| | Over the decades, I always understood Dagny's retort in the same way that I think you intend. However, the last time I read it, less than a year ago, it occured to me that in addition to that problem, the question is not debatable. And neither is this.
The question there was "Is Rearden Metal a lethal product of greed?"
Here it is actually a set of questions (according to the flyer): "Is Religion the Problem? Is belief in God a menace to civilization, as the new atheists contend? Would a secular world be a more rational, peaceful, and decent world? The rise of Islamic radicalism has caused many people to blame Islam in particular, and religion in general, for the rise of modern terrorism. Historically, religion, and specifically Christianity, seem to have produced persecution and bloodshed. But is this a fair characterization?"
Which of those are they debating? None of them is actually in a forensic format. I went to the National Forensic League website and found the questions given to national high school competitors back to 1939. They have to be in a format and the words have to be definable. "Is Religion the Problem" does not meet that criterion. Like "greed" the word "problem" can mean anything or nothing. (See http://www.nflonline.org/StudentResources/PastPolicyDebateTopics)
Moreover, I watched a YouTube video in which Dinesh D'Souza mopped the floor with Christopher Hitchens. An atheist myself, of course, but also an Objectivist, I gave the match to D'Souza who claimed that all the deaths due to the Crusades and the Inquisition and the Witch Trials would not be one-tenth or even one percent of the horrors perpetrated by atheists Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong.
The response from us, of course, is that Marxism is a religion. Hitchens thinks otherwise, apparently.
(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 4/01, 2:20pm)
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