The is no Objectve NOW.

[moralist]

13 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

All I can say to that is you say God and I say reality.

--Brant

and secularism is Marxism--and/or what?

Ultimately they're both just different words describing the same thing, Brant.

Government is the only reality for Marxists.

 

Greg

[moralist]

12 hours ago, wolfdevoon said:

All I know is fight like hell, right wrong or blue.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-08/us-aristocracy-panics-maybe-trump-serious

That's fine, Wolf... but it's just a distraction. The real fight begins in your own life first. The world around you can only be a symptom of the outcome.

Greg

[Wolf DeVoon]

As usual, you have no idea what you're saying. Go ahead, write a novel, see what happens, the kind of fight that implies.

[moralist]

2 hours ago, wolfdevoon said:

As usual, you have no idea what you're saying. Go ahead, write a novel, see what happens, the kind of fight that implies.

The results of how my own life is unfolding speak for the validity of my ideas. Anyways, I'm not a writer... I'm a mechanic who works with his hands, and I know exactly how to make the engine of my world run.

Why chose a losing battle when there are so many other battles you could win?

I'm extremely selective in my battles and only chose to assume risks where the odds are stacked heavily in my favor.

There is nothing wrong in the world around you that you couldn't choose to rise above. The trick is refining your own life first, instead of becoming distracted with being upset at what's happening in the world. When you start by cleaning up your own s**t first, you will then discover that your fight has never been with the world at all but with yourself, because the world around you will graciously acquiesce to your newly established internal order.

 

Greg

[Wolf DeVoon]

41 minutes ago, moralist said:

I'm a mechanic who works with his hands

Exactly. I hired guys like you, told them what to do, how to do it, made sure it was done right, delivered on time. All you got was money.

[Ellen Stuttle]

On December 30, 2016 at 8:52 PM, moralist said:

I not only live and work in California... I own land and built two houses.

Did you comply with all EPA and federal and local construction regulations in building the houses? Have you complied with all regulations when doing electrical and other work for customers?

I advise not answering the questions, since you don't know who might read a reply, but considering the options hypothetically:

If yes, then you've done less than the best work, since the best work and full compliance don't mesh.  Thus you've shortchanged clients. You've also put yourself where you erroneously accuse others of being - that is, under government's thumb.

If no, you've made yourself an easy target for any inspector who wanted to hassle you, but even if yes, pretexts for hassling could be found.

Ellen

 

[Ellen Stuttle]

On December 31, 2016 at 5:43 AM, merjet said:

Ellen, trying to converse about morality, or one's relationship with government, with the Master of Self-Delusion is like to trying to converse with a blaring fire alarm. That's why I mostly ignore him.

I'm not "trying to converse."

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

On December 31, 2016 at 2:00 PM, moralist said:

No one is above moral law. Everyone answers to it... including your government... and that's why you deserve what you're getting.

Greg

And why Hillary Clinton wasn't prosecuted.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

7 hours ago, wolfdevoon said:

As usual, you have no idea what you're saying. Go ahead, write a novel, see what happens, the kind of fight that implies.

The writing? Publication is easy now. Getting buyers--use social media like Robert Bidinotto does.

4 hours ago, wolfdevoon said:

Exactly. I hired guys like you, told them what to do, how to do it, made sure it was done right, delivered on time. All you got was money.

He didn't say he was that kind of mechanic.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

18 minutes ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

And why Hillary Clinton wasn't prosecuted.

Ellen

She's all messed up in the head. The body's likely not much better.

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

2 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

She's all messed up in the head. The body's likely not much better.

--Brant

Brant dear, try tracking. 

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

5 hours ago, moralist said:

The results of how my own life is unfolding speak for the validity of my ideas. Anyways, I'm not a writer... I'm a mechanic who works with his hands, and I know exactly how to make the engine of my world run.

Why chose a losing battle when there are so many other battles you could win?

I'm extremely selective in my battles and only chose to assume risks where the odds are stacked heavily in my favor.

There is nothing wrong in the world around you that you couldn't choose to rise above. The trick is refining your own life first, instead of becoming distracted with being upset at what's happening in the world. When you start by cleaning up your own s**t first, you will then discover that your fight has never been with the world at all but with yourself, because the world around you will graciously acquiesce to your newly established internal order.

Greg

How high above? Rand came to America so she wouldn't be shot down.

The way--one way--you could "rise above" whatever in the Soviet Union was lying your ass off. It became a country of liars ruling people who kept their lips zipped.

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

55 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

He didn't say he was that kind of mechanic.

I was thinking of all the electricians I hired over the years as a filmmaker, and last year to pull a high line through the forest, drop a 200A loop.

(massages face in fatigue)  I should just shut up. Worked nonstop more days than I can count, more to do.

[Brant Gaede]

15 minutes ago, wolfdevoon said:

I was thinking of all the electricians I hired over the years as a filmmaker, and last year to pull a high line through the forest, drop a 200A loop.

(massages face in fatigue)  I should just shut up. Worked nonstop more days than I can count, more to do.

I wasn't referring to him as a plumber or electrician or anything in particular trade wise. I was referring to level of competence.

In fairness you only did to him what he delights in doing to others.

--Brant

[moralist]

10 hours ago, wolfdevoon said:

Exactly. I hired guys like you, told them what to do, how to do it, made sure it was done right, delivered on time. All you got was money.

I'm happy to do honest work with my hands in order to earn money, Wolf... because I use money to it's highest purpose. Money buys my freedom. 

So how come I'm the one who's free, while you're not?

Why am I solvent, while you're drowning in your own debt?

This is the answer:

"The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money."

--Ayn Rand

You are smaller than your money... and I am not.

 

Greg

[Wolf DeVoon]

6 hours ago, moralist said:

I'm happy to do honest work with my hands in order to earn money, Wolf... because I use money to it's highest purpose. Money buys my freedom. 

So how come I'm the one who's free, while you're not?

Why am I solvent, while you're drowning in your own debt?

This is the answer:

"The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money."

--Ayn Rand

You are smaller than your money... and I am not.

Very clear and concise. Doesn't explain the American Revolutionary War of Independence or goofs like Balzac, Fitzgerald, Paine, Otis, or Ayn Rand for that matter (no comparison of stature implied). I think the situation is fairly simple. No one volunteers to be born. Some of us are quite bright --  Baal Chatzaf and Stephen Boydstun, for example -- although I don't envy them and wouldn't want to swap lives with either of them. Some are brave, like Brant. It's easy to admire others, less easy to say with certainty that someone is all wrong, deserving of pain and ridicule. You might be an exception.

I try to be charitable, but facts are stubborn things. Ayn Rand attracted cheats and frauds, suffered nonstop ridicule, ended her life alone and unloved, her estate put into the hands of a moron, her eulogy given by a homosexual who played a pivotal role in destroying her legacy. I'm not asking anyone to agree with me. We each have to make our own way in life. Thankfully I'm not George Smith -- or you, Mr. Wonderful, exactly as big as your money.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1873553073

[BaalChatzaf]

6 minutes ago, wolfdevoon said:

 

I try to be charitable, but facts are stubborn things. Ayn Rand attracted cheats and frauds, suffered nonstop ridicule, ended her life alone and unloved, her estate put into the hands of a moron, her eulogy given by a homosexual who played a pivotal role in destroying her legacy. I'm not asking anyone to agree with me. We each have to make our own way in life. Thankfully I'm not George Smith -- or you, Mr. Wonderful, exactly as big as your money.

Who said the eulogy???

[Wolf DeVoon]

David Kelley

http://atlassociety.org/objectivism/atlas-university/new-to-ayn-rand/launchpad-blog/3940-if-by-rudyard-kipling

[Wolf DeVoon]

19 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

use social media like Robert Bidinotto does

He wears a hat. I look silly in hats. He writes about CIA ops. I tell jokes about them.

Unsociable media sounds dark and scary. Maybe I'll pay people by the page to read my work, chinamen and yurt dwellers.

I could be famous in Uzebk.

On 11/3/2016 at 5:16 PM, BaalChatzaf said:

Everyone has his/her own personal Now.

 

[Brant Gaede]

11 hours ago, wolfdevoon said:

David Kelley

http://atlassociety.org/objectivism/atlas-university/new-to-ayn-rand/launchpad-blog/3940-if-by-rudyard-kipling

I was there.

--Brant

[moralist]

On ‎1‎/‎9‎/‎2017 at 6:04 PM, Ellen Stuttle said:

Did you comply with all EPA and federal and local construction regulations in building the houses? Have you complied with all regulations when doing electrical and other work for customers?

Ellen, you're a secularist who, because of your childlike dependence on your government, have religious faith in the absolute primacy of bureaucratic regulation. So naturally you're blind to the reality that everything in this world, including yourself, answers to a higher moral imperative.

In answer to your question...

"For every temptation there is a way of escape."

--Bible

...and because of your child/parent relationship to your government, you have absolutely no idea of the practical ramifications of that ancient wisdom.

 

Greg

[moralist]

On ‎1‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 7:00 AM, wolfdevoon said:

Very clear and concise. Doesn't explain the American Revolutionary War of Independence...

Wolf, I don't care. 

I have no interest in the dead past because I'm alive in the present. I do the kind of work where my life depends on paying attention to what I'm doing right now in the moment so that's where I place my attention.

It's excellent training to enhance awareness... and that yields personal rewards more precious than gold.

Greg

[Wolf DeVoon]

27 minutes ago, moralist said:

Wolf, I don't care. 

I have no interest in the dead past

Hahaha -- like the Bible isn't a relic of the dead past, before Faraday, de Coulomb, or Volta -- and worse: you think it's written in English.

What a maroon!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

On 1/8/2017 at 11:10 AM, moralist said:

I didn't say that, Brant. You made up that lie all by yourself. 

I said evil is absolutely necessary in order to know what good is and to appreciate it. God didn't create evil.

Greg,

I wouldn't call a quip a lie (besides, Brant never lies  ), but I get it that this discussion is contentious.  

So it's all good.

 

I want to say something else, though... something about the underlying idea. I went through a fascinating course at The Great Courses Plus called Why Evil Exists by Charles Mathewes (36 lectures). The idea of whether God created evil has been a thorny one down through the ages.

I see your concept of evil (based on my understanding of your posts) as very similar to that of St. Augustine, although you use much different language.

St. Augustine's reasoning was that if God created everything that exists, and evil exists, then God must have created evil. Except that since evil is evil and God is not, which means he could not have created evil, there must be a way of reconciling this. The way he came up with (in simplified terms--it's a lot more complex, but this is the gist) is that evil is the absence of the good. Evil is not a force of its own creation, but a lack. When a person is evil or doing evil, he is doing that which God did not create, but that which does not exist on its own.

Oddly enough, Ayn Rand has a very similar view of evil. Her way of saying it is that evil has no efficacy, only good does. That always made me curious and after I took this course, I remembered her mentioning St. Augustine, so I looked for it in her writing. Sure enough, she mentioned St. Augustine on at least one occasion (probably more--I need to look deeper later). It was in her talk, "Philosophy, Who Needs It?." Here's a quote from that talk (my bold):

Quote

You might claim — as most people do — that you have never been influenced by philosophy. I will ask you to check that claim. Have you ever thought or said the following? "Don't be so sure — nobody can be certain of anything." You got that notion from David Hume (and many, many others), even though you might never have heard of him. Or: "This may be good in theory, but it doesn't work in practice." You got that from Plato. Or: "That was a rotten thing to do, but it's only human, nobody is perfect in this world." You got that from Augustine. Or: "It may be true for you, but it's not true for me." You got it from William James. Or: "I couldn't help it! Nobody can help anything he does." You got it from Hegel. Or: "I can't prove it, but I feel that it's true." You got it from Kant. Or: "It's logical, but logic has nothing to do with reality." You got it from Kant. Or: "It's evil, because it's selfish." You got it from Kant. Have you heard the modern activists say: "Act first, think afterward"? They got it from John Dewey.

Some people might answer: "Sure, I've said those things at different times, but I don't have to believe that stuff all of the time. It may have been true yesterday, but it's not true today." They got it from Hegel. They might say: "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." They got it from a very little mind, Emerson. They might say: "But can't one compromise and borrow different ideas from different philosophies according to the expediency of the moment?" They got it from Richard Nixon — who got it from William James.

Notice that St. Augustine was the only religious authority Rand mentioned in this passage. This indicates to me that she was quite familiar with his work.

btw - Just because she disagreed with St. Augustine on human perfection, or perfectibility (which is an awful can of worms, but beyond the scope here), that does not mean she disagreed with him on the nature of evil being the lack of good.

This is a long subject, much longer than a post, but I wanted to mention it as the idea crossed my mind.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

11 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Greg,

I wouldn't call a quip a lie (besides, Brant never lies  ), but I get it that this discussion is contentious.  

So it's all good.

 

I want to say something else, though... something about the underlying idea. I went through a fascinating course at The Great Courses Plus called Why Evil Exists by Charles Mathewes (36 lectures). The idea of whether God created evil has been a thorny one down through the ages.

I see your concept of evil (based on my understanding of your posts) as very similar to that of St. Augustine, although you use much different language.

St. Augustine's reasoning was that if God created everything that exists, and evil exists, then God must have created evil. Except that since evil is evil and God is not, which means he could not have created evil, there must be a way of reconciling this. The way he came up with (in simplified terms--it's a lot more complex, but this is the gist) is that evil is the absence of the good. Evil is not a force of its own creation, but a lack. When a person is evil or doing evil, he is doing that which God did not create, but that which does not exist on its own.

Oddly enough, Ayn Rand has a very similar view of evil. Her way of saying it is that evil has no efficacy, only good does. That always made me curious and after I took this course, I remembered her mentioning St. Augustine, so I looked for it in her writing. Sure enough, she mentioned St. Augustine on at least one occasion (probably more--I need to look deeper later). It was in her talk, "Philosophy, Who Needs It?." Here's a quote from that talk (my bold):

Notice that St. Augustine was the only religious authority Rand mentioned in this passage. This indicates to me that she was quite familiar with his work.

btw - Just because she disagreed with St. Augustine on human perfection, or perfectibility (which is an awful can of worms, but beyond the scope here), that does not mean she disagreed with him on the nature of evil being the lack of good.

This is a long subject, much longer than a post, but I wanted to mention it as the idea crossed my mind.

Michael

Epicurus   nailed "the problem of Evil"  over 2000 years ago  (he reaches the same contradictions as does  Augustine).   The resolution is simple.  There is no God. Problem solved.  Q.E.D.    Evil  is just as Good is.  It is one of the -kinds- or -sorts- of things that people can do.  If there is evil in the world, then there is someone who either did it  or allowed it to occur. 

Things which happen spontaneously in nature are not  evil as such.  Nature  in and of itself external to human will is disjoint from moral categories. Much of the sadness we experience is the way we react to increases in entropy  (for example  death, aging, earthquakes and such like).  Ironically increasing entropy is sometimes what produces joy for us  (life exists because entropy is increasing for example).