John Ridpath on religion


jts

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Many years ago I had a cassette of a lecture by John Ridpath about religion. I transcribed these excerpts from it.

Religion in its fundamental essence and in its essential practices is totally opposed to human life. It is in fact the deepest of all possible oppositions to the requirements of human life.

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Religion, east or west, is false. It is false on the grandest scale imaginable. And it has destroyed on the grandest scale imaginable. It cannot escape that because it has in fact abandoned first of all the means of life -- reason, in order to transcend the place of life -- this earth, for the purpose of denying the purpose of life -- which is to be happy here and now. And given that, it cannot have failed to have accomplished what it did. It has pre-empted whole areas of thought which are concerned with the bringing of thought to the application of action, in particular the field of morality which it has pre-empted and turned against life itself. Religion has taken the most glorious concepts of a rational morality such as for example exaltation, worship, reverence, sacred, and it has not only removed those concepts from our lives, but it has actually removed them from this earth, taken them up into the sky and turned them into moral thunderbolts to be launched back down at us and to incinerate us in our efforts to live life. It has taken the concept of ultimate value beyond this earth and it has used it to diminish and demean everything that is here. It has taken human life, which is potentially challenging, productive, successful, tall, joyous, proud, and it has turned it into an anxiety ridden torture. It has turned it into a denial of ourselves in which we then crawl in obedience and fear and seek release from all of this by denouncing everything which we are and everything which we have. Keeping man's estimate of himself low by primarily for example advocating humility and selflessness and damning pride, which is the crown of all of the virtues, it has created a people who desire tyrants and it has created tyrants who desire to have the people. It has created power-lust, power-lust which has always flourished, as Ayn Rand once said, "as a weed that grows in the vacant lot of an abandoned mind."

Religion is the abandonment of the mind. It is the damnation of this world and the damnation of this life in favor of what -- ? It is not true that religion does this in favor of anything which is higher or greater or better. It is not in fact in favor of anything that is at all. It is in favor of that which in fact is not. So, religion is not for anything -- if you mean by that anything positive, anything in existence. It is against everything. It is in this sense not the worship of something else; it is the worship of the beyond everything, which is the worship of nothing, which is the worship of death. And Albert North Whitehead is correct when he once wrote,

"History down to the present day is a melancholy record of the horrors which attend religion -- human sacrifice, cannibalism, abject superstition, hatred as between races, the maintenance of degrading customs, hysteria, bigotry. Religion is the last refuge of human savagery."

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Don't know if this is the place to put this but if anyone is up for debating :) They put a lot of their personal time into criticizing Rand and Objectivism. I would think there would be better things to do.

http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/

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Oh and wow!, i appreciate the introduction to the ARI watch website. Very interesting and informing stuff.

However in my beginnings of studying Objectivism his book Objectivism: the philosophy of Ayn Rand and his vids of Objectivism 101 was helpful. But some of these articles on ARI watch are disturbing. Most unfortunate being he is the "intellectual heir". and considers Objectivism a "closed" philosophy.

But again, thanks for the information. You have a new reader and of course I will pass the link along.

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Don't know if this is the place to put this but if anyone is up for debating :smile: They put a lot of their personal time into criticizing Rand and Objectivism. I would think there would be better things to do.

http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/

SC,

Daniel Barnes and I are online friends (or almost friends) who have sparred at each other for several years now.

He's slippery but highly intelligent.

I have only interacted with Greg Nyquist one or two times over on that blog.

I doubt they will convince many people with their approach, which is a typically Progressive attitude, i.e.:

1. We are totally objective and open to all views, but

2. Our target sucks big-time on everything at all times, with some minor exceptions for show, and

3. We are smarter--far, far, smarter--than you if you disagree with us.

:)

However, I believe blogs like that are good things. If a person can cut through that particular Gordian Know (of what, I will not say :) ) and still be convinced of the value of Rand, that blog has actually served as great value.

As the saying goes, no man is totally useless. At the worst, he is a good example of what not to be.

:)

Michael

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Many years ago I had a cassette of a lecture by John Ridpath about religion. I transcribed these excerpts from it.

Religion in its fundamental essence and in its essential practices is totally opposed to human life. It is in fact the deepest of all possible oppositions to the requirements of human life.

--------------------------------------------------

Religion, east or west, is false. It is false on the grandest scale imaginable. And it has destroyed on the grandest scale imaginable. It cannot escape that because it has in fact abandoned first of all the means of life -- reason, in order to transcend the place of life -- this earth, for the purpose of denying the purpose of life -- which is to be happy here and now. And given that, it cannot have failed to have accomplished what it did. It has pre-empted whole areas of thought which are concerned with the bringing of thought to the application of action, in particular the field of morality which it has pre-empted and turned against life itself. Religion has taken the most glorious concepts of a rational morality such as for example exaltation, worship, reverence, sacred, and it has not only removed those concepts from our lives, but it has actually removed them from this earth, taken them up into the sky and turned them into moral thunderbolts to be launched back down at us and to incinerate us in our efforts to live life. It has taken the concept of ultimate value beyond this earth and it has used it to diminish and demean everything that is here. It has taken human life, which is potentially challenging, productive, successful, tall, joyous, proud, and it has turned it into an anxiety ridden torture. It has turned it into a denial of ourselves in which we then crawl in obedience and fear and seek release from all of this by denouncing everything which we are and everything which we have. Keeping man's estimate of himself low by primarily for example advocating humility and selflessness and damning pride, which is the crown of all of the virtues, it has created a people who desire tyrants and it has created tyrants who desire to have the people. It has created power-lust, power-lust which has always flourished, as Ayn Rand once said, "as a weed that grows in the vacant lot of an abandoned mind."

Religion is the abandonment of the mind. It is the damnation of this world and the damnation of this life in favor of what -- ? It is not true that religion does this in favor of anything which is higher or greater or better. It is not in fact in favor of anything that is at all. It is in favor of that which in fact is not. So, religion is not for anything -- if you mean by that anything positive, anything in existence. It is against everything. It is in this sense not the worship of something else; it is the worship of the beyond everything, which is the worship of nothing, which is the worship of death. And Albert North Whitehead is correct when he once wrote,

"History down to the present day is a melancholy record of the horrors which attend religion -- human sacrifice, cannibalism, abject superstition, hatred as between races, the maintenance of degrading customs, hysteria, bigotry. Religion is the last refuge of human savagery."

Ridpath's speech sounds like something that would go over well in a cocktail party composed of ARIan devotees and/or at an atheist convention. In other words, he is "preaching to the choir." Such rhetoric would not likely convince anyone that does not already agree with him.

On the other hand, while I do not like his style, I do have to agree with many of his observations on the deleterious effects of religion, although Nietzsche and Mencken have said it better.

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Did Alfred North Whitehead really say what Ridpath attributed to him? I thought he was sympathetic to religion, for example starting the school of theology known as Process Theology and arguing that monotheism in the Western World helped pave the way for modern science?

-Neil Parille

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Neil,

Re the Whitehead quote used by John Ridpath, above. The quote is accurate, but taken somewhat out of context. His views are a little more complex about religion. See below, and the link to all four lectures by Whitehead, which puts the lifted quote in better perspective.:

From Religion in the Making, four lectures by Alfred North Whitehead, 1926

 

Thus rational criticism was admitted in principle. The appeal was from the tribal custom to the direct individual intuition, ethical, metaphysical, or logical: "For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings," are words which Hosea ascribes to Jehovah; and he thereby employs the principles of individual criticism of tribal custom, and bases it upon direct ethical intuition.

In this way the religions evolved towards more individualistic forms, shedding their exclusively communal aspect. The individual became the religious unit in the place of the community; the tribal dance lost its importance compared to the individual prayer; and, for the few, the individual prayer merged into justification through individual insight.

So to-day it is not France which goes to heaven, but individual Frenchmen; and it is not China which attains nirvana, but Chinamen.

During this epoch of struggle - as in most religious struggles-the judgements passed by the innovators on the less-developed religious forms were very severe. The condemnation of idolatry pervades the Bible; and there are traces of a recoil which go further: "I hate, I despise your feast days," writes Amos, speaking in the name of Jehovah.

Such criticism is wanted. Indeed history, down to the present day, is a melancholy record of the horrors which can attend religion: human sacrifice, and in particular the slaughter of children, cannibalism, sensual orgies, abject superstition, hatred as between races, the maintenance of degrading customs, hysteria, bigotry, can all be laid at its charge. Religion is the last refuge of human savagery. The uncritical association of religion with goodness is directly negatived by plain facts. Religion can be, and has been, the main instrument for progress. But if we survey the whole race, we must pronounce that generally it has not been so: "Many are called, but few are chosen."

(Italics added)

All four lectures may be found at:

http://alfrednorthwhitehead.wwwhubs.com/ritm1.htm

http://alfrednorthwhitehead.wwwhubs.com/ritm1.htm

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Jerry,

Re the Whitehead quote used by John Ridpath, above. The quote is accurate, but taken somewhat out of context. His views are a little more complex about religion.

Objectivists are lousy when it comes to intellectual history.

-Neil Parille

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  • 8 months later...

Ridpath was not an intellectual. He wrote to please Peikoff and others. He had a library full of books he never read. He always waited to get Peikoff's approval before submitting anything. Sad but true. (ex romantic partner of RIPDATH)

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Tell us what you really think about John Ridpath.

I wonder if there's any relationship to this situation:

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=12029&page=1entry161811

What has Ridpath ever produced? We should we care? So he has at least one, probably two vocally unhappy ex-lovers. I would conclude with a 'so what' but manners dictate I say: Welcome to OL, fotocat!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Okay, so ex-lovers are now coming here to spread the gossip?

Isn't OL meant to be a refuge away from the childish movement infighting and backstabbing and gossip and bitching?

As for Ridpath's quote, yeah, he's preaching to the choir, but there's a lot of fun in doing so. Maybe its because I was big into New Atheism but there's a role for taking a nice bath in our smug self-satisfaction and being condescending to the religionists.

Of course civility has its place... but so does some "ideological circle-jerking" (I believe that's the term for everyone being smug and patting each other on the back and marinating in our shared rightness and betterness). I mean, that's what church basically is for religionists... confirmation bias reinforced through collective mutual affirmation.

Note: Nothing against Fotocat... I just O'ist movement infighting frustrating and childish.

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Andrew,

It's OK within a limit. George Smith got a hell of a lot off his chest here on OL about an ex-girlfriend (including stuff about plagiarism).

I believe it was good for him, too.

Ever since that time, he has been cooking like there's no tomorrow. Have you see that list of magnificent essays he's written for Cato? And his new book?

Bop on over to his corner and check it out.

He wasn't doing that when he was choking on all those nasty feelings.

btw - If you are interested in the catharsis (meaning if you secretly like gossip :smile: ), it's there, too. And it's long. And it's very, very colorful. :smile:

Michael

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MSK,

Oh, I've been reading GHS's stuff for Cato regularly. It is indeed extremely good quality work and the Objectivist world needs more people like George.

And yes... I've seen the catharsis you speak of.

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