Humble yourself

I could say the same to you.

I find your reliance on the fact that everybody has, and is allowed, an opinion to be incredibly, incredibly arrogant. The fact that you or I has an opinion doesn't make that opinion in any way correct, or even respectable. All that matters is how closely our opinions track reality. Mine, to the extent of our knowledge, is much more reliable than yours - I can't even stress the difference there enough.

Your assertion to the entitlement of opinion is nothing more than a red herring, and you should be mindful of such arrogance in the future. You're allowed to express yourself, but everybody else is allowed to call you out for making expressions which are quite patently wrong and frankly laughable.

>nonshitpost discussion

Holy shit, this post is fucking retarded.

That's some fucking solid discussion you've got going on there, mate.

I'm done wasting my time.

All this tells me is that you're unwilling to engage in critical thought. If that's the case, I'm happy for the conversation to end here.

>loving your neighbor
>loving God
>gathering together to worship
>preaching the Gospel to the lost
>helping those in need
>living according to the Bible's teachings, to Jesus' teachings

I'm at a loss if you seriously moralise any of those activities, with the exception of the fifth and first.

Which, again, don't need religion.

Nor does the last one funnily enough, but I wouldn't necessarily call that one moral.

This is Jesus we're talking about, He IS the authority. God Himself, so in referring to the Bible you are wrong.

I'm not denying Jesus is the authority of the New Testament. I'm just saying, by virtue of having Jesus as the authority, the New Testament isn't a book of real authority. It just isn't. None of the moral teachings of the Bible require religious devotion to fulfill, and most people rather succinctly ignore the immoral or questionable ones.

But, like I say, there's no evidence for the divinity of Jesus apart from the New Testament - which isn't especially reliable. So I'm inclined to split the difference and say the entire thing is largely irrelevant nowadays.

something something judging is a sin

In righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour. Leviticus 19:15

Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. John 7:24

But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. 1 Corinthians 2:15

For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person. 1 Corinthians 5:12-13

Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?. 1 Corinthians 6:2-3

Have Vien, Meta, and Noelle become moderators

You've been a good son to me.

Quote from: challengerX on December 08, 2014, 01:24:05 PM

You still gonna stay though right?

Probably not

Ignore the typical Guardianista bias.

A “never-before-seen” novel from the late Ayn Rand, who expounded her personal philosophy of “Objectivism” in the doorstopper work of fiction Atlas Shrugged, is due to be released next year, her publisher has announced.

The book is called Ideal, and was written by Rand in 1934 as a novel, but according to publisher New American Library, an imprint at Penguin Random House, the author “thought the theme of the piece would be better realised as a play and put the novel aside”. The Ayn Rand Institute says that the story “grew out of a conversation with a movie fan who gushed that she would give her life to meet a certain famous actress”. Rand was “dubious”, and came up with a slice of fiction “in which the integrity of those who profess to embrace ideals would be tested. What if their idol suddenly appears in their lives, seemingly desperately in need of help, so that their ideals now demand real action?”

Rand’s most famous work of fiction, Atlas Shrugged, is the story of John Galt, a man who wants to “stop the motor of the world”. Galt lives on the principle that “I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine”, with the novel – along with another of Rand’s works, The Fountainhead – more fully laying out her theory of Objectivism, “the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute”, as Rand herself put it.

George Monbiot has said that Rand’s beliefs have “a fair claim to be the ugliest philosophy the postwar world has produced”, while Sam Jordison, blogging about Atlas Shrugged for the Guardian, found that “it’s as unpleasant as it is daft and as a work of literature it’s deeply flawed”. Despite this, Rand’s work and theories have millions of followers, with more than 29.5m copies of her titles sold to date, according to the Ayn Rand Institute.

Ideal will be released next July, as the first novel from Rand since 1957’s Atlas Shrugged. It is, said its publisher, the story of the “beautiful but tormented actress” Kay Gonda, who goes on the run after being accused of murder. Desperate, she turns for help to six fans who have written to her, “each telling her that she represents their ideal – a respectable family man, a far-left activist, a cynical artist, an evangelist, a playboy, and a lost soul”.

“Each reacts to her plight in his own way, their reactions a glimpse into their secret selves and their true values. In the end their responses to her pleas give Kay the answers she has been seeking,” said the publisher.

The work was published as a play in 2005, but according to Publishers Weekly, the novel version of the story was rediscovered in 2012 when the Ayn Rand Institute’s publishing manager Richard Ralston was digitising the writer’s archives. The new edition will include the novel and the play version, giving, said New American Library, the “millions of Ayn Rand fans around the world … a unique opportunity to explore the creative process of Rand as she wrote first a book, then a play, and the differences between the two”.

“The arrival of a never-before-seen Ayn Rand novel will thrill dedicated readers and is a true publishing event,” NAL’s senior vice president and publisher Kara Welsh told Publishers Weekly.

Rand was born in 1905, publishing her first novel, We the Living, in 1936. The Fountainhead was released in 1943, and Atlas Shrugged, her last novel, in 1957. Rand died in 1982.

I'll be looking forward to this one, although I'm yet to read Atlas Shrugged.

Out of curiosity, I assume you've read Harrison Bergeron?

I'm ashamed to admit I've never read anything by Vonnegut.

I don't think anyone denies that not everyone is equal

No, nobody denies that people have differences in their ability.

In my experience, quite a lot of people have difficulty admitting there exists a hierarchy in which some are simply superior to others. It seems to offend liberal sentiments.

You can measure the quality of an entity by, at least, two measures. The first is that it can experience, and the second is its capacity to experience.

By these criteria, we can judge that a dog is more valuable than a rock and that a human is more valuable than a dog. These seem, at least to me, sound conclusions. However, it also brings into question the idea of intra-species hierarchy.

Going by this, we should value the living over the dead, the healthy over the comatose and the young over the old. We should, however, also value the artistic over the boring, the intelligent over the stupid and the powerful over the weak. Some people, by whatever measure, are simply superior to others. Does this, necessarily, equate to justifying oppression and totalitarianism? No, of course not. It's often within the interest of the hierarchs to placate their inferiors.

However, I'm not so interested in the implications as the initial acceptance of the idea. This is my model, you can develop your own. So long as you agree to the idea that people are qualitatively different. I think this justifies a difference in treatment, also, but you may not have to.

EDIT: Nobody denies that people have differences in their ability.

In my experience, quite a lot of people have difficulty admitting there exists a hierarchy in which some are simply superior to others. It seems to offend liberal sentiments.

EDIT II: Okay, maybe I was too cautious with my initial proposition. Does this qualitative difference among people justify either institutional or interpersonal discrimination?

mine wasn't listed in any particular order though

It's okay, my ego doesn't mind.

>tfw you're at the top of a lot of lists
>and second in verbatims

My ego. It ceases to grow.

The United States and France have signed an accord that will compensate thousands of Holocaust survivors and their families who were deported to concentration camps by France's state rail company during Nazi occupation.

Are you fucking kidding me?