| | If you want to claim that Objectivists blanket use of mysticism is meeningless, fine. I'm all for an understanding of the "enemies" beleifs as ammunition. However, with all your talk about Objectivism and how important it was to you, you must remember this: Objectivism is built on the foundation of reality. It all follows from that foundation. Now, I'd like to ask you if you are one of the Atheist members of UU? If you are not an atheist, and you accept on faith some belief system, you are at odd with Objectivism. You can be friends and have prodcutive relationships with Objectivists, but to say you are a "friend of Objectivism" is silly. You cannot reject the foundation and still accpet the house that stands on it.
I'm not sure I can accurately answer your question on atheism, but I will try. What do you mean by "God"? What is the first picture in your mind? For most people, it is almost always a separate Deity figure sporting anthropomorphized characteristics. No, I do not believe in that, but it's painfully obvious to see where it came from. So, working from that, you could call me an atheist.
Just as science grades reality in terms of sophistication, acorn to oak tree, so do most spiritual traditions grade ways of knowing. Each is built upon and includes the other. At the level furthest removed from matter in virtually all spiritual systems is something that is generally called, well, spirit. This is the thing that you say does not exist, because it can't be apprehended by the eye of the flesh, and I say does, because I have apprehended through my interior self, through the contemplative self, which is the part of me that you cannot see- you can only see the organic bits of me, were you to slice in (please refrain if we were to meet). So, in that I believe in Spirit, I might be not called an atheist.
Briefly, my position is that there are higher modes of knowing, and that one of the vices which accompanied the many virtues of modernity was that these modes were run over, so that the only mode of knowing officially endorsed and approved is the monological one. While this works quite well for science, which spends most of its time looking at things that don't talk back, there are others for other purposes. Just as I am writing to you now, and you are reading it and thinking to yourself (a decidedly non-monological experience), my position is that there are additional modes of knowing beyond that. Yours is not, and it is best to agree to disagree. Logic will not serve either of us to convince the other.
Even with that disagreement, I am a friend of Objectivism, and I do not believe you have the authority to say otherwise, for one thing. My day-to-day dealings with people are virtually 100% Objectivist-based, especially in business. What I do not do is take it to the level of judgment/dispensal that some do, often along with the accompanying behaviors, which can, in some, involve some pretty embarrassing things to watch- every bit as embarrassing as the crap you see coming out of fundamentalists.
There are bigger fish to fry than this disagreement. Here is an example for you, speaking of fundamentalists. Let's talk about the New Life Church
(www.newlifechurch.org) and their rather disturbing (to me) leader, pastor Ted Haggard. You might have seen him on one TV show or another recently.
This is an 11,000 member congregation (as in, just at that mega church, which could easily host a Pink Floyd concert). ROR, and many in Objectivism are now rightly talking about how activism might possibly be more important than lofty intellectual arguments with non-atheists, or whether or not Frank O'Connor was a drunk.
Well, these people are kicking your lofty asses, six ways to Sunday Service. They are recruiting at a frenzy pace. They have managed to help fuck up things in the Air Force Academy. When a piece of legislation comes up that they don't like (translation: one that you probably do like), they have virtually immediate, unquestioned thruput, and they can clobber things down. And they are growing. Get the picture?
They have out-organized and out-mobilized not only the folks like the ones who hang out here, but are doing a pretty fair number on the free church people (that would be folks like my UU church). Over here in reject-your-foundation land, there is a scramble of networking to get some hitting power together against these people. For instance, I am on a team which is opening a chapter of the Interfaith Alliance in my region, for the purpose of networking liberal and free churches together so we can get a big enough voice to compete with these nimrods and help stop the madness.
Now, I don't know about you, but from where I sit, our little disagreements between people like me and others in Objectivism don't mean shit in the face of this kind of thing. But, I don't see any olive branch here, because there is this preference of discussing the validity of how you interface with existence vs. the incredibly irrational way you say I do.
In short, I see Objectivism needing to do some work on how they deal with others on common causes. Work that doesn't start off by invalidating someone's belief system.
Issues like this, activist issues, require partnering. The way things go around here, I doubt even the LP party and a large contingent of mobilized Objectivists could get the shit between them together decently enough, much less having to combine with the people I work with.
So, answer that, please, Ethan. What is more important in the face of global crap like this- being secure in your position, or developing enough respect, civility and tolerance in order to partner more effectively?
EDIT: P.S. And yes, according to the preferred rules of engagement around here, I certainly did move out of the direct topic to some extent. However, please note that I attempted to answer your question, and further, I gave one example of what I consider to be a problem with Objectivism as it currently sits.
(Edited by Rich Engle on 12/28, 1:35pm)
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