Religion in the USA

[Raaz Satik]

While those who are Objectivist definitely tell you that religion is immoral and I will add that it's the greatest enemy to USA right now

That's a pretty strong view. Any chance you'd like to explain it in a little more detail?

[Petyr Baelich]

Religion completely rejects reason in favor of unreason, (faith). Reason is your only means of dealing with reality and achieving anything of value. Thus unreason is in complete opposition to every objective virtue. Religion is the greatest threat to any rational person or group of rational people because it is the polar opposite of every value that a rational person holds to be true. Religion is also very compelling to lazy-minded, self-hating people because it absolves them of the responsibility to think. The fact that it has become so prevalent and enjoyed such a resurgence recently in the USA is a major cause for concern and is directly related to the decline of our economy and the errosion of our moral standards.

Some of Rand's thoughts on religion:

PLAYBOY: Has no religion, in your estimation, ever offered anything of constructive value to human life?

RAND: Qua religion, no—in the sense of blind belief, belief unsupported by, or contrary to, the facts of reality and the conclusions of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the negation of reason. But you must remember that religion is an early form of philosophy, that the first attempts to explain the universe, to give a coherent frame of reference to man's life and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy. And, as philosophies, some religions have very valuable moral points. They may have a good influence or proper principles to inculcate, but in a very contradictory context and, on a very—how should I say it?—dangerous or malevolent base: on the ground of faith.

~ "Playboy's Interview with Ayn Rand," March 1964.

Christ, in terms of the Christian philosophy, is the human ideal. He personifies that which men should strive to emulate. Yet, according to the Christian mythology, he died on the cross not for his own sins but for the sins of the nonideal people. In other words, a man of perfect virtue was sacrificed for men who are vicious and who are expected or supposed to accept that sacrifice. If I were a Christian, nothing could make me more indignant than that: the notion of sacrificing the ideal to the nonideal, or virtue to vice. And it is in the name of that symbol that men are asked to sacrifice themselves for their inferiors. That is precisely how the symbolism is used.

~ "Playboy's Interview with Ayn Rand," March 1964.

What is the nature of the guilt that your teachers call [man's] Original Sin? What are the evils man acquired when he fell from a state they consider perfection? Their myth declares that he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge—he acquired a mind and became a rational being. It was the knowledge of good and evil—he became a moral being. He was sentenced to earn his bread by his labor—he became a productive being. He was sentenced to experience desire—he acquired the capacity of sexual enjoyment. The evils for which they damn him are reason, morality, creativeness, joy—all the cardinal values of his existence. It is not his vices that their myth of man's fall is designed to explain and condemn, it is not his errors that they hold as his guilt, but the essence of his nature as man. Whatever he was—that robot in the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love —he was not man.

Man's fall, according to your teachers, was that he gained the virtues required to live. These virtues, by their standard, are his Sin. His evil, they charge, is that he's man. His guilt, they charge, is that he lives.

They call it a morality of mercy and a doctrine of love for man.

No, they say, they do not preach that man is evil, the evil is only that alien object: his body. No, they say, they do not wish to kill him, they only wish to make him lose his body. They seek to help him, they say, against his pain—and they point at the torture rack to which they've tied him, the rack with two wheels that pull him in opposite directions, the rack of the doctrine that splits his soul and body.

~ Galt's Speech, For the New Intellectual, 137.

All quotes available at: http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/religion.html

[Raaz Satik]

Excellent reply Petyr, Thank You.

[Oleksandr]

Excellent reply Petyr, Thank You.

Ditto.

[Velocima Geminosa]

I must say that, despite my love for my religion (Judaism), I agree with you Petyr. While I follow the morality of my religion (as rationally it lines up well with Objectivism) and certainly the culture (after all, Judaism is as much a culture as a religion), I find it very hard to follow the faith aspect of it. It is thus that I agree with Ayn Rand's views, that the religion itself is not necessarily bad, rather it is the blind faith put in some all powerful supernatural being that goes against rational thought.

Sadly, I am tried and must get to bed, but I look forward to talking with others in the future to have physics shows both possible proofs of some sort of God and how the truth of such a proof would make God in no way a part of our Universe or an active player in our Universe (sorry Jesus). Science is fun that way.

[Tolthar Lockbar]

I must say that, despite my love for my religion (Judaism), I agree with you Petyr. While I follow the morality of my religion (as rationally it lines up well with Objectivism) and certainly the culture (after all, Judaism is as much a culture as a religion), I find it very hard to follow the faith aspect of it. It is thus that I agree with Ayn Rand's views, that the religion itself is not necessarily bad, rather it is the blind faith put in some all powerful supernatural being that goes against rational thought.

I have seen both the extremes with this. While there are Jews that I admire, like Ezra Levant, who obviously has a good take on morals--I have known some pretty bad Jewish people too. There was one particularly at school that was just a lier.

Here is the thing. This is the danger of faith. Much of the Jewish culture is fine if you couple it with good principles to back it up. If you don't know these principles, and all one can do is mimic the culture, instead of actually understand it, then a beast will be created. As far as I know, the culture as a whole does not explicitly know about the principles that derive their views on capitalism (though I'm sure many do, as seen by Ezra Lavant).

Sadly, I am tried and must get to bed, but I look forward to talking with others in the future to have physics shows both possible proofs of some sort of God and how the truth of such a proof would make God in no way a part of our Universe or an active player in our Universe (sorry Jesus). Science is fun that way.

As far as I've seen, the proofs of God through physics has been shown like this: fact -> fact -> assumption -> assumption -> God exists

One way to test this is if one can make unlimited stories that also fit. For instance, the big bang theory. What if, instead of God creating the Big Bang, it was a superiorly advanced race, that collected much of the universe into one mass to harvest. Unfortunately, their greed led them to their destruction and created the Big Bang... OOPS!

So lets see the side effects of taking this leap of faith. People will protest, and use it, to show how we should get rid of technology, and go back to something more primitive, so we don't blow our selves up. This would be a Environmentalist field-day if this theory became mainstream.

The best we can do as humans is to reason as much as possible, through inducing the facts, deducing conclusions, but never adding evidence! Finding that the stars are aligned in some way does not mean that God exists, or even act as evidence of that, it merely means they are aligned for some reason, of which perhaps we don't know. Think of it this way: Would you even think about God being in the picture here if you didn't know about him in the first place? No, you would probably look for a more scientific explanation, not even thinking about if it was a caused by some super natural being or not.

Have fun, let me know what you think,
Tolmart

[Ciaras]

Your reason bares no relevance here. Bow before the might of the FSM and pray that he may reach down from on high and touch you with his noodle-y appendage.

[Velocima Geminosa]

Tolthar,
The one possible "proof" I was thinking of goes something like this (not that it can actually lead people to believe in God, but it's an interesting thought experiment that shows the difficulty of accepting a rational explanation of the universe and God).

As scientists look at stars that are farther away, they are essentially looking back in time because of the time it takes light to travel that distance. By looking at stars billions of light years away, one can see the earliest parts of the Universe's existence (so far as science can tell). Looking back far enough, one finds what has so far been shown to be a phenomenon called supersymmetry, wherein (as I understand it) the four basic forces of the universe (gravity, electromagnetism, strong, and weak) were combined into one superforce (and other such fancy, highly mathematical things). This quickly broke down as the universe cooled and expanded, well within the laws of thermodynamics (remember, the entropy of the universe is always increasing). It appears that supersymmetry occurs right before what could be labeled the start of the universe. According to the Big Bang theory (though it may be more of a hypothesis, I haven't looked into it that much), there was an event one can label the Big Bang in which the totality of the universe came to be in a rather tiny and supersymmetric part of spacetime (though it was the only part).
If we assume that the Big Bang theory is true, then we have to answer the difficult question of how did the Universe come into being, when going from presumably nothing to something is extremely anti-entropic (yes, there are many possibilities, but we're doing a thought experiment, so save those thoughts until later). As this goes against the natural order, it would be reasonable to say that this was a supernatural event. Let us label the cause for this event God, whether it be a being or something else. If it is true that this God intiated the Universe, and thus exists before the Big Bang, then it would be impossible for God to effect us in any way, shape, or form (as, given Big Bang theory, it would be impossible for something to effect this universe before the start of the universe). Thus, God performs no miracles, takes no one to heaven, did not send his only son to die on the Cross, and in fact can do nothing to anyone. But he existed in some fashion, at least before the Big Bang (not that that really matters). So we could say God exists with at least some rational thought behind it (assuming Big Bang theory as currently presented is true), but that God is in no way a part of our current universe. So, even if He does exist, worshipping him is a pointless act of futility as there is nothing he can do. Faith is still horribly irrational and causing people to do stupid things for no reason, and the existence of God is no longer a question not because we can neither prove nor disprove it, but because as he can in no way influence our universe, the question is moot. Morality should be followed because it is morality, it is right, not because God will affect you. Intelligent design is wrong, because the supernatural being can only be rationally shown to exist before the Big Bang, making it impossible that he had a hand in the creation of the world itself (we're much younger than the universe). Childbirth may seem miraculous (and is certainly extremely special), but it is not a miracle.

Damn, kinda sucks when a proof only proves that what you wanted to believe is unimportant whether it exists or not. After all, by the above, if God exists, he can do nothing to the Universe. If he doesn't exist, he can do nothing to the Universe. I guess he might be able to listen to us bitch (see Tolthar, Jewish culture has plenty to offer).

And seeing as its Purim, I can give you the Objectivist version of the story: In a far away land called Shushan (Persia), King A (Ahashuerous I think, but I don't remember) and his wicked advisor Haman (grager noise) ruled. Haman was riding around with everyone bowing to him except Mordecai (a Jew), so he decides to off the Jews. Long story short, Esther (Mordecai's niece) becomes queen after winning what was essentially a beauty pageant. Haman's plan seems to be going well, until Esther tells King A that someone is trying to off her. He deamands to now, threatening to kill the bastard (hell, I don't think King A's had even one night with Esther, so I understand his anger). Esther tells King A about Haman, Haman is executed, and to this day Jews drown out Haman's name and eat tricorner cookies called Hamantashen that are symbolic of him whooping his ass. Now, could we say that it was only through the grace of God that the Jews lived. Sure, we can also say I'm an amazing athlete (doesn't mean it's true). What is true is that two very brilliant and brave Jews used every advantage and opening given to them to save the Jewish people. Same can be said for many of the most important stories in Judaism. Passover is the story of how an amazing man named Moses stood up to Pharoh, used his wit to trick him (and used his belief in the divine against him), organized all the Jewish slaves, and led them to freedom (with a bit of luck that the Red Sea was so low at the time). The Jews then, through their own fortitude and wit, survived the desert for some long period of time until they came upon what is now Israel and conquered it. Again, we can put God in there, but the simplest explanation (hooray Occam's razor) is that people took it upon themselves to pull themselves up by their bootstraps (and sometimes others along with them), showing extraordinary wit, fortitude, beauty and, most importantly, the willingness to use what advantages they had to gain something of value for them and those they valued.

I don't know if there's actually a point to all of this. In many ways, this is my reconciling my rational outlook of the universe (go science!) with the beliefs I grew up with as a child. I still think of myself as a Jew and am proud of my heritage, but I wear a yarmulke for myself , not for God. So I guess this long rant is a way to explore my beliefs with rational people who will appreciate my logic while challenging me on anything that is not supported.

So, yeah, that's pretty much it. Now I just need to see if I can attach a little pair of spinning helicopter blades to my yarmulke.

[Tolthar Lockbar]

First, my main standard of judgment here:

The problem that most these theories have is that they are rationalizations rather than rationally arguments. A rationalization is where you start with a given, like God, and then proceed to look for things that makes it true. This leads to many problems.

Reason, ie logic, has to start at a base and create things off that base. Let me give building as an illustration.

To build a build, one must first dig a hole (usually) and put cement foundations in place. Then one must put very BASIC supports for the entire structure. Only then can one start to add walls, floors, and roofs. If one did this in opposite order, one would be constructing a house of cards, ready to topple at any moment.

Reason works the same way. One must build from the facts, and deduce conclusions to build new knowledge. One can not start at a conclusion, and then build the premises. One must first comprehend the premises, and then and only then can they come to the conclusion. How else can one gain and understand knowledge? One can not understand about a God without first understanding what lead up to the discovery of said God. "I know about this thing I don't know about and I'm looking for the reasons that I know about it."

Now for the nitty gritty:

If we assume that the Big Bang theory is true, then we have to answer the difficult question of how did the Universe come into being, when going from presumably nothing to something is extremely anti-entropic (yes, there are many possibilities, but we're doing a thought experiment, so save those thoughts until later). As this goes against the natural order, it would be reasonable to say that this was a supernatural event. Let us label the cause for this event God, whether it be a being or something else.

When mankind didn't know what the sun was, they called it super natural, and sometimes even a God.

While at first I thought you were building up your logic and concepts to present your proof, I realized something: Why are you calling it God? The only explanation that one would jump to that label is if they are starting at a conclusion, "God", and trying to rationalize some meaningful premise to its existence. Why not pick, for instance, "Nature"? For if something exists, then it can not be super natural. Existence makes it natural. (note that talking about "super-natural" is a different context than natural vs man-made).

Rationalization is not reason. It is using deduction without induction.

Your point though, that I agree with, is that your explanation of God, makes no difference within how a human should act. You are still stating that facts and reason should determine morals, not some arbitrary whims. And THAT I can admire very much.

[Velocima Geminosa]

I'm glad to see you got the point of the argument, Tolth. The important thing to remember with any Big Bang Theory to support God is that by saying that God is the cause of the Big Bang, you are saying that God has no effect on our current universe. It's a somehwhat complex, highly scientific way of saying "Shut the fuck up and focus on something that actually matters instead of going on about a hippie, a fat man, or some damn elephant." I'm sorry if that offends anyone, but seriously, humanity has wasted so much brain power on trying to understand a being that either doesn't exist or doesn't have any effect on our universe.
Happy George? It's a shorter rant.

[Petyr Baelich]

I'm glad to see you got the point of the argument, Tolth. The important thing to remember with any Big Bang Theory to support God is that by saying that God is the cause of the Big Bang, you are saying that God has no effect on our current universe. It's a somehwhat complex, highly scientific way of saying "Shut the fuck up and focus on something that actually matters instead of going on about a hippie, a fat man, or some damn elephant." I'm sorry if that offends anyone, but seriously, humanity has wasted so much brain power on trying to understand a being that either doesn't exist or doesn't have any effect on our universe.
Happy George? It's a shorter rant.

Very happy with this paragraph, yes.

[Emizzon]

The best we can do as humans is to reason as much as possible, through inducing the facts, deducing conclusions, but never adding evidence! Finding that the stars are aligned in some way does not mean that God exists, or even act as evidence of that, it merely means they are aligned for some reason, of which perhaps we don't know. Think of it this way: Would you even think about God being in the picture here if you didn't know about him in the first place? No, you would probably look for a more scientific explanation, not even thinking about if it was a caused by some super natural being or not.

That's the thing. Once upon a time the human race did look upon the stars with no knowledge of God; "If we didn't do it. Who did?" and thus he was born.

Still, it would be extremely interesting to see a person educated with math and sciences with no mention of religion until they are mature in the world we live now. Then ask them what they think about stuff.

[Petyr Baelich]

Still, it would be extremely interesting to see a person educated with math and sciences with no mention of religion until they are mature in the world we live now. Then ask them what they think about stuff.

Yes, we could name that person "Delphi" and put her on a mountaintop with nothing but science textbooks and then people could come from miles around to ask her about stuff .

[Warmfuzzy]

Yes, we could name that person "Delphi" and put her on a mountaintop with nothing but science textbooks and then people could come from miles around to ask her about stuff .

That is the funniest thing I have read in this forum!

[Sylvia Lafayette]

The best we can do as humans is to reason as much as possible, through inducing the facts, deducing conclusions, but never adding evidence! Finding that the stars are aligned in some way does not mean that God exists, or even act as evidence of that, it merely means they are aligned for some reason, of which perhaps we don't know. Think of it this way: Would you even think about God being in the picture here if you didn't know about him in the first place? No, you would probably look for a more scientific explanation, not even thinking about if it was a caused by some super natural being or not.

That's the thing. Once upon a time the human race did look upon the stars with no knowledge of God; "If we didn't do it. Who did?" and thus he was born.

Still, it would be extremely interesting to see a person educated with math and sciences with no mention of religion until they are mature in the world we live now. Then ask them what they think about stuff.

oooo pick me... I was raised like this. pretty much knew religion exist as I grew up but haven't bothered much with it at all.

[musashi]

I am not the best apologist for religion, not being a very churchy person. I do a fair amount of reading about a variety of religions.

I am not sure we can completely discredit the historical influence and value of religion. Absolutely it is a huge source of negative events. But good has come from religion as well. I think about the Justinian Law Code that forms a basis for legal systems today. This code is Byzantine, a highly religious society.

It seems that most of our morays and folkways have religious roots. Though shall not kill is a good example. Did the universal right to life precede the biblical exclamation? I’m not sure, but I know religion has played a role, ingraining the idea into the common psyche.

[Petyr Baelich]

I am not the best apologist for religion, not being a very churchy person. I do a fair amount of reading about a variety of religions.

I am not sure we can completely discredit the historical influence and value of religion. Absolutely it is a huge source of negative events. But good has come from religion as well. I think about the Justinian Law Code that forms a basis for legal systems today. This code is Byzantine, a highly religious society.

It seems that most of our morays and folkways have religious roots. Though shall not kill is a good example. Did the universal right to life precede the biblical exclamation? I’m not sure, but I know religion has played a role, ingraining the idea into the common psyche.

If you throw enough darts at a dartboard, you'll get a bullseye eventually. If I tell everyone that a giant frog is going to eat us all if we don't all become strict capitalists, some people may actually become capitalists who wouldn't otherwise. That doesn't make my philosophy true, or at all meaningful. On the contrary, when people figure out that there's no giant frog about to eat them, they will associate capitalism with that untrue philosophy and most likely reject it. Under Justinian Law, one could own slaves, and the Byzantine Empire was known more for the duplicity and poisonous nature of its politics than for adherence to religious mores. I completely discount any positive influence religion has had on society as purely accidental. People would have been much better off adopting Aristolean reason than any faith-based philosophy.

[Velocima Geminosa]

But Petyr, without religion...we wouldn't have...well, damnit, we wouldn't have Inquisition jokes.

Feel the might of my argument

[whisperii]

But Petyr, without religion...we wouldn't have...well, damnit, we wouldn't have Inquisition jokes.

Feel the might of my argument

ROFLMFAO!

[Petyr Baelich]

But Petyr, without religion...we wouldn't have...well, damnit, we wouldn't have Inquisition jokes.

Feel the might of my argument

I love you. I'm baking you a dradel right now!

[musashi]

If you throw enough darts at a dartboard, you'll get a bullseye eventually. If I tell everyone that a giant frog is going to eat us all if we don't all become strict capitalists, some people may actually become capitalists who wouldn't otherwise. That doesn't make my philosophy true, or at all meaningful. On the contrary, when people figure out that there's no giant frog about to eat them, they will associate capitalism with that untrue philosophy and most likely reject it. Under Justinian Law, one could own slaves, and the Byzantine Empire was known more for the duplicity and poisonous nature of its politics than for adherence to religious mores. I completely discount any positive influence religion has had on society as purely accidental. People would have been much better off adopting Aristolean reason than any faith-based philosophy.

Laws evolve just as philosophy evolves. Absolutely Byzantine social structure was archaic. But unless you want to push back to the code of Hamarabi the Justinian code is just about the first historical evidence of codified law. But religion played a role all the way through history in supporting and improving law. It seems that a secular law is a relatively new concept, perhaps a few hundred years old.

Not sure if considering the rise of law as a random proposition.

And the law forms the resolution to many of the problems that we discuss objectively, so to me the origions of the law seems like an important deal.