Submission

[Hazard]

No man has a right to force another man to submit to his will. No man has the right to someone else’s life. However, assuming that God exists, God has that right.

By definition, God is man’s creator and therefore master. Additionally, God created morality. Any man who stands against God has nothing to stand up for.

Supposing that God exists, would you submit to him no matter what he wanted you to do?

Jordan

[galtgulch]

No man has a right to force another man to submit to his will. No man has the right to someone else’s life. However, assuming that God exists, God has that right.

By definition, God is man’s creator and therefore master. Additionally, God created morality. Any man who stands against God has nothing to stand up for.

Supposing that God exists, would you submit to him no matter what he wanted you to do?

Jordan

The only meaningful concept of God is that God is equivalent to Existence. You said afterall that God is Man's creator. Since Man was actually created within and by the grace of Existence my initial statement is true.

Francis Bacon said that "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."

You are correct that it is foolish to stand against Existence or Reality.

The facts that Man's life can go out of existence and the fact that man has a volitional conceptual consciousness give rise to the meaningfulness of morality. We have Ayn Rand to thank for that perspective. So yes Existence created morality.

You are mistaken to present the concept of God as if it were a man like being. Actually Existence is Being.

I for one do not accept your premises.

gulch

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[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Supposing that God exists, would you submit to him no matter what he wanted you to do?

Jordan,

I am really hardheaded and have always had issues with authority.

I would probably screw up royally, submitting or not.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

No man has a right to force another man to submit to his will. No man has the right to someone else's life. However, assuming that God exists, God has that right.

By definition, God is man's creator and therefore master. Additionally, God created morality. Any man who stands against God has nothing to stand up for.

Supposing that God exists, would you submit to him no matter what he wanted you to do?

Jordan

Remember what happened to Joan. Today you might get thrown into the loonie bin instead of jail or burned at the stake.

Insanity is not recommended, not for "living on earth."

--Brant

[jeffrey smith]

God, as the source of the universe's existence, is beyond everything in the universe, including the physical senses. Therefore God can not be experienced, and His Will can not be known, through sensory experience.

Sensory experience is the only basis we have for valid knowledge. Therefore anything concerning God and His Will can not be the subject of any valid knowledge (including, paradoxically, the statements I am making in this paragraph). Therefore we have no way of knowing what God would want us to do, therefore it is not possible to submit ourselves to Him.

God also is beyond any all the categories of human thinking, even such basic ones as exist and not exist. We can not say God exists, but we also can not say that God does not exist, nor that God neither exists nor not exists, nor that God both exists and not exists. Which is another reason why we can not make any sensible statements about God, much less about what He wants us to do.

There are of course certain inferences which can be drawn from the simple, bare premise that God exists: namely, the equality, individuality and autonomy of each and every human being, since they, like everything else in the universe, share in the existence which God has imparted to them, and are therefore equally divine. And from that flows a rational egoism very much like, but not precisely the same as, Objectivist ethics.

[Christopher]

God rules me.

I am a part of God.

My ruling is God's ruling.

Therefore, I rule myself.

Ergo, I rule God.

[BaalChatzaf]

God rules me.

I am a part of God.

My ruling is God's ruling.

Therefore, I rule myself.

Ergo, I rule God.

Word salad.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Xray]

The only meaningful concept of God is that God is equivalent to Existence.

Then why use the term God at all? Why not just drop it?

The facts that Man's life can go out of existence and the fact that man has a volitional conceptual consciousness give rise to the meaningfulness of morality. We have Ayn Rand to thank for that perspective. So yes Existence created morality.

I can't see any evidence of "Existence" (an abstract term) creating "morality". How does that work? (??)

And as for "morality" itself, what is it other than a set of arbitrary rules and taboos claimed to be of "objective" value?

Imo whoever believes in any such thing as "objective" morality can take a cold shower of reality by looking at what was considered to be "objectively moral" and "objectively immmoral" in human history over the centuries ...

Edited October 2, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

God rules me.

I am a part of God.

My ruling is God's ruling.

Therefore, I rule myself.

Ergo, I rule God.

Word salad.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I wonder whether Christopher has considered the Second Law of Thermodynamics when mixing his "salad"?

According to that natural law in effect, the sun will become extinct one day and with it all human life.

The same goes for the whole universe as finally reaching the point of entropy.

Why was it so hard for Rand to accept that one day, all life on our planet may be extinguished because of the sun beig extinguished? If she was an atheist, why bother?

If it is all natural law, why did this upset her? (At least it upset the figures in her novel, so one can assume it preoccupied Rand too).

Why does the prospect of this occurring one day trouble many people, despite the fact we as individuals are well aware that we are mortal and won't exist forever too?

Edited October 2, 2009 by Xray

[Reidy]

Getting back to the original question:

No, I'm not into that B&D stuff. But neither am I one to moralize; if you dig it, go ahead.

[Xray]

Getting back to the original question:

No, I'm not into that B&D stuff. But neither am I one to moralize; if you dig it, go ahead.

English is not my native language - what does 'B&D' stand for?

[Xray]

Additionally, God created morality.

Can you provide any evidence to support the claim that "god created morality"? An example of "divine morality" I recall from the Bible is obeying commands like slaying tribes, e. g. the Caananites, or god lending a 'helping hand' in murdering first-born children.

So I'm really curious to know what you base your argument on.

Edited October 2, 2009 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

The only meaningful concept of God is that God is equivalent to Existence.

Then why use the term God at all? Why not just drop it?

The facts that Man's life can go out of existence and the fact that man has a volitional conceptual consciousness give rise to the meaningfulness of morality. We have Ayn Rand to thank for that perspective. So yes Existence created morality.

I can't see any evidence of "Existence" (an abstract term) creating "morality". How does that work? (??)

And as for "morality" itself, what is it other than a set of arbitrary rules and taboos claimed to be of "objective" value?

Imo whoever believes in any such thing as "objective" morality can take a cold shower of reality by looking at what was considered to be "objectively moral" and "objectively immmoral" in human history over the centuries ...

But don't look at Objectivism even though Xray is claiming objective knowledge.

Sometimes people have to be killed. Nice to have a good/moral/objective reason. That's where the "have" comes from.

--Brant

Edited October 2, 2009 by Brant Gaede

[Xray]

Sometimes people have to be killed. Nice to have a good/moral/objective reason. That's where the "have" comes from.

You almost sound like Peikoff in that video.

Problem is, your "enemies" will share the same view as you. For they too believe their subjective preferences to be "good/moral/objective reasons".

Edited October 3, 2009 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

Sometimes people have to be killed. Nice to have a good/moral/objective reason. That's where the "have" comes from.

You almost sound like Peikoff in that video.

problem is, your adversaries share the same view as you. For they too believe their subjecitve preferecnes to be "objective values".

I just stated a blunt fact. I didn't list particular caveats or qualifications. For example, many years ago an intruder with a knife invaded a Texas home and was wrestling with the homeowner who was fighting for his life. His son saw what was going on went and got his father's rifle and shot the intruder dead.

Here in Tucson a woman was abducted out of a shopping mall at night, taken to the desert, stripped naked raped and killed. If she had had a gun and killed the killer that would have been soimeone who objectively needed killing. Even if he had put his hands up he should have been shot down although it wouldn't have been self defense any longer. Why? So he wouldn't go free in ten years and try it again. The bastard is now on death row.

--Brant

not Peikoff

[Xray]

I just stated a blunt fact. I didn't list particular caveats or qualifications. For example, many years ago an intruder with a knife invaded a Texas home and was wrestling with the homeowner who was fighting for his life. His son saw what was going on went and got his father's rifle and shot the intruder dead.

Here in Tucson a woman was abducted out of a shopping mall at night, taken to the desert, stripped naked raped and killed. If she had had a gun and killed the killer that would have been soimeone who objectively needed killing. Even if he had put his hands up he should have been shot down although it wouldn't have been self defense any longer. Why? So he wouldn't go free in ten years and try it again. The bastard is now on death row.

--Brant

not Peikoff

You are talking about self-defense; I was thinking of wars where countless innocents become the victims of the struggle between power leaders. It is about who rules whom, same old story.

The "rule and subordination" pattern sems to be is so ingrained in human thinking that the image of god which many have is a mere projection of a superior ruler whose subjects are doomed to follow and obey.

In the first post on this thread, poster Hazard asked:

Supposing that God exists, would you submit to him no matter what he wanted you to do?

This makes one think of the biblical monster who demanded of Abraham to kill his son.

Edited October 4, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

Brant:

But don't look at Objectivism even though Xray is claiming objective knowledge.

The term "Objectivism" is a mere label, for people can call their philosophy anything they like. What is crucial in examining a thought system are the premises it is based on.

I often have the impression that Ayn Rand gave god another name: "Man"

Edited October 4, 2009 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

I just stated a blunt fact. I didn't list particular caveats or qualifications. For example, many years ago an intruder with a knife invaded a Texas home and was wrestling with the homeowner who was fighting for his life. His son saw what was going on went and got his father's rifle and shot the intruder dead.

Here in Tucson a woman was abducted out of a shopping mall at night, taken to the desert, stripped naked raped and killed. If she had had a gun and killed the killer that would have been soimeone who objectively needed killing. Even if he had put his hands up he should have been shot down although it wouldn't have been self defense any longer. Why? So he wouldn't go free in ten years and try it again. The bastard is now on death row.

--Brant

not Peikoff

You are talking about self-defense; I was thinking of wars where countless innocents become the victims of the struggle between power leaders. It is about who rules whom, same old story.

The "rule and subordination" pattern sems to be is so ingrained in human thinking that the image of god which many have is a mere projection of a superior ruler whose subjects are doomed to follow and obey.

In the first post on this thread, poster Hazard asked:

Supposing that God exists, would you submit to him no matter what he wanted you to do?

This makes one think of the biblical monster who demanded of Abraham to kill his son.

I think you should know a little more about me. I grew up hating communism because the Soviet Union crushed the Hungarian Revolution. I kept listening to the radio wondering when we (the US) were going to do anything about it. Then there was the threat of thermonuclear war. I attended a lecture by an air force officer in 1959 when I was 15 when he described what a 30 megaton bomb would do exploded at 30,000 feet over New York City: everything in a circle encompassing Washington and Boston would burn. Naturally I was all for a strong national defense. This is a very simplified exposition of where I was coming from.

I volunteered for the army to avoid the draft in 1964. I enlisted for photography school but was recruited into Special Forces in basic training. I was quite willing to fight and kill communist (state) aggressors. There was also the challenge of getting through the training and personal vanity. (When I enlisted the National Security Agency [NSA] tried to get me but they wanted a four year commitment. That would have been interesting and I probably would have had a career with the CIA eventually or some such. I would have been a lowly enlisted man under the thumb of even lowlier junior officers. You see, junior officers have to salute everybody, enlisted men only have to salute officers. [so this junior officer asks the master sergeant when he didn't salute him: "Field grade (major) and up only son." Another case where a junior officer punished a private for not saluting him by making him salute him 1,000 times. So the private is saluting away and the officer is just standing there and this general comes on the scene and asks what was going on. The officer explained. The general said, you're right, but you have to return the salute. Start over from the beginning. And they did. ]) Anyway, I get to train with "light" weapons and go to jump school. In jump school (March 1965), just before we actually started jumping out of airplanes, a training NCO informed us that conventional forces were going to be committed to Vietnam and in one or two months the Marines landed. So there I am taking five with everyone else smoking my Benson and Hedges thinking about Korea and Vietnam wondering if like Korea we'd end up with 40,000 dead Americans and a stalemate. Then I realized Korea was a peninsula you could draw a line across and effectively stop the fighting but you couldn't do that in Vietnam. I decided it would probably be worse and hoped not. For the next five years I kept seeing the future almost exactly as it happened in Vietnam including how it ended. I saw it from the American perspective. I didn't see several million people killed as both a direct and indirect consequence.

When I got to Vietnam in the late summer of 1966 I still had this point of view. It gradually changed as I saw people hurt and killed because of incompetence and policy. We worked directly with the Vietnamese as advisers. I ran medical patrols. So I became more and more sensitive to the civilian context and perspective as I also became aware that we were only fighting not to lose which meant more and more civilian suffering and needless American casualties. An American got a bullet almost between his eyes standing next to me. I was volunteered to escort his body to Saigon when they'd need an affirmation of identification. I actually escorted two Americans. Both died because of their own incompetence or ignorance but bravely, I suppose. Understand the 10,000th American had yet to die over there. That happened later while I was still in country. So here I am in a morgue with a long row of empty marble slabs at Ton San Nuit AFB except for these two bodies. I signed some papers wondering how many more bodies were yet to happen through that place and how anyone could stand to work there for long and got back on the copter to return to my camp near the Cambodian border. Six days later we went into Cambodia and decimated the unit that had hurt us. Probably the first major incursion into Cambodia by Americans (and Vietnamese and mercenary Chinese Nungs) and it was only the fall of 1966. We killed 56 enemy before we found out where we really were and withdrew. Airboats, helicopters, hovercraft--it was completely surreal and a scene from hell for the communists. But when I understood what an overall cluster-fuck Vietnam was I decided when I left I'd stay gone.

As a civilian things just got worse and worse over there. A book of essays I wrote (not published) predicted almost exactly what would happen to South Vietnam but not when. The end came soon enough four years after I wrote it. And I began thinking about American wars throughout my country's history and I couldn't understand the necessity for any of them, including the Revolutionary War. The first worst war was the Indian Wars. Then the Mexican War then the "Civil War." In the 20th Century the US had become so powerful and dominant the wars it fought shaped world history and really not in a good way. Progressive fascism got us into WWI and the world got fucked consequently and we are living in that world today, the world from WWI, and domestically Americans got fucked with the creation of the Federal Reserve, the income tax and the popular election of Senators to Congress. We are experiencing and watching the death of a "great" country by suicide. It's probably inevitable. It's probably just. I didn't expect to live to see it but history is accelerating. It's more and more like Atlas Shrugged. More war to come, however.

I'm not an anarchist, but am as close as you can be and not be one. I hate the State--the all devouring State.

--Brant

Edited October 4, 2009 by Brant Gaede

[Selene]

Sir:

It is a privilege to know you, even if it is only through this forum.

Adam

[DavidMcK]

"Additionally, God created morality."

This is a statement that places one on the horns of a well known dilemma: If god creates morality arbitrarily then anything could be good or bad, e.g. holocausts (which must not be too bad since 'God' allows them to happen); if not...if God creates morality according to an objective standard God isn't necessary.

[Christopher]

<br>

Edited October 5, 2009 by Christopher

[Christopher]

God rules me.

I am a part of God.

My ruling is God's ruling.

Therefore, I rule myself.

Ergo, I rule God.

Word salad.

Ba'al Chatzaf

"Word salad" is Ba'als way of saying "No fun!"

[Hazard]

Mr. Gaede

I could not have said it better than Selene:

Sir:

It is a privilege to know you, even if it is only through this forum.

Adam

To the rest:

Thank you all for your input.

Jordan

[Brant Gaede]

Mr. Gaede

I could not have said it better than Selene:

Sir:

It is a privilege to know you, even if it is only through this forum.

Adam

To the rest:

Thank you all for your input.

Jordan

Well thanks, especially because I had missed Adam's post.

It's interesting that at the age of 46 I wanted to find some way to go fight in the first Gulf War, but couldn't because of a domestic responsibility if for no other reason. When US forces didn't turn North but sat down I knew all I avoided was helping kill say 100,000 Iraqi soldiers whose bodies were bulldozed into mass graves. I knew the second one was going to be bullshit city. I see war as a complicated, interlocking tapestry with many threads and war as something that is not necessarily necessary except through bad luck, weakness and ignorant, cowardly stupidity. War is failure of other means. The attack on Iraq was therefore basically a failure that'd then have to be made into a non-failure, which is like trying to correct bad parallel parking without starting over. In the meantime people die. People get killed and maimed. Property is destroyed. The liberated might only get a new tyranny. Etc.

--Brant

Adam too

[Selene]

Mr. Gaede

I could not have said it better than Selene:

Sir:

It is a privilege to know you, even if it is only through this forum.

Adam

To the rest:

Thank you all for your input.

Jordan

Well thanks, especially because I had missed Adam's post.

It's interesting that at the age of 46 I wanted to find some way to go fight in the first Gulf War, but couldn't because of a domestic responsibility if for no other reason. When US forces didn't turn North but sat down I knew all I avoided was helping kill say 100,000 Iraqi soldiers whose bodies were bulldozed into mass graves. I knew the second one was going to be bullshit city. I see war as a complicated, interlocking tapestry with many threads and war as something that is not necessarily necessary except through bad luck, weakness and ignorant, cowardly stupidity. War is failure of other means. The attack on Iraq was therefore basically a failure that'd then have to be made into a non-failure, which is like trying to correct bad parallel parking without starting over. In the meantime people die. People get killed and maimed. Property is destroyed. The liberated might only get a new tyranny. Etc.

--Brant

Adam too

Exactly Brant. I struggle with it every time a young man or woman who I am working with who would be infinitely better off with a stint or a career in the services asks me about going into the service of our country.

I will not dissuade them. I talk to them about what I know and then I have them go with me to speak to some folks that I am friends with who are currently in the services and are small r randian/objectivist/libertarian/conservative, at least I have a big tent and then we talk with older veterans.

Then they make their own decision.

I would be ashamed if I could not think that way about a country that is worth living and or dying for to me.

Adam