deeply disturbed by such arrogations resembling Nietzsche's Ubermensch from a totally different angle.
I wouldn't like to live in Ayn Rand's individualistic society where a minimalistic government only sees to it that nobody gets hurt but otherwise leaves everybody to their fate. They are free to starve, live in slums, without health care or education - or maybe they'll get help, if it fits the "individualistic" (i.e. egoistic) needs of others?

I'll have a look at the "Fountainhead" movie, and maybe read "Anthem" and "Atlas Shrugged" when I find the time.

UPDATE: I've watched the "Fountainhead" movie - wow, that was a pathetic, desparately crude adaptation - to be avoided, if you've read the book.

 

I read this on a Britney Spears fansite of all places and found this to be quite interesting.

"If Britney believes in God that's great. Faith, religion and beliefs are a very personal issue. Sometimes I think the mistake is made from both sides of the argument that the other side is ignorant, stupid, dumb, gullable. There have been so many great advances in society made by both people who believe in God and don't believe in God. Be it in the sciences, arts, math, medecine, etc. Many great acheivements by those who believe and don't believe. I think it unnerves some people that some one else could look at the same evidence they are looking at come up with a different conclusion."

I think it's sad how condescending both Christians and Atheists are towards each other. I'm not trying single out these 2 groups of people it just so happens that most of the people I interact wich are either believers in the Judeo/Christian God and or Jesus or do not believe there is a God. The one person I know that is self proclaimed agnostic is about the most knowledgeable and genuinely nice person I know. He is like an encyclopedia.

 

Religious zealots are idiots, they only stand in the way of progress because they are afraid to be wrong about their religion and their poor choices in life.

Choosing religion is like choosing to be ignorant, it helps no one and makes everything less practical and less enjoyable. Fear is not the correct way to lives a persons life, courage and happyness is.

On a side note I have found most if not all of the people I have decided to call intelligent and reasonable have recently declared to me that they are atheist or similar in their ethical and functional perspectives.

Funny how the lack of blind devotion allow a person to find truth... it's because there is less garbage in the way.

Religious fanatics: (Your) God is dead, and no one cares.

 

What I have a hard time comming to grips with is how could some one, or actually or let me put this as an example, like the Wright Brothers who where so religious to the point that they refused to work on a Sunday, as if that day had any more significance than any other day, be such pioneers in aviation. It seems to me that an ignorant uneducated person who believes in God and the Bible would not be able to accomplish such a thing. My daughter alomst died of leukemia and spent 3 months touch and go in the hospital. I naturally atribute her being a perfectly healthy little girl today to the advancements in the science of medecine. The odd thing is that the head of the Hematology, Oncology and Cancer department on more than one occasion tried to talk to me about prayer and Jesus. Why is that? To be honest some of these things don't make sense to me. While I don't believe religion offers any proof of creation and science offers a more rational explanation to how things work in reality, I find it hard to call some one ignorant who spends so much of their lives studying science, medecine and helping people be cured of cancer. I use to think that people who believed in religion where either brainwashed or gullable but could it be something else? Maybe they have some sort charachter or emotional issue that creates this need for God. Calling them stupid just doesn't seem to add up.

 

I hate it that as soon as you mention God people automatically assume you are a bible reading hillbilly who believes in jesus.

It's like the National Front stealing the identity of the Union Jack flag and tarring it as something bad.

 

whats wrong with hillbilly's
or believing in god
i could say you could do worse jammsbro.

keep in mind i am a hillbilly, and do believe in god.
more and more every day.

dono, it aint all that bad.
i can make my own whiskey

 

I apologise for the hillbilly comment. It was out of order. I meant more along the lines of the right wing bible belt mentality that i can't stand. Saying hillbilly like it was a bad thing was not well thought out so i once again say sorry.

And i believe in god, very, very much so. I just don't subscribe to the lies in the q'ran or bible. Anyone who thinks that idea of a god is real must believe that god is the most horrible and evil being imaginable.

What i should have made clearer is that when you mention that you believe in a god/creator/monad or supreme intelligence people tend to instantly assume that you are a christian. And i hate that. I have to re-iterate what i believe before every single conversation of it, such is the saturation of the christian idea of god in the western world.

 

I think that you do not fully understand what rand was trying to depict. If you were to paint a masterpiece of your love and someone was allowed to draw a permanent marker moustache on them, would you want to correct the action, or would you go "meh, it looks better that way"? You think that the characters are artificial or Rands interpretation of them?

Roark is not "...completely independent from society, its necessities, considerations and concern for others" In fact, he understands he is very much a part of society, he simply wants to do things his way and be able to fail or succeed on his own merit. He has concern for his mentor, lover and even his parasitic friend, but he never gushes these feelings, as I suspect you might be more inclined to. You do seem to be a very emotional person (from your post) so perhaps you misinterpret Roark's strong, silent vigil of success for something else.

The movie is about the best summary of the book that would fit in a movie under 2 hours, I must disagree with you there - as she had total control over her movie, a rare option in Hollywood.

As far as "where a minimalistic government only sees to it that nobody gets hurt but otherwise leaves everybody to their fate..." This as a base concept is good, but Rand extols the virtues of education, so you are absolutely wrong there. I personally think that the (Canadian) government is obtusely selective with who it helps, as someone could need help quite bad and be ignored, while another could bitch to everyone until they get lifetime ODSP (Disability Benefits), never having to work again, and not really having to prove they really require it in the first place... I know of several people who are highly medicated and *do not* need their medication, although they are *very* addicted to it, and booze, and drugs and the list goes on.

If we left people to their fate as Rand suggests, I think that the weak parasites would die off, living in slums as you put it, and mostly the strong egoists and their productive friends would rule.

 

I LOVE that video.

 

Exactly. I downloaded a copy of Fallout 3 for PC shortly after it came out. I tried all the stuff I wanted to try (with a partially patched version) and found that the game was still incomplete as far as I was concerned. After the Gold version came out and only after the patches had sorted out most of the problems that were absurdly not fixed before the original came out, AND there were good, stable mods to make the game actually a good, playable game, I bought it.

At that point, it was worth the $60 to me, when it was released, it was barely worth the money I spend on my bandwidth to download it in the first place... about $6 (IIRC) at the time.

If I really like a band or a movie or something, and it has enduring value to me, I usually buy it. I downloaded Black Ops and the same thing occurred, the game is not complete AFAIAC, and the increased difficulty only seems to mean that your teammates get in your way more.

Not "friendly" fire at all!

 

Agreed. If people use the net to sample media but still pay for it then it is a good idea. I disagree with people who just farm the torrent sites with no intention of putting any money back into the outlet which provided them with their films, music and so on.

But then again, musicians and film-makers should drastically alter their budgets. I mean, $20 to hire Reese Witherspoon for a romantic comedy? $250 million to make a spiderman movie? Cap all prices and lower costs and pass the saving onto the consumer and sales will rise again. You can buy a dvd for ?3 after a year or so but it's ?15.99 when i comes out. Why not balance it at ?6 or ?7 all the time and let people buy more.

I like Will Smith but I don't like seeing him get another $25 million for his twentieth film.

 

It's comedy but it's not lies.

 

real comedy

 

Why i detest religion.

 

Some people do some seriously messed up shit while using religion as an excuse from punishment... they use the same religious circular reasoning to prove their own messed up reality. "I chopped the head off my baby because God told me to! Prove that He didn't!" "The same stuff happened in the Bible, clearly that makes it OK, doesn't it?"

No, it doesn't you psycho!

The other trajedy is the people who use religion to commit many smaller lies, even their "white" lies cause trouble for everyone.

My video is basically a 20 second version of the same idea


EDIT HOLY SHIT Fox took this away! (losers)