Humility: Good or Bad?

[Probius]

Now since that has petered out, here is a great quote from the master herself, Miss Ayn Rand.  "If a man believes that the good is intrinsic in certain actions, he will not hesitate to force others to perform them."  Do you think this is true?  Is there such a thing as intrinsic good in any action?  What do the philosophers have to say?

p.s. The quote is from 'Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.'

[lauermar]

 

[voxxpopulisuxx]

Now since that has petered out, here is a great quote from the master herself, Miss Ayn Rand.  "If a man believes that the good is intrinsic in certain actions, he will not hesitate to force others to perform them."  Do you think this is true?  Is there such a thing as intrinsic good in any action?  What do the philosophers have to say?

p.s. The quote is from 'Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.'

Yes lets discuss the "master" (shouldnt it be mistress?)

http://www.clayjones.net/2011/04/ayn-rand%E2%80%94the-bad/


Like the communists, Rand rejected the Bible's teaching of "original sin" and declared that "men are born tabula rasa" or blank slates.1 That was a crucial mistake.2 Rand is rejecting the evidence. What follows is at least evidence to falsify a tabula rasa view which the Bible's teaching on "original sin" would confirm.
First, in just the last 100 years humans have tortured and murdered each other at staggering rates. Conservatively, the USSR from 1917 to 1989 killed 20 to 26 million people3; Germany about 13 million (not including war dead), China between 26 to 30 million,4 and the United States has suctioned, scalded and scraped to death over 50 million unborn children.5 It is difficult to choose among all the historical examples of the depth of human depravity, but this one will suffice as evidence for how a tabula rasa view of human persons is disconnected from reality. In 1937 Japanese raped, tortured or murdered 300,000 in Nanking China. Iris Chang wrote about this (warning: graphic violence follows):

The Rape of Nanking should be remembered not only for the number of people slaughtered but for the cruel manner in which many met their deaths. Chinese men were used for bayonet practice and in decapitation contests. An estimated 20,000–80,000 Chinese women were raped. Many soldiers went beyond rape to disembowel women, slice off their breasts, nail them alive to walls. Fathers were forced to rape their daughters, and sons their mothers, as other family members watched. Not only did live burials, castration, the carving of organs, and the roasting of people become routine, but more diabolical tortures were practiced, such as hanging people by their tongues on iron hooks or burying people to their waists and watching them get torn apart by German shepherds. So sickening was the spectacle that even the Nazis in the city were horrified, one proclaiming the massacre to be the work of "bestial machinery."6


So the question better to be asked is...Is  there Intrinsic evil that men should use force to prevent? Its a mindscrew to ask about intrinsic goodness when in the same breath you deny the existence  evil. And none  has been better at the mindscrew then the aynrandian cultists......lets continue....from the same essay:

Rand contorted selfishness into an ultimate good and even entitled a book The Virtue of Selfishness. "The proper method of judging when or whether one should help another person is by reference to one's own rational self-interest and one's own hierarchy of values: the time, the money or effort one gives or the risk one takes should be proportionate to the value of the person in relation to one's own happiness."11 Thus you should only take the chance to save a drowning stranger "when the danger to your own life is minimal; when the danger is great, it would be immoral to attempt it: only a lack of self-esteem" could "permit" it.12 But, by her logic, if there is any danger to your own life, why risk it?
Rand's rejection of God and her ignorance of human sinfulness ultimately led her to believe that man should be worshipped. "If anyone should ask me what it is that I have said to the glory of Man, I will answer only by paraphrasing Howard Roark: I will hold up a copy of Atlas Shrugged and say, 'The explanation rests.'"13 "The man-worshipers, in my sense of the term, are those who see man's highest potential and strive to actualize it.... those dedicated to the exaltation of man's self-esteem and the sacredness of his happiness on earth."14
It is no surprise that Rand would consider Jesus' crucifixion a horrible waste: the "ideal" dying for the "non-ideal." And, indeed, why should Jesus die for people who are, of themselves, glorious? As Rand put it in her interview with Playboy: "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."15 Here Rand is right. Her problem was that she really didn't think people vicious and so she didn't see the reasonableness of sacrifice. If she had, and if she had known her own viciousness—the viciousness that led her to convince her husband and her lover's wife that her affair with self-esteem guru Nathanial Branden should be tolerated—she might have welcomed the "man of perfect virtue" dying for her.
Romans 1:22-23: "Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man...."

[Probius]

Ayn Rand said that Jesus was the ideal man for Christians, and yet look at how he was treated.  She found it abhorrent that the ideal man would be murdered in such a grotesque way.  I think sometimes Christians get too comfortable by looking at the crucifix so often.  A Christian should cry every time he sees the crucifix.

Ayn Rand adopted the idea of the 'tabula rasa' from John Locke, neither were communists.  Keep in mind that original sin is not the same thing as evil.  Original sin and fallen nature are the Christian way of explaining evil, it is not the only way to explain evil.  To deny original sin is not the same as denying evil.  I, too, deny original sin.  The story of Adam and Eve could not have possibly happened, as the Earth is around 4.5 billion years old.  I don't look at man as evil and fallen either, I see man as a noble animal who uses his mind to shape his world.  Of course evil exists, but it is explained by people making poor choices, or usually by bad philosophy.  It is ignorance that causes evil, if humans were selfish, there would be no evil in the world.  The worst evil that has ever been visited upon mankind is the creed of altruism, and its root is a refusal to use reason.

Miss Rand said it best when she said, "Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values."

[voxxpopulisuxx]

Ayn Rand said that Jesus was the ideal man for Christians, and yet look at how he was treated.  She found it abhorrent that the ideal man would be murdered in such a grotesque way.  I think sometimes Christians get too comfortable by looking at the crucifix so often.  A Christian should cry every time he sees the crucifix.

Ayn Rand adopted the idea of the 'tabula rasa' from John Locke, neither were communists.  Keep in mind that original sin is not the same thing as evil.  Original sin and fallen nature are the Christian way of explaining evil, it is not the only way to explain evil.  To deny original sin is not the same as denying evil.  I, too, deny original sin.  The story of Adam and Eve could not have possibly happened, as the Earth is around 4.5 billion years old.  I don't look at man as evil and fallen either, I see man as a noble animal who uses his mind to shape his world.  Of course evil exists, but it is explained by people making poor choices, or usually by bad philosophy.  It is ignorance that causes evil, if humans were selfish, there would be no evil in the world.  The worst evil that has ever been visited upon mankind is the creed of altruism, and its root is a refusal to use reason.

Miss Rand said it best when she said, "Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values."

utter bullox and tripe.
The evil in the world is caused by selfishness...your mind is screwed.

[Probius]

How can it be evil to live your own life?  How can it be evil to work on yourself in order to become something you can be proud of?  Whenever you eat, exercise, sleep, or study you are placing yourself in the center of your life, you are being selfish and that's a good thing.  You have a right to your own life.

[Gardener]

How can it be evil to live your own life?  How can it be evil to work on yourself in order to become something you can be proud of?  Whenever you eat, exercise, sleep, or study you are placing yourself in the center of your life, you are being selfish and that's a good thing.  You have a right to your own life.

Unless you do so for the end goal of the service of others, realizing that the focus on self is per the deficiency of self to serve -- thus the necessity of focusing on "self".

[Probius]

Why should one focus on others?

[voxxpopulisuxx]

Why should one focus on others?

Love God with all your whole heart and all your strength
and your neighbor as yourself..
You should do so because Jesus Christ your King has said to.

[Probius]

You know that doesn't mean anything to me.

[voxxpopulisuxx]

You know that doesn't mean anything to me.

Then truth means nothing to you.

[Probius]

The truth means everything to me, reality means everything to me.  Altruism is evil and is against life, egoism is life serving.

[voxxpopulisuxx]

The truth means everything to me, reality means everything to me.  Altruism is evil and is against life, egoism is life serving.

Jesus said:
I am the Truth......
you admit he means nothing to you
ergo
the truth means nothing to you.

[Probius]

Buddha said his path was the truth...

[voxxpopulisuxx]

Buddha said his path was the truth...

Yeah....but he didnt say he WAS the Truth.