I got this question today from a Christian.
Should Objectivists and Christians talk? Do reasonable [people] disagree, and if so, is it profitable for them to understand one another?
--M
Dear M:
I don't believe there is any other kind of Christian but a Christian Objectivist. If there is, he is saying that the tenets of Christianity are not objectively true.
Ridiculous.
Sadly, though: I don't think many Christians would know what "objectively true" even means.
Even more ridiculous.
So maybe the question is, "Should Christian Objectivists and atheist/agnostic/skeptic/apatheist (AASA) Objectivists talk?".
It seems like the answer should be "yes," but I actually believe it's often better if it's "no."
The vast majority of atheist individuals I've posted with or seen post are so vitriolic about Christianity that I think their emotions get in the way of their ability to be rational. At that point, no meaningful dialog is possible.
There are websites by ex-atheists that explain this phenomenon. Those were helpful to me in understanding why Christianity drives atheists into a frenzy, and helped me understand why some atheists are driven to spend--report the ex-atheists--virtually all their free time learning arguments with which to attack Christians on the Internet.
But what's new? Non-Christians have wanted to rip Christians apart since the beginning, as evidenced by the resulting torture and murder of Christians on a huge scale.
Beg to differ with that allegation? Save it. I have the statistics.
So yeah. The idea for the non-Christians is that you kill/hate/attack--not PEOPLE who come to different conclusion--but CHRISTIANS who do that. Now THERE'S tolerance, o ye "good guy" atheists. No. Wait. Did I say, "tolerance"?
What? Were you going into the little speech about "Alllllll the killings perpetrated by Christians?" HA! Let's end that crap once and for all. Check your premises. Atheist regimes hold the FIRST 30 SLOTS in the world history of number of people killed under their authority. So pack up that crap and see if you can sell it on ebay. Don't try shoving it off on any educated Christian.
Granted, 99 percent of Christians are, frankly, idiots on stilts when it comes to understanding what they themselves purport to even believe in, and the nature of it, and the empirical proofs of it.
Not necessarily their fault.
But Christian teachers who spent their time teaching their classes how to make Christmas ornaments for the handicapped instead of teaching them what the hell metaphysics and epistemology are and the proofs of their faith--don't get me started--are going to have some 'splainin to do on the Big Day.
Nonetheless, there are so many logical contradictions in atheist/agnostic/skeptic Objectivists feeling that Christians don't have a right to their own rationally deduced value choices that I don't even have time to get into that.
Today.
At the bottom, isn't the act of "talking" actually the act of each person asserting his position? And in a conversation where each is strongly motivated to dissuade the other, isn't that too toxic an atmosphere for dialog? What progress could either make that wouldn't make the other's emotional state ramp up?
But the CHRISTIANS! Oh, I'm shaking my head with a "Tsk, tsk, tsk" at them.
Until Christians wake up and get their minds working about what Jesus actually taught, and about the definitions of the words they use, and about the existing proofs, I actually think it is detrimental to the cause for those Christians to open their mouths.
Their illiteracy just gives more ammunition to atheists, and causes the poor atheists to put in so much silly work rejecting a straw man--a straw man that the Christians built by alleging teachings that are NOT the teachings.
I completely exclude apatheists from the above description. Apatheists (apathy + theist = apatheist) simply don't care whether there is or isn't a God, so they aren't even going to engage in any dialog beyond letting you know they don't care.
I find THAT position to be the scariest of all.
Then again, maybe that's one common ground for atheist Objectivists and Christian Objectivists--to form an alliance to at LEAST bring back the caring. :)
Hot or cold, people!
Beth
Friday, October 3, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Are you a Christian Bright?
Christian Brights is a brand new group that I've started, a parallel group to Christian Objectivists.
Click here to find out what a Christian Bright is, and whether you are one already! This will take you to the blog called "Christian Brights." There you can find out about this, and you can even take two little bitty tests to find out if you belong. Cheers!
Click here to find out what a Christian Bright is, and whether you are one already! This will take you to the blog called "Christian Brights." There you can find out about this, and you can even take two little bitty tests to find out if you belong. Cheers!
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
History of Christian Objectivism
Christian objectivism had its beginnings in January, 2000, in a house in Baraboo, Wisconsin, where a family of Christians (the youngest child being 18, the oldest 20) all read Atlas Shrugged and, in addition to having their lives immediately changed as if moving from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, they each independently concluded that many of the tenets set forth in Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand's Objectivism), were substantially the same tenets they perceived as being the foundations of Christianity, as they, themselves, understood Christianity.
That was my family, and we realized immediately that a proper combination of Christianity with the concept of objectivism would create a philosophical system that reflected our deepest convictions.
Of this initial group, my daughter Sarah Saturday--now a Los Angeles computer consultant and designer, and a musician--and myself--an attorney and former columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and founder/director of a non-profit legal corporation--began in-depth discussions, and I began my formal work on the development of the tenets that would express the new philosophical system named Christian objectivism.
Gradually, I completed the treatise setting out the new philosophy of Christian objectivism, and we began hosting in-house and online groups to discuss the new philosophy's applications. The first-ever online appearance of the new philosophy and its name was in a Yahoo chat group set up by Sarah soon thereafter. A discussion group, hosted by Sarah, is still active today, in which Christian, atheists, Randian Objectivists, and everyone in between, hold lively exchanges. (You may join that group by--let me look into how to create that link for you here.)
As would be expected, Randian Objectivists (Objectivists who subscribed strictly to Rand's version of the philosophy of objectivism) have had strong reactions against the group, ranging from laughter to vigorous verbal attack, most asserting that Objectivism as set forth by Rand was utterly incompatible with Christianity.
A disambiguation was in order early on.
I have explained that the name "Christian objectivism" had been chosen for reasons other than to cling like robots or remora to the version of the philosophy of objectivism that Rand had homesteaded and named Objectivism (for clarity, in this document, Objectivism with a capital "o" refers to Rand's Objectivism, and objectivism with a small "o" refers to the general philosophy of objectivism that preceded Rand's version.) Christian objectivism was not a system built to hide in the skirts of any pre-existing system, or to grow from it, as an offshoot. Rather, Christian objectivism would be an entirely new, fully original, and independently-standing structure.
Therefore, I had no hesitation about asserting that the second word of the name of the philosophy would be "objectivism", as this term most sharply reflected my certainty that truth was objective. And since it is my position--shared by Saturday-- that Christianity is true, then Christianity's truth must also be objective.
So, while Rand's writings about her own Objectivism had profoundly affected and excited my family and had opened our minds more fully than ever to the concept of objective truth, it was nonetheless gallopingly clear that Rand, an atheist, had not delineated her philosophy in such a way as to leave room for theist variants, and I was not attempting to crash that party.
That was not to say, however, that vast areas of Christian objectivism and of Rand's Objectivism--both taking the same view of the nature of truth--did not overlap, and there was no attempt to disguise that fact in my treatise on the new philosophy.
In fact, Christian objectivism, by consistently discussing Rand's Objectivist writings, especially the similarities and differences between the two philosophies, had, in effect, intentionally set up residence in close proximity to Rand's philosophy, establishing only very meager fencing between the two, for the simple reason that truth, being objective, obviously had bedrooms in both houses and should be able to move freely between the two establishments, like a child in custody of parents who share his biology but who have enough irreconcilable differences to keep them from being housemates.
A series of essays will be posted on here beginning in September, in which my treatise on Christian objectivism will be published in segmented installments. A book-length treatise will be published thereafter.
That was my family, and we realized immediately that a proper combination of Christianity with the concept of objectivism would create a philosophical system that reflected our deepest convictions.
Of this initial group, my daughter Sarah Saturday--now a Los Angeles computer consultant and designer, and a musician--and myself--an attorney and former columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and founder/director of a non-profit legal corporation--began in-depth discussions, and I began my formal work on the development of the tenets that would express the new philosophical system named Christian objectivism.
Gradually, I completed the treatise setting out the new philosophy of Christian objectivism, and we began hosting in-house and online groups to discuss the new philosophy's applications. The first-ever online appearance of the new philosophy and its name was in a Yahoo chat group set up by Sarah soon thereafter. A discussion group, hosted by Sarah, is still active today, in which Christian, atheists, Randian Objectivists, and everyone in between, hold lively exchanges. (You may join that group by--let me look into how to create that link for you here.)
As would be expected, Randian Objectivists (Objectivists who subscribed strictly to Rand's version of the philosophy of objectivism) have had strong reactions against the group, ranging from laughter to vigorous verbal attack, most asserting that Objectivism as set forth by Rand was utterly incompatible with Christianity.
A disambiguation was in order early on.
I have explained that the name "Christian objectivism" had been chosen for reasons other than to cling like robots or remora to the version of the philosophy of objectivism that Rand had homesteaded and named Objectivism (for clarity, in this document, Objectivism with a capital "o" refers to Rand's Objectivism, and objectivism with a small "o" refers to the general philosophy of objectivism that preceded Rand's version.) Christian objectivism was not a system built to hide in the skirts of any pre-existing system, or to grow from it, as an offshoot. Rather, Christian objectivism would be an entirely new, fully original, and independently-standing structure.
Therefore, I had no hesitation about asserting that the second word of the name of the philosophy would be "objectivism", as this term most sharply reflected my certainty that truth was objective. And since it is my position--shared by Saturday-- that Christianity is true, then Christianity's truth must also be objective.
So, while Rand's writings about her own Objectivism had profoundly affected and excited my family and had opened our minds more fully than ever to the concept of objective truth, it was nonetheless gallopingly clear that Rand, an atheist, had not delineated her philosophy in such a way as to leave room for theist variants, and I was not attempting to crash that party.
That was not to say, however, that vast areas of Christian objectivism and of Rand's Objectivism--both taking the same view of the nature of truth--did not overlap, and there was no attempt to disguise that fact in my treatise on the new philosophy.
In fact, Christian objectivism, by consistently discussing Rand's Objectivist writings, especially the similarities and differences between the two philosophies, had, in effect, intentionally set up residence in close proximity to Rand's philosophy, establishing only very meager fencing between the two, for the simple reason that truth, being objective, obviously had bedrooms in both houses and should be able to move freely between the two establishments, like a child in custody of parents who share his biology but who have enough irreconcilable differences to keep them from being housemates.
A series of essays will be posted on here beginning in September, in which my treatise on Christian objectivism will be published in segmented installments. A book-length treatise will be published thereafter.
Friday, August 29, 2008
The Christian Objectivist
Welcome!
This page is the headquarters of the Christian objectivist philosophic movement network.
Christian objectivism is a philosophy I created beginning in the year 2000 in the state of Wisconsin. I am an attorney and former syndicated columnist for The New York Times Syndicate.
Please click this link to visit another page in the Christian Objectivist philosophic movement: http://www.christianobjectivists.blogspot.com/
Thank you for visiting here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
