Adam: I read Atlas Shrugged when I was about 17 or 18. For the most part, being what you could call a victim of modern society, I set Rand and her ideas to the side.. After spending a few years engaging in mindless indulgences, and paying the consequences, I started anew with the utmost dedication to ideas, and Objectivism in particular. As to my musicianship, I've played guitar since I was about 14, and though 8 or so years of playing is a pretty good chunk of time, it doesn't necessarily reflect my skills at the moment >D. I have a band called Bottlerocket, and we have a couple albums on iTunes. Rich: In my post, which perhaps I should have specified, I was referring to any of the religions that preach that life on Earth is simply a means to some higher, eternal existence, or 'proper' existence. As far as I know, Christianity and Islam are similar in this regard, though I don't have much interest in sorting through the details. One could certainly narrow the discussion to Christianity. Reidy: Thanks for the helpful reference. I know I've read that before.. often things don't stick in my mind unless I'm looking for them, unfortunately. So for it to truly be a value, it must be in our self-interest. To be in our self-interest, it must be in accordance with reality. Correct? This made me wonder about the case where, let's say, you value your girlfriend very much and often give her precedence over smaller values. As it turns out, she was cheating on you the whole time. Your value did not align with reality, therefore it was not a value, (which would be an error in knowledge, not morality). So let's say there are religious people who have been actually duped into thinking they have knowledge that they will go to heaven, (which I believe there are). Their reality is also misaligned as the man who was mistaken in trusting his cheating girlfriend. Perhaps the key point is, however, that the evidence that the girlfriend might like him is by far more reality oriented than the zero-evidence for an afterlife. Ninth Doctor: I am not trying to disagree with anyone per se, nor defend religious people. I just found it to be an interesting connection. Religious morality preaches altruism, correct. But in general, people are exchanging their values on Earth for what they take on faith to be a higher value. Which isn't a value because it doesn't exist.. They still want something, but because it is not reality based, it is not a value, thus not an action motivated by self-interest. "It is only the legacy of mysticism that permits men to imagine that they are still speaking meaningfully when they declare that one can seek one's happiness in the renunciation of one's happiness." -NB, VOS, p69