Satan sounds like the good guy.

[Ellen Stuttle]

[T]here is the issue of "basics" and of how far one can stray from those while still legitimately claiming a label. Same issue which arises with people who call themselves "Objectivists" but who discard "basics" - and of course the same question as to what qualifies as "basics."

Ellen

I think you're not taking enough into account that religion is primacy of consciousness - which means a Christian could 're-write' whatever he wishes - subjectively in his mind - based loosely/selectively/fundamentally on his interpretation of the scriptures.

The only basics are the existence of God and Jesus, really. (My memories of my Divinity classes are vague, I'll admit)

Conversely, Objectivism by its nature, has objective, "immutable" basics as well as consistent derivations which can't ever be discarded or modified at whim, without being immediately apparent. Not the best comparison.

If Greg - in what I sense is his admiration of some elements of Objectivism - has tried to meld together some aspects of Christianity with some of Objectivism (i.e. causality, personal morality) and created something not quite Christian and not quite Objectivist, the contradictions are his own to deal with, I'd say. As are any personal benefits he finds in there.

(I can quite respect those aims, though).

Tony,

I think that your comment about "primacy of consciousness" is presuming an Objectivist framework which I question - and questions aside, I think that religions as much as philosophies have identity-conferring features.

I'll give you a couple hypotheticals. Suppose someone told you, "I'm a Christian, and I accept Mohammed as God's prophet." Or suppose someone told you, "I'm an Orthodox Jew, and I accept Christ as my savior."

Wouldn't you think that the person in both hypotheticals was mixing together different religions?

What I see in Greg's views might be likened to a squishy parfait swirled together from inconsistently employed features of Christianity, dollops of Objectivism, and a strong infusion of a West Coast New Age watered-down-Jung/Eastern-mysticism blend - producing something indigestible.

Ellen

[dldelancey]

Diana writes:

Greg's contradictions are ours to deal with when he brings them here.

I have no problem with the views of others which are different than mine. They're not for me to deal with because the just and deserved consequences of the views of others are experienced in their own lives by the ones who hold the views just as I do for mine.

I can also quite respect the aims of others if others can quite respect my aims. Unfortunately, I don't see an honest exchange of respect where Greg is concerned. There is an obvious lack of respect, in fact.

You're mistaking agreement for respect.

Greg

My name is Deanna, not Diana. When one can't be bothered to get my name right, that is a lack of respect. It has nothing at all to do with agreement, unless of course, you are disagreeing with me about what my name is.

[anthony]

[quote name="Ellen Stuttle" post="207865" timestamp="1

I'll give you a couple hypotheticals. Suppose someone told you, "I'm a Christian, and I accept Mohammed as God's prophet." Or suppose someone told you, "I'm an Orthodox Jew, and I accept Christ as my savior."

Wouldn't you think that the person in both hypotheticals was mixing together different religions?

What I see in Greg's views might be likened to a squishy parfait swirled together from inconsistently employed features of Christianity, dollops of Objectivism, and a strong infusion of a West Coast New Age watered-down-Jung/Eastern-mysticism blend - producing something indigestible.

Ellen

===================================

Ellen,

I'd say, it's his digestion. I'd say, why's it anyone else's concern?

And too, good luck to him.

(Sorry Greg, I don't mean to continue making you the topic of the thread.

You know what they say, good PR - bad PR - it's all publicity!)

[moralist]

Ellen writes:

What I see in Greg's views might be likened to a squishy parfait swirled together from inconsistently employed features of Christianity, dollops of Objectivism, and a strong infusion of a West Coast New Age watered-down-Jung/Eastern-mysticism blend - producing something indigestible.

A different view chosen by someone else will always be unpalatable to you simply because you aren't the person who choose it. This is an objective unalterable fact of life for you to deal with any way you choose. I'm just happy that I can fulfill a useful need in your life as something to which you can react negatively.

In business I interact with many people who chose views which are radically different than mine. And yet the moral values guiding their actions are exactly the same as mine. If they weren't, we wouldn't be doing business with each other.

Whoever places views higher than actions will be as big a failure in business as they are in life.

Greg

[moralist]

Deanna writes;

My name is Deanna, not Diana. When one can't be bothered to get my name right, that is a lack of respect. It has nothing at all to do with agreement, unless of course, you are disagreeing with me about what my name is.

Sorry Deanna... I should have checked your profile first for the proper spelling.

Greg

[moralist]

Tony writes;

(Sorry Greg, I don't mean to continue making you the topic of the thread.

You know what they say, good PR - bad PR - it's all publicity!)

Hey Tony... it's all good.

It's our differences that make our conversations here interesting as well as entertaining.

Greg

[Nerian]

Peter,

There is a premise here you should check, especially since this conclusion is an article of faith among Objectivists. And I mean that literally.

Are you certain faith causes unhappiness, self-doubt and despair?

It's a cause and effect thing?

Really?

By what means have you ascertained this?

Observation?

Or are you just repeating or inferring this from the Objectivist literature?

The causality you claim bears no resemblance to what I have observed over my life. Look at a Buddhist monk for an easy example of where the contrary exists. I can even get you neuroscience on it. But outside of Buddhists, I observe everywhere happy, well-adjusted, productive people who hold faith in God volitionally among their mental processes. And they chose this faith in full awareness.

btw - Ayn Rand made a similar claim in the money speech from Atlas Shrugged.

I have observed many people in life who got money through dishonest means. And I have observed the joy some of them have displayed year in and year out, but I have yet to hear one of them say (much less scream) that money is evil. The ones I knew always said money was marvelous and they wanted more of it. They usually used money as a tool of power (in addition to buying goodies) and they enjoyed every bit of it.

Between my own observations and what Rand wrote, when there is a conflict, I will go with what I have observed.

I'm not against Objectivist values here, but I am against the way they are being promoted in these examples. When a person makes a claim that cannot be observed or validated by others except subjectively, and in fact, when there are countless examples anyone can easily observe that contradict that claim, if the person insists on that claim, isn't that based on faith?

If not faith, than what is the standard or mental process?

(Core story is actually a good candidate, but that is another issue.)

In the way I use my rational faculty to judge matters, I have to identify something correctly before I can judge it correctly. I call this cognitive before normative.

When someone gives an incorrect identification of causality, I have to validate their conclusions--their evaluations--by other means or reject them. I happen to accept productive honesty with money and reason as virtues, but not because looting and faith cause unhappiness to the looter and the faithful. (There are other reasons why I hold these as virtues and we can discuss them some day.)

In plain language, how can I accept the evaluation of someone about how faith and ill-gotten money cause misery when that person displays that he or she ignores contradictory examples that are easily observed everywhere any day of the week? (I could say "blank-out" if I wanted to be a smart-ass. )

I base this on their own words where they proclaim causality rather than explain how it works and point to evidence. If I accept their premise even as it contradicts my own observations, I would have to take their evaluation on faith.

Not on reason.

And I'm afraid that is what many do in our subculture. I say this based on several years of online discussions where I have observed it firsthand.

Michael

By what means have you ascertained this?

Observation?

Yes. To clarify, via observation and reason in the full context of my knowledge.

Or are you just repeating or inferring this from the Objectivist literature?

No. And I hope I never do this. I learned it through Objectivist ideas.

The causality you claim bears no resemblance to what I have observed over my life. Look at a Buddhist monk for an easy example of where the contrary exists. I can even get you neuroscience on it. But outside of Buddhists, I observe everywhere happy, well-adjusted, productive people who hold faith in God volitionally among their mental processes. And they chose this faith in full awareness.

btw - Ayn Rand made a similar claim in the money speech from Atlas Shrugged.

I have observed many people in life who got money through dishonest means. And I have observed the joy some of them have displayed year in and year out, but I have yet to hear one of them say (much less scream) that money is evil. The ones I knew always said money was marvelous and they wanted more of it. They usually used money as a tool of power (in addition to buying goodies) and they enjoyed every bit of it.

Between my own observations and what Rand wrote, when there is a conflict, I will go with what I have observed.

About two weeks ago, I had these same problems in my mind. I would have probably said nearly the exact same thing. In fact, it has long since bothered me that irrational, mystical people can seem happy. I couldn't reconcile it in my mind. But that rested on a false understanding of happiness.

Are you certain faith causes unhappiness, self-doubt and despair?

I must first ask you: what is your conception and definition of happiness?

I reject physical pleasure or pleasurable emotions or good mood or the pleasurable psychological state known as 'joy' as being happiness. Happiness, in the sense that I now understand it, and the sense that I think Rand meant it, is a complete integrated state of being and not of feeling. The feeling is a concomitant factor, but it is not happiness.

My quick answer is that what you are seeing in those people is various good moods, moments in their lives when they are in public or on show in an ocean of their lives of who knows what, fleeting pleasures, and the pleasurable psychological state known as joy.

In addition, you cannot really ascertain from surface observations a person's happiness even if you had the correct conception of happiness.

In short, I realized the importance of non-contradictory in the definition 'non-contradictory state of joy'. It pertains to the actual well-being of the person, not merely emotions.

I'll await your conception of happiness.

I can't really improve on Rand:

Happiness is not to be achieved at the command of emotional whims. Happiness is not the satisfaction of whatever irrational wishes you might blindly attempt to indulge. Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy—a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind’s fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of a producer. Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions. - Ayn Rand - http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/happiness.html

[anthony]

If religions have lasted for millenia, I'd imagine that if the observance of them brought only guilt and misery to those generations along the way, they should have fallen out of favour by now. Another observation is personal, I'd say I haven't noticed any undue unhappiness from religious folk, and many times what might be perceived to be non-contradictory joy.

The reasons for this can be argued till we're blue in the face, involving religious rationalizations, pragmatic shifts in doctrine and Faith/reason mixed premises, galore. But always there's the final context of God and his Purpose which sustains and comforts the believer. As the end result, it is not to be easily derided.

Advisedly I suggest that an atheist has reset to neutral, in a sense. He's dropped faith, but also has little to substitute it: in a conviction-less limbo. 'Secular humanism' is an outlet for him, as weak and often collectivist as it's premises are.

I think the huge psycho-epistemological appeal of Objectivism for an individual who is already atheist, or moving towards it, is that it contains the potential for and goal of happiness as his moral 'right'. While -at the same time- fully in accord with reality and his mind.

So, I don't believe Objectivists have a monopoly on 'the happiness factor'. Nor is it a dead certainty, as each has to find it his own way.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Peter,

Be careful with trying to set up an internal approval/disapproval thing based on logic for your emotions. That is not how they work and you will condemn yourself to a lot of suffering and doubt if that is the path you choose. (I speak from experience.) If you want to avoid guilt, that is not the way. That is a way to walk right into a lifetime of unearned guilt. It's a booby trap.

First learn what an emotion is and why it is, then wed that to logic. (I.e., identify correctly before judging what to do with it. If you are interested, I can point you to all kinds of good directions for learning about emotions.)

Rand set up a dichotomy between reason and emotions, then said she rejected such a dichotomy (this is part of the mind-body dichotomy she rejected). How could she do that if this is such a contradiction?

It's because she claimed reason beats emotions for the privileged folks who learn how to do it. People like the "new intellectuals," "students of Objectivism," and so on. There is no mind-body dichotomy for them because they use their minds to conquer their bodies. This is basically what she means by integrating mind and body. (Notice in her formulation, if they don't, their bodies will conquer their minds and they will become missing links, i.e., folks with an anti-conceptual mentality.)

Once again, the mind doesn't work that way, not because reason can't beat emotions. Sometimes it can. It's because there is no permanent slave/master relationship between the two in the first place. Both are necessary partners and each has prominence in different situations--even on an epistemological level. Even for using reason.

For example, it's been known for ages (from observing lobotomized subjects) that when you sever the brain connections between the reasoning part of the brain and the emotional part, the subjects become completely paralyzed with doubt when they have to act. But it is doubt without anxiety. Peaceful doubt. Curiosity and nothing more. It's just not being able to make a choice.

The classic example is the dude on the railroad track. He knows that if he stays there, the train will run over him and if that happens he will die. But that is just one option among many equal ones to him. Since all options are the same, he stays put and thinks about it as the train runs him over. It's been a long time since I read about this case (of course, they didn't really let a train run over him), so I don't have the link offhand. I could probably dig later and come up with it.

The point is without emotions, reason doesn't operate as a "tool of man's survival." It's not even a question of which dominates (reason or emotions) or which is more important. Both are necessary. It's like asking which organ is more important to human life, the heart or the liver. The simple fact is remove either and you die. One pumps blood, the other cleans it and the human body needs both to survive. That makes this a very good metaphor for emotions and reason.

Before that "defend Rand" feeling flares up inside you, notice I'm not claiming emotions trump reason or that we can dispense with reason, even reason as Rand describes it. I'm not "attacking Rand." I'm saying that reason is a necessary part of the mind and if we don't use it correctly, we will generally suffer some pretty bad consequences. But ditto for the emotions.

Now let's get to your question on happiness. You seem to be trying to find a meaning of the word happiness based on logic as master (non-contradictory). You have already noticed that people who have faith in God are happy, so I assume you can't keep to your original claim that such faith makes them miserable. So now your mind is going in the direction that "non-contradictory happiness" is the best quality of happiness (or the only true happiness) and this makes the "bogus happiness" of the faithful a crime against humanity.



I say use your eyes and your own brain, not your preconceptions based on the work of another person--even if that person is Ayn Rand. Besides, you have a wonderful mind. I say use it firsthand, not just filter it through Rand.

What do you call the conclusion in the following exchange?

You say, "Those religious folks are miserable, not happy." Someone (me) says, "No they aren't. They're happy. Can't you see it?" And you respond, "Yes, I've seen it and that has bothered me, but that happiness doesn't count."

I call that a cop-out.



As I see it, there are two kinds of happiness, one based on temperament and one based on meaning. Both have serenity at the root, which I understand as a state of inner peacefulness. But happiness is more, it weds serenity to a desire to flourish and/or keep flourishing. Another strong component to happiness is balance.

I am not describing this in terms of negatives and that's on purpose. I am not saying happiness is a state where there is a lack of pain or fear or guilt (recognize that one? ). Those negatives are important because without them, there is no balance.

Humans. like all organic things, live according to waves, not straight lines. There is no such thing as a constant state of joy. You get tired. You stub your toe. You catch colds. You get irritated when provoked. You go up and down. You go into bliss and you descend into grief and misery. But then you come back to a middle state of serenity and flourishing. Keeping this up and down in a proportion that favors the positive is what I call balance.

Why favor the positive? Well, it has been proven that wallowing in negative states and emotions will shorten your life, mainly by attacking your immunological system. And this point is where I have a strong difference with Rand. She thought the hatred she cultivated in her soul and the intense manner she let herself fall into it for large stretches of time was rational. This was part of her happiness formula. For example, sitting in a chair while discussing ideas, pounding the armrests and crying out, "The bastards! The bastards!"

Do you really think she was happy during those moments?

If that image bothers you (meaning if you believe it is an "attack on Rand" or an exaggeration), then look to her marginalia and the seething rhetoric she used against those she disapproved of. I believe she shortened her life and I would guess by decades doing that stuff.

She went into bliss, too. Of course. Up and down and up and down like all humans. She just stayed down a lot more than is good for human health because she thought that was what the issue deserved. She felt correct and certain in that correctness. So she let it run.

Well, if reason is the tool of man's survival and master of his emotions for the enlightened, how is shortening ones life surviving? That doesn't make any sense to me.

But back to happiness.

Type one happiness: Ignorance is bliss. There's not much to say here except this is a kind of happiness most people feel a lot of the time. It just happens. They are ignorant of who, what, when, where, why and how to varying degrees. They just feel good (in the sense I said above of serenity plus desire to flourish). When a person has clinical depression, this is the happiness it undermines. Notice this kind of happiness comes in waves with other states--ones that also just happen.

Type two happiness: Meaning. When a person has managed to fit his life into a larger picture and can integrate it, he feels he knows where he belongs and what to do. What to use as a standard for good and evil. For a typical Objectivist, he fits his life into reality. He knows reality is bigger than him and includes him. He is not a freak apart from it. And he serves reality, he uses it as his vision of the future. Doing this well makes him happy. You constantly read in Objectivist literature, "Nature to be commanded must be obeyed."

Other people serve their wider contexts, too, including religious people. Service to their vision of the bigger picture they fit into brings them the serenity and desire to flourish that I call happiness. They know who they are and what they should do.

This is actually a core story...

(Dayaamm! Look at me blabbering on. I have to wind this up because I have a ton of stuff I need to get done today...)

This is a large subject, but before I stop, I want to provide you with at least one link to Buddhism and neuroscience, the work of Richard Davidson. Here is a quote from the Wikipedia article I linked on his name:

Richard Davidson is popularizing the idea that based on what is known about the plasticity of the brain—that one can learn happiness and compassion as skills just as one learns to play a musical instrument, or train in golf or tennis. Happiness, like any skill, requires practice and time but because one knows that the brain is built to change in response to mental training, it is possible to train a mind to be happy.

If I use my "identify correctly to judge correctly" standard, I have to include neuroplasticity in my identification of the brain and mind. And since that is where happiness resides, I have to include it in my conception of happiness.

You don't have to want to experience the kind of happiness the Dalai Lama experiences (especially because of all that sitting around doing nothing ), but to deny that this is a valid form of happiness and deny the measurement of fMRI scans, etc., hell, even deny your own eyes seeing all that smiling, is to fall off into dogma.

Ayn Rand wrote some of the most inspiring tributes to the glories of the human mind in all literature. And I mean all--throughout all human history. That's the stuff I bask in with her. But she also put a minefield around it. She framed a lot of her ideas with spiteful "us against them" crap. Oh, there are reasons for that hatred, good reasons, too, especially if you look into her past, but there is no reason on earth for me to adopt her negative intensity and time-spent-hating levels if I have grown up living the life of Riley here in the USA. And for the record, I grew up hillbilly trailer-park poor, watching my parents scratch their way into the middle class. I say that is the "life of Riley" because I have seen what real hardship looks like overseas.

The way Rand did her anger and hatred, that stuff is sweet poison and it is seductive. (There are reasons, spiritual, neurological, and so on, as to why the seduction, but discussing them would take me off into a tangent and my time is running out.) This poison will make you feel alive, righteous, uncompromising, etc., for a while, but it will also kill you in excess. A lot of people who get into Objectivism fall for it--they take pleasure in moral denunciations, bashing other people's happiness, and the like. That's where they spend a lot of their time and efforts. They have Rand herself as a role model.

I say treat Rand like a rose and go for long-term balance favoring the positive. That's what I do. I have a beautiful sweet-smelling flower on top, crap on the bottom fertilizing it, and a long thorny stem to get from one to the other. Where do you think I want to put my nose?

And you know why?

Because smelling the rose makes me happy while smelling the crap makes me nauseous. If the crap becomes ineffective and stops fertilizing, I can put more there without having to smell it.

Michael

[moralist]

Tony writes:

Advisedly I suggest that an atheist has reset to neutral, in a sense. He's dropped faith, but also has little to substitute it: in a conviction-less limbo. 'Secular humanism' is an outlet for him, as weak and often collectivist as it's premises are.

The fastest growing religion in the world is the secular political religion of liberal socialism. Secular liberals possess a devout faith in Catastrophic Human Caused Global Warming. They also fervently believe that only their god the government can save them.

Greg

[BaalChatzaf]

Tony writes:

Advisedly I suggest that an atheist has reset to neutral, in a sense. He's dropped faith, but also has little to substitute it: in a conviction-less limbo. 'Secular humanism' is an outlet for him, as weak and often collectivist as it's premises are.

The fastest growing religion in the world is the secular political religion of liberal socialism. Secular liberals possess a devout faith in Catastrophic Human Caused Global Warming. They also fervently believe that only their god the government can save them.

Greg

The "replacement" for atheism is naturalism. The universe operates according to natural physical laws --- period. There is no supernatural aspect of the universe. It is all natural down to the smallest quark and up to the largest galaxy.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[moralist]

Bob writes:

The "replacement" for atheism is naturalism.

It should be... but secular leftism has become the dominant religion of atheists.

The universe operates according to natural physical laws --- period.

I agree...

...and those natural physical laws are exquisitely well ordered enough to support living beings who are conscious enough to appreciate them.

Greg

[anthony]

Tony writes:

Advisedly I suggest that an atheist has reset to neutral, in a sense. He's dropped faith, but also has little to substitute it: in a conviction-less limbo. 'Secular humanism' is an outlet for him, as weak and often collectivist as it's premises are.

The fastest growing religion in the world is the secular political religion of liberal socialism. Secular liberals possess a devout faith in Catastrophic Human Caused Global Warming. They also fervently believe that only their god the government can save them.

Greg

The "replacement" for atheism is naturalism. The universe operates according to natural physical laws --- period. There is no supernatural aspect of the universe. It is all natural down to the smallest quark and up to the largest galaxy.

Ba'al Chatzaf

That's much more accurate. Naturalism - with its usually accompanying determinism and so, its often accompanying "secular-humanist" collectivism - is largely the replacement ideology for religion. Thanks, lazy thinking on my part.

[Nerian]

Now let's get to your question on happiness. You seem to be trying to find a meaning of the word happiness based on logic as master (non-contradictory). You have already noticed that people who have faith in God are happy, so I assume you can't keep to your original claim that such faith makes them miserable. So now your mind is going in the direction that "non-contradictory happiness" is the best quality of happiness (or the only true happiness) and this makes the "bogus happiness" of the faithful a crime against humanity.

I say use your eyes and your own brain, not your preconceptions based on the work of another person--even if that person is Ayn Rand. Besides, you have a wonderful mind. I say use it firsthand, not just filter it through Rand.

What do you call the conclusion in the following exchange?

You say, "Those religious folks are miserable, not happy." Someone (me) says, "No they aren't. They're happy. Can't you see it?" And you respond, "Yes, I've seen it and that has bothered me, but that happiness doesn't count."

I call that a cop-out.

So now your mind is going in the direction that "non-contradictory happiness" is the best quality of happiness (or the only true happiness) and this makes the "bogus happiness" of the faithful a crime against humanity.

I don't think it's a crime against humanity; I think it's immoral.

I say use your eyes and your own brain, not your preconceptions based on the work of another person--even if that person is Ayn Rand. Besides, you have a wonderful mind. I say use it firsthand, not just filter it through Rand.

What do you call the conclusion in the following exchange?

You say, "Those religious folks are miserable, not happy." Someone (me) says, "No they aren't. They're happy. Can't you see it?" And you respond, "Yes, I've seen it and that has bothered me, but that happiness doesn't count."

I call that a cop-out.

That would be a pretty flimsy argument. I didn't make it.

Joy = a physical state or process of the brain. Subjectively it is perceived by the consciousness as an intrinsically good pleasurable state. This is an internal state, it may be in conflict with human's well being, in reality.

Happiness = a physical state of integrated well-being of the human. Thriving and feeling the psychological result. The psychological result is joy, but it is not itself joy. This is an objective state.

And objective reality always asserts itself. Hence why in the long run, the person who lives in conflict with reality will end up feeling the appropriate emotions of suffering. If happiness is an objective state resulting in certain emotions, and not merely the state of a person's emotions themselves, I can say without contradicting observations of irrational people seemingly enjoying themselves at any given time, that they cannot be happy. Not 'feel' happy. I think the lexicon is muddled on this issue because humanity is muddled on this issue. We use joy and happiness interchangeably. We use happiness to mean a feeling when that's not what it is. It's conflating the result with the thing itself.

The joy of those who reject reason is akin to the pleasures of a drug addict.

A smiling idiot, experiencing joy, might look happy for a long while as he walks head first, oblivious, into his own self destruction.

Those who wish to short circuit the pleasurable psychological state that should be the result of successful living, end up wiring their emotions for self destruction.

I don't reject emotions. They are vitally important to life and well-being. They should be listened to and embraced, appropriately. When they are appropriately functioning and appropriately utilized, they serve man's life. I thank you for your word of warning. I think I have done that in the past, and I know I have some work to do in becoming more in touch with my emotions.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Peter,

You are defining yourself out of a contradiction instead of wedding concepts to your own observations, then looking for contradictions.

That's kinda Kantian.

I don't know where you got your information on joy and happiness, but rather than untangle it, I'm just going to suggest you check those premises. They sound a bit like arguing by decree.

You even say "the lexicon is muddled on this issue" because the facts you can observe, for instance the way people use this term and their conceptual referents, don't conform to your theory. Then you blame it on humanity being muddled.

In other words, for me to use this manner to get out of a contradiction (an Objectivist-like contradiction where concept collides with what one can observe in reality, not the normal kind of contradiction where the rules in syllogisms are not obeyed but the premises don't have to be connected to reality), all I have to do is say what people do is muddled because people themselves are muddled. Voila. Instantly I am the knower of real reality because reality is as I say, not as I observe. What I observe is wrong because it is muddled, and what I say is right because everything I observe to the contrary is flawed (muddled). See? No contradiction.

That's pretty convenient...

They do that in Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc., all the time.

I would suggest, however, writing some big-ass books and include some compelling stories in them.

You said, "The joy of those who reject reason is akin to the pleasures of a drug addict." I have two observations.

The first is that people who don't use reason at specific times (like meditation) are not rejecting reason at all. But I am not going to argue this point. I do suggest getting familiar with the topic (there are lots of videos, articles and books on neuroscience and meditation--the new term for this in academia is "mindfulness"). Once you have this familiarity, you will start finding that your pool of people who "reject reality" starts getting smaller. And there goes another oversimplified dichotomy blasted to pieces. But you need the conceptual referents from observation, not just projection or imagination, first. If you seek, however, you will find. There are plenty of referents out there to look at.

The second point is more serious. How do you know about the joy of those who reject reason and the joy of the drug addict enough to compare them? I presume in this context you mean those who reject reason who are not addicted to drugs since you are comparing that class against a class of drug addicts.

I speak as a former drug addict (several years addicted to crack cocaine in the past). And most likely I have been what you would call one who rejects reason in my youth since I was a Southern Baptist. I felt religious ecstasy back then. So I have literal firsthand experience with both conditions.

I can assure you the "joys" are nowhere near the same. Not even close. I'm pretty sure both "joys" flood the brain with dopamine and serotonin (among other chemical changes), so that much is similar, but I'm also sure the nature of that flood is completely different--enough so that the very perception feels like the difference between hot and cold.

A crack high and an overwhelming feeling of awe from highly charged prayer are totally different.

Besides, people who embrace reason also receive floods of dopamine and serotonin at times, like when they have sex, watch a sports event, etc. Does that mean that their joy is the same as the ones who reject reason? Those people even do the same things. If so, that would make your argument too general to be a distinction.

I ask because your concept of joy as a "physical state or process of the brain" means something. Right? Brain hormone activity is physical, right? Dopamine and serotonin are two of the main joy hormones. So if that is not the physicality you are referring to, what is?

It sounds like I'm arguing to argue, but I'm not. I think you are working through this idea out loud here on the forum and have moved from an implied "Objectivism happiness is better than religious happiness" to an implied "Objectivism joy is better than religious joy." But the error is the same since only the semantics changed.

btw - I'm not in "I'm right and you're wrong mode." I'm saying all this because I see you committing an error I made that cost me years of pain. I swallowed some of Rand's premises whole without checking them, then they later manifested in other areas in my life in forms that were not pleasant.

Many of her premises are sound, but some of them--especially when she throws everybody into the same condition--are flawed identifications. Most of the time I don't find those observations totally wrong and more often than not, they are insightful. They just apply to specific people in specific situations, not everybody everywhere all the time (universal). As she generally presented them as universal, my own process has been to discount that part and adjust the scope.

Of course, you are free to agree or disagree. I'm merely giving you some hard arguments to chew on.

There is a correction I want to make, also. You talked about rejecting emotions and getting more in touch with them. I don't think you reject emotions. I do believe you are trying to go it Rand's way without fully understanding her way. Saying it in my own words, she proposes that there has to be a fight (or at least a taming process) between reason and emotions that reason must win for reason and emotions to be integrated. Left on their own, emotions become "whims." That's actually correct in specific situations, but a faulty premise if taken wider to the universal level.

As an aside, Rand thought she could program her subconscious to manage her emotions. (An extension of that reason needing to dominate the emotions thing.) Once again, she is not wrong, but this is not universal. This only works partially. You can actually program a lot on the emotional level in your mind through reason (neuroplasticity), but you can't program everything.

On your last point, I did not talk about getting in touch with your emotions (albeit that is a good idea). I said you should learn what an emotion is and to be careful with setting up internal censorship on your emotions based on conclusions you come to about what your emotions should be (mostly derived from Rand). I used different words, but the meaning is the same, i.e., make sure to carry out correct identification.

(I change words a lot because I don't like quoting myself all the time and I believe good strong concepts can--and should--be presented in various manners. This encourages conceptual thinking instead of jargon-speak.)

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

[ quote name="Ellen Stuttle" post="207865" timestamp="1

I'll give you a couple hypotheticals. Suppose someone told you, "I'm a Christian, and I accept Mohammed as God's prophet." Or suppose someone told you, "I'm an Orthodox Jew, and I accept Christ as my savior."

Wouldn't you think that the person in both hypotheticals was mixing together different religions?

What I see in Greg's views might be likened to a squishy parfait swirled together from inconsistently employed features of Christianity, dollops of Objectivism, and a strong infusion of a West Coast New Age watered-down-Jung/Eastern-mysticism blend - producing something indigestible.

Ellen

===================================

Ellen,I'd say, it's his digestion. I'd say, why's it anyone else's concern?

And too, good luck to him.

(Sorry Greg, I don't mean to continue making you the topic of the thread.

You know what they say, good PR - bad PR - it's all publicity!)

Greg's digestion is his concern, but whether or not I buy his self-labeling is mine.

I notice that you didn't answer the questions I asked but instead changed the context of what we were discussing.

Ellen

[anthony]

[ quote name="Ellen Stuttle" post="207865" timestamp="1

I'll give you a couple hypotheticals. Suppose someone told you, "I'm a Christian, and I accept Mohammed as God's prophet." Or suppose someone told you, "I'm an Orthodox Jew, and I accept Christ as my savior."

Wouldn't you think that the person in both hypotheticals was mixing together different religions?

What I see in Greg's views might be likened to a squishy parfait swirled together from inconsistently employed features of Christianity, dollops of Objectivism, and a strong infusion of a West Coast New Age watered-down-Jung/Eastern-mysticism blend - producing something indigestible.

Ellen

===================================

Ellen,I'd say, it's his digestion. I'd say, why's it anyone else's concern?

And too, good luck to him.

(Sorry Greg, I don't mean to continue making you the topic of the thread.

You know what they say, good PR - bad PR - it's all publicity!)

Greg's digestion is his concern, but whether or not I buy his self-labeling is mine.

I notice that you didn't answer the questions I asked but instead changed the context of what we were discussing.

Ellen

You don't get it, Ellen - maybe I'm not clear - I don't care!

Greg can combine whatever he wishes and still name himself "Christian", and it's no skin off my nose.

(If, "Objectivist" - I'd call him on that, rest assured).;)

If there could be such a thing as one type of Christian (and I recall Greg readily admitted there isn't) -but even then, why should I hold him to that standard? or if he explores further afield (into O'ism, for the one I know) is to his credit as a thoughtful truth-seeker, if it indicates anything at all.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ok, Tony, make it mutually not getting it.

We aren't talking about the same issue, but never mind.

Ellen

[BaalChatzaf]

I agree...

...and those natural physical laws are exquisitely well ordered enough to support living beings who are conscious enough to appreciate them.

Greg

The laws and the facts were there to be found out, and some of us did. We did not put them there. We dug them out.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[moralist]

Bob writes:

The laws and the facts were there to be found out, and some of us did. We did not put them there. We dug them out.

Yes... and where they came from has no bearing on what they are.

Greg