Hoffer's Take On Black Africans In Africa

From the book, Eric Hoffer, The Syndicated News Articles, Page 196, from an article entitled Nature is Mankind's Real Enemy, Hoffer wrote this: "My unworshipful attitude toward nature is continuously getting me into trouble. My contention that the harmony between man and nature must be a harmony designed and dictated by man is angrily rejected by all sorts of people, but most vehemently by the educated. It is a mark of intellectual distinction nowadays to run down man and extol nature."

The Mother and the Father are creator deities and they love, steward and shape nature, but they also make a living off of the natural world, and De and their laws govern nature; the Divine Couple are in charge of nature. Nature is raw chaos and violent death and destruction, if ungoverned by lawful order and control governed from heaven.

We humans are made in the image and likeness of the Divine Couple, and we are to love, steward, shape and earn a living off of nature, without polluting, wiping out or mindlessly altering nature.

From the quote above, it is obvious that Hoffer is a conservative, as are capitalists and were Yahweh and the Hebrews in their attitude and approach towards nature.

Satan and Lera reside in nature, and the Mother and the Father reside in heaven, a celestial, supernatural and somehow artificial realm.

The Left and intellectuals are pro-nature and anti-human, and their hatred of humanity is a creeping, creepy oozing of their loathing for our people that they wish to eliminate from the face of the earth. The motives driving the Eco-terrorists and Enviro-Statists is anything but innocent and benevolent, and they must not be allowed to wipe out our human world and economy, and immerse us once more in a state of nature.

Nonetheless, moderate ethics is the proclamation that good people can have their cake and eat it too. We can make our living off of nature, without allowing nature to dominate us, and we can reclaim and nurture nature as best we can to restore her to her natural state as if we had not disturbed her. Restoring nature can be a way of growing the economy and creating jobs for people, all while caring for nature that shared her resources with us.

Conservatives like Hoffer and me think the world is tragic in many ways, we accept the doctrine of original sin (human depravity), we extol the advantages of Western values, we favor individualism, republicanism and capitalism, and we suggest that humans dominate nature, rather than the other way around.

From the same article, from Page 197, Hoffer applies his thesis that nature is humanity's real enemy to Africa and its native people: "As to Africa: We tend to forget that in Africa the battle that has to be won is not against colonialism but nature. The chatter of the African leaders about sovereignty, Negritude and African destiny is totally irrelevant to the central task which is the conquest of African nature, primeval, relentless, aggressive, that has enslaved and degraded man to an extent unknown anywhere else.

The enemies in Africa are the forest, the rivers, the deserts, disease and brutalization. Man may have originated in Africa, but he had to move away from the cruel anti-human continent to unfold his unique capacities."

Now let me quote from Tom Shactman, Page 11, of his biography on Eric Hoff, American Iconoclast. Shactman is writing about the 1967 Sevareid/CBS interview with Hoffer that made him famous: "Hoffer had much more to say on the subject of 'the Negro Revolution,' and some of it had been branded racist, so in this interview he did not elaborate."

I believe that Tom Shactman did agree with the 60s, Leftist charge that Hoffer was racist against blacks. My belief is that all of us are naturally racist or prejudiced against people from any rival identity group, but that we can learn to love, tolerate, and treat fairly people from any identity group should we accept that that is the moral and just orientation of an adult American, and that orientation is now accepted and successfully implemented in the personal lives of most Americans.

Hoffer never comes out, that I know of, and explicitly champions the superior value of living as an individuating individualist, as the preferred lifetime aim for all and any American, but his writing and thinking connote with such anticipated Mavellonialist concepts.

With this context realized, his remarks about Negroes or blacks indicate that he wanted blacks to self-improve on a personal basis, per member of that community. They needed the right values. The Left portrayed blacks then and now as helpless, ineffectual victims of injustice and racism, unable to better their lot. Hoffer rightly repudiated that set of Big Lies, emphatically. With a doctrine of hard work, optimism and self-discipline, American blacks could catch up too, and perhaps even out-perform white Americans, as American-Asians appear to be doing right now.

What is holding back American blacks are altruistic and collectivist bad values, With egoistic and capitalist values adopted and implemented, they will be unstoppable.

Shactman may be too much of a Leftist to comprehend the context out of which Hoffer preached, practiced, and lived. Hoffer wanted all Americans to bootstrap their way to success, regardless of their color or social suffering. I see no written evidence that Hoffer believed or lectured that blacks were any less capable of succeeding than whites are. Therefore, I offer that Hoffer was not a racist, or was not much of one. Deep down, he knew that blacks could make it as well as anyone else in America, and he wanted them to get after it. He dismissed Leftist pseudo-sympathy towards blacks as propaganda preventing these people from gaining ground. 

 Hoffer was a stern taskmaster: he expected excellence from himself, from fellow Americans and from blacks as fellow Americans. He made short work of excuses, and for this he was and apparently is outrageously demonized as a racist.

The Moral Choice

 My wife and I were having a cup of coffee this morning before  I went to work at the airport. We have a little weekly meeting about ethical issues, trying to bone up on core concepts, and the philosophy of ethics in general.

She read an account of a retired FBI agent, Vince Pankoke and others, that researched and concluded that Jewish member of the Amsterdam Jewish Council, Arnold van den Bergh, may have given up Anne Frank and her family to save his own family from deportation to concentration camps.

Her question was: was Pankoke correct in forgiving and excusing Bergh of giving up Frank to save his own family--if he did so--and can he being exonerated of being treacherous and guilty of being an accessory to murder, for pushing the Frank family forward to be murdered, to save the lives of his own family? It seems that Pankoke cut Bergh some slack, citing that he was a victim too.

My response: if Bergh was guilty, and we do not know for sure that he was, if he was guilty of being an accessory to murder, then he is quite blameworthy for his treacherous, selfish, craven appeasement towards and cooperation with the Nazis.

Yes, he is a victim, put in an impossible position--to save the Franks or his own family. I think that God would want us to take the moral high road, and refuse to reveal the hidden families, even if it cost him the lives of his own family members. It is very painful to make such choices, but her family cannot be sacrificed for moral gain.

In all honesty, in that position, I likely would do what Bergh is accused of doing.

My recommendation is to seek to never put any human being in such an impossible moral dilemma. Most of us will do the wrong thing to save our own family.

Human Nature

 People have a set basic nature: they are born evil, self-loathing, more insane than sane, group-oriented, passionate, cowardly, selfish, envious, cruel and lazy. They live in a world ruled by the Dark Couple. They run in packs, and the group is the social institution most damaging to that critical aim, the betterment of humanity.

This is our moral base line, but it need not be our final cause. We can do better and must, and soon.

MGR Post: 1/25/2021

 Here is the post:

"Leftists keep demanding more gun control...while the bodies keep piling up. Their commitment to disarming law-abiding citizens -- regardless of how many innocent people die -- shows their deep, cruel hypocrisy."

 

Criminals are the ones that have illegal guns and are committing the crimes, but the Leftists do not go after the criminals. Instead, they target the law-abiding citizens. The source of this deep, cruel hypocrisy is meant to disguise their true aim: they do not care about the senseless slaughter of the innocent by criminals wielding guns. They go after the law-abiding in the name of peace and compassion, but their true aim, as always, is to grow government control over the people. By disarming us, they render us vulnerable, even helpless against governmental further incursion against civilian liberty and power.

 

We must hold them at bay and expand gun rights in America.

Listen Up, Again, Jordan

 Listen up again Jordan Peterson. All people are loaded with talent spectacular potential, and all should and must maverize. Their gifts are awesome, cumulative, and contributory to the welfare of society.

Eric Hoffer agreed with me; let me quote from Calvin Tomkins biography, Eric Hoffer, Page 44: "I tell you, the America I know is made up of about sixty percent of the people, and I have never come across a book that says what I know about this sixty percent. Every intellectual thinks that talent, that genius is a rare exception. It's not true. Talent and genius have been wasted on an enormous scale throughout our history; this is all I know for sure."

Jordan Peterson harps on the idea that IQ is destiny and that the smartest members of society inevitably should and do rise to the top of every conceivable hierarchy based on merit.  Peterson promotes individualism so that elite geniuses can be allowed the liberty and opportunity to develop their special gifts for the benefit of humankind. 

Hoffer and I especially counter by adding that all people are blessed with great innate gifts, and, if instructed on how to go for it, their gifts will amaze and astound, whether their IQ is 96 or 156.

Genesis 37:18-20

Joseph was much loathed by his brothers, to the point that they seriously pondered murdering him. As I have written elsewhere, jealousy is one of the most vicious and pervasive of negative human emotions, and it may have caused untold levels of trouble in the world, not identified by anyone. 

Being jealous of someone else reveals several character flaws in the one feeling jealous, and it may reveal something about its target too. In general, the one that is envied is often superior in some way irksome to the jealous observer, but the superiority or inferiority here are based on performance, not innate superiority.

First, jealous is a negative collective feeling. One presupposition of it is that we are communal creatures, and we have a right to spot what our neighbors are doing, to judge how we feel about their alleged or actual superiority, and then we feel entitled to interfere with them to convey to them how we feel and what we are going to do about it. We may thwart their plans by competing with them, by undercutting them in the community, by destroying what they create, or, in the most drastic cases, even kill them to stop them from making us look bad.

We are communal creatures, and that is the source of our evil, more than our comforting each other for purposes of brotherhood and sisterhood, which are worthwhile endeavors.

We re to self-realize: that is the capacity and responsibility granted us by the Mother and the Father, and we are obligated to not waste our lives, but to get off our hands, be moving and growing. When mature, sane healthy adults are motivated to self-realize, they become big-hearted, and that precludes them from being jealous of success, modest or momentous, enjoyed and earned by others in one's family, community, or social network. 

When one has one's business to mind and is minding it, one has not the time or inclination to worry about what others are up to, let alone seeking to discriminate against them for being more successful than we are.

Second, feeling jealous is a very negative feeling. Why do we have to be unhappy because others around us are successful? Can we not make our own money, and hone our own real, potent talents, instead of obsessing about who they are, what they are doing and what they have accomplished. 

When we are glad for their success and brilliant performances, that positive emotion makes them feel good, as their hard work is acknowledged and appreciated in the community. The emotions of praise and appreciation are good for us in that we can be happy at their success, while building up our own talents and success. That makes us feel solid, and filled with purpose and worth.

The green-eyed monster is the one to shed.

Let me quote some verses from The New American Bible that highlight the drastic and cruel lengths that collectivism and jealousy drove Joseph's brothers to resort to: "So Joseph went after his brothers and caught up with them in Dothan. They noticed him from a distance, and before he came up to them, they plotted to kill him. They said to one another: 'Here comes that master dreamer. Come on, let us kill him and throw him into one of the cisterns here; we could say that a wild beast devoured him. We shall see then what comes of his dreams.'"

Notice that killing him will end his vision of achieving greatness. They want to kill him, but to kill his dreams too. If self-realization is our purposed for living, as instructed, and arranged by God, then to kill the dreamer and to kill his dream is to commit two grave, mortal sins against God.

If we are blocking the instantiation of God's plans/wished/dreams, whom are we working for, and what nightmares alternatives, hellish realities are we producing? All of this grows out of the collectivist arrogance, and self-righteous jealousy over what the neighbor is up to: that we have a right to worry about what our neighbors are doing, and further, that we have the right and perhaps duty to interfere with their creativity, self-development and liberty, to kill their dream. None of us has the right to interfere with a neighbor for that woman is called by God to self-actualize, a task set for her by God. None should dare interfere with divine expectations. 

Now I will show these same verses from the Holy Bible (KJV): "And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan. And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near to them, they conspired against him to slay him.

And they said to one another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what comes of his dreams."

Notice the world conspire. They plot in secret against a victim, and he has no inkling as to their dastardly intentions, and that is typical; the Jews did not realize how far the Germans and Nazis were willing to go.

Notice that by killing him, they kill his dreams. It seems inferred here that the group kills dreamers and extinguishes their dreams because without an alternative high goal to work towards there is no need to amount to anything or to remind the world and themselves as to how mediocre they are.

Then they compound their hatred, their conspiring, their planned murdered, by plotting to lie about their foul deed, so that their father and Father will not punish them for their wicked performance. What they are plotting is so wicked, that the ugly truth of it must be suppressed in terms of truth being disguised.

If they were able to murder Joseph, they murder also his dream God's plans for Joseph, and they murder the introduction and expansion of truthfulness at work in the world. Everything we do in life ripples out, and their jealousy and plotted murder are not isolated wicked deeds.

Genesis 37:1-8

 Chapter 37 is an account or Joseph, the youngest son of Israel. What I love about the Bible is that it is God's word, even though secular criticisms like contradictions, repeated stories, pagan sources of the Hebrew faith, etc. are all true, but the Bible has the divine fingerprints all over it, despite its flaws. There is a deep love of truth. The writers write openly about the Jewish people, the chosen people, warts and all, and that, is most impressive, that one tells the objective truth about one's own people. God is truth, and one does not love truth, oneself, or others unless one seeks after the truth with one's whole heart and soul.

People are born evil, and the chosen people, the Hebrews, are just as petty, nasty, selfish, cowardly, and petulant as their pagan neighbors. We are born evil, but, with God or Christ's divine grace bestowed upon us, we can be saved, and can be renewed, so habitually, morally, and spiritually good, that our acquired nature is good, more or less.

Joseph is the favorite son. He is the noblest, the most favored by God and his father, but he brothers cannot compete so these joiners hate him and plan to murder him. These genetic and cultural descendants of Cain have not learned a darn thing.

Joiners are obsessed with what great-souled loners are doing in their midst, and they deny the superiority of the great-souled loner (the superiority is based on merit, not innate superiority), and then they get jealous, and then they go way beyond that, and justify seeking to harm or kill the innocent loner that has done nothing to them. It sounds like Joseph was a goody two-shoes snitching to Daddy about his older brothers, and that would not endear him to those older brothers.

The jealous and homicidal joiners did not get the memo not to wat their time comparing themselves to the Josephs of their generation, but should strive mightily and enthusiastically  to mind their own business and individual, and that is a contribution that all c

The verses below capture this fundamental human dynamic unfolding in five lines; here it is from The New American Bible: "Jacob settled in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. This is his family history. When Joseph was seventeen years old, he was tending the flocks with his brothers; he was an assistant to the sons of his father's wives Bilhah and Zilpah, and he brought his father bad reports about them.

Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons, for he was the child of his old age; and he made for him a long tunic. When his brothers saw that their father loved him best of all his sons, they hated him so much they would not even greet him.

Once Joseph had a dream, which he told to his brothers: 'Listen to the dream I had. There we were, binding sheaves in the field, when suddenly my sheave rose to an upright position, and your sheaves formed a ring around my sheaf and bowed down to it,' 'Are you going to make yourself king over us?' his brothers asked him. So, they hated him all the more, because of his talk about his dreams."

Joseph would appear to be an anointed favorite of great Yahweh himself, and this powerful, prediction in a dream prophesied his future success and prominence. To tell older brother openly that he, Joseph, was superior to them, and they would come to accept his superiority, and actually bow down to him. No wonder they hated him and plotted his demise.

 

Let me share these verses from the Holy Bible (KJV): "And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan.

These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives; and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. 

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colors. And when his brothers saw his father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.

And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more. And he said unto them, this dream which I have dreamed: For, behold, we are binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. 

And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed rule over us? And they hated him, yet the more for his words and for his dreams."

Now the Hebrews were God's chosen people, but that did not mean He did not see them as they were, and tell the truth in sacred writing about their shortcomings and sins. They were special and chosen in that they were called to go a bit farther morally and spiritually shine their light for the world, which they often did subsequently but also failed to do often in history, and they did in their treatment of Joseph.

He was God's and Jacob's favorite, and he was way ahead of the rest of them, but rather than be successful individuals and individuators copying his hard work and success orientation, they turned jealous, resentful and felt victimized; then they could justify murdering him or selling him into slavery.

Genesis 35:3-5

 Here are these verses from The New American Bible: "We are now to go up to Bethel, and I will build an altar thereto the God that answered me in my hour of distress and who has gone with me wherever I have gone. They therefore handed over to Jacob all the foreign gods in their possession and also the rings they had in their ears. Then, as they set out, a terror from God fell upon the towns all about, so that no one pursued the sons of Jacob."

What heartens me about Yahweh's allegiance with and unswerving loyalty to Jacob was that though, Jacob was God's chosen representative on earth, and the direct, descendant of Abraham, Jacob was a sneaky, treacherous, vacillating, weak man, like so many of we sinners are. God sent his angel to wrestle with Jacob, to wake him up, to quit fighting against God, and to swing his stubbornness to working for God. God never gave up on this troubled man, until Jacob finally woke up, and swung his support and loyalty towards God. That is love, mercy, forgiving and never abandoning one of your human children, and that is most heartwarming.

Now that Jacob has woke up and is devoted to Yahweh, Yahweh gives him a home and protection against a vast, hostile host of surrounding pagans that hate Jacob and would rise up, organize and wipe them out, if they could. But Yahweh's angel set a terror from God upon all of Jacob's enemies, and they were prostrate with fright, and unwilling to look up, let alone attack God's representative on earth.

 Just, think what the Mother and Father could do for us today, if we but believed as deeply as Jacob had learned to adopt, Our enemies would scatter in front of us.

Here are these verses from the Holy Bible (KJV): "And let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went. And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under an oak which was by Shechem. And the journeyed: and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob."

Genesis 35:1-2

Here are these biblical verses from The New American Bible: "God said to Jacob: Go up now to Bethel. Settle there and build an altar there to the God that appeared to you while you were fleeing from your brother Esau. So Jacob told his family and all the others who were with him: 'Get rid of the foreign gods that you have among you; then purify yourselves and put on fresh clothes.'"

I wish to react to the concept of Yahweh as a jealous God that would not brook coexistence with and the co-worshiping of foreign gods, household gods and pagan divinities. I do not think Yahweh was jealous so much as seeking to make the Hebrews his chosen people. Pagan worshipers were fatalistic, earth-centered, primitive, and absorbed by nature religions of the day.

If Yahweh could convert these lapsing Hebrews to worship monotheistically a father sky deity (himself), that would be a modernizing miracle from prehistory into history where humans mastered and made a living off of nature, rather than being utterly immersed in nature. This would be the start of the idea of the sovereign individual, and the rise of reason and Western civilization.

A cultural relativist would argue that Yahweh the monotheistic deity would not stomach any rival cult for reasons of power, territory, and reach. The monotheistic Hebrews like Jacob could not allow the introduced foreign gods to be worshiped in the same household at the same time as people worshiped Yahweh.

Yahweh was less the jealous father than the stern but loving taskmaster, nudging and pushing his barbaric, tribal chosen people to adopt an absolute morality, to serve and love a good God, and come up with a grand narrative culturally that would grow to dominate the Western world. I am glad that Yahweh was a jealous God, or the West may never have been born.

Here are these verses from the Holy Bible (KJV): "And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there: and make there an altar unto God, that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother. Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean and change thy garments."

Note that the pagan gods were considered by Moses to be foreign gods adopted by the Hebrews. From the beginning the Hebrews were different from their neighbors.

Substitutes Not To Be Sought

 One of the axiomatic themes running through Eric Hoffer's works is that a passionate advocacy of and totalistic craving for some substitute for love, self-love, for God's love, for meaning and healthy self-esteem is a loud, emotional protest that the substitute is one what is really after, and the addicted devotee comes to believe his melodramatic like. He believes truly.

Travel With God

 Travel with God and all will work out for you, in the next world if not in this world. You are on the right track; travel with God and it will lead you to and through the pearly gates.

Puzzled

 Go ahead a be perplexed, but strive heartily to make sense of the absurd and unintelligible--there may well be a reason why things operate as they do. Unleash your reason, your sentiments, your rational intuition and powers of observation so that rich discoveries are yours for the having.

Ever Seeking

 Ever must you seek the truth, for you will discover God in its midst. I favor the correspondence theory of truth for both physical and spiritual objects out there and inside.

What Is Shactman Driving At?

 On Page 207 of his biography of Eric Hoffer, American Iconoclast, The Life and Times of Eric Hoffer, Tom Schactman writes of Hoffer late in his life: "A typical quote was from Lord Acton, 'There is no liberty where there is hunger. The theory of liberty demands strong efforts to help the poor, not merely for safety, for humanity, for religion, but for liberty.' Hoffer's comment was not so much an interpretation of this statement in answering one that emphasized his own take on liberty and its relationship to hunger: 'Acton could not foresee that the end of hunger will mean the end of the invisible hand of scarcity which regulates and disciplines people, and creates the need for a new despotic power to contain anarchy. In other words, there is no liberty not only where there is hunger but also where there is widespread abundance. The zone of individual freedom is midway between the extremes of scarcity and plenty.' This was an idea that could have sustained some greater elucidation, perhaps even a meditation on its relationship to capitalism--but Hoffer was no longer in shape to undertake such inquiries."

I followed Tom Schactman on Facebook, and he is obviously a successful writer, lecturer and historian. He understood Hoffer but I think he is ambivalent in his treatment of Hoffer because he may not see Hoffer as he was, the radical conservative--the conservative, classical liberal with a patriotic love of individualism, our Constitution,  capitalism, our mass, middle class culture and our wondrous wealth, leisure and liberty--but perhaps tinged as the bad conservative that is a nativist, a white supremacist, a fascist, imperialist or jingoist. I am not sure if Schactman does not see Hoffer in line a bit with the latter sense of strong conservatism.

In the quote from Shactman's book above, Hoffer shows his moderation in suggesting that humans find and sustain liberty between the economic extremes of scarcity and abundance. Hoffer is probably correct that humans function best when not poor or wealth, but when middle class or slightly upper middle class. That is where individualism, reason, materialism, liberty, republicanism and constitutionalism unfold most readily.

That such abundance and liberty occur together in America is no accident, and Shactman wanted Hoffer to conclude, I believe, that capitalism is creating too much wealth, likely concentrated in the hands of a wealthy few, and in need of involuntary redistribution handled by government agents. Socialist redistribution of wealth in America would blunt capitalist excesses and preserve liberty at the same time--I anticipate but do not know that that was what Schactman favors.

I am comfortable in suggesting that Hoffer would not want capitalism trifled with or redistributed by tyrannical government. He was not for the rich, nor for the poor. He was for working people and the middle class, the people that did the work and generated most of the wealth to be had and enjoyed in America. Hoffer might suggest that, to maintain liberty threatened by the excesses of abundance, the cure would not be to end capitalism, the engine of our prosperity, but to teach young people by good values to discipline themselves to continue to work hard even though they were in the midst of un-paralleled plenty. To teach the young to work and create their own wealth, and to maverize, would keep wealth decentralized in a future upper middle class average citizen and his family, and would provide the young with purpose, that by maverizing and developing themselves, in perfect liberty and independence within the free market capitalist system, they would not ally themselves with desperate isms and ideologies to overthrow the status quo because they are rich, idle, bored and ready to tear society apart. I think something like this was what Hoffer was driving at.

Listen Up, Jordan

 I have such respect and affection for Jordan Peterson, though I have never contacted him, and do not intend to--I sense that, as a great soul, meeting another great soul, like Peterson, might not go well. Most people do not like meeting the real Ed Ramsey.

In 1981 or in 1982, my best friend in Grand Forks, North Dakota wanted to drive me out to San Francisco to meet Eric Hoffer, who was then very old but still alive. I declined the offer because I did not know how it would go, and thought, a cold rejection would too much dishearten me.

Anyway, Hoffer was a good man and a genius, and he knew from the real world that the little people were capable of murder and mayhem in a mass movement as soulless true believers, but they were also capable of individuation on a grand scale. They had as much talent as mega-geniuses like Jordan Peterson, and that everyone had that wow potential, and all are invited by God to get after it.

Note what biographer Calvin Tomkins wrote about Eric Hoffer in his biography on Hoffer, Eric Hoffer, Pages 37 & 38, written in 1967, when Jordan Peterson was 7 years old: "Hoffer enjoyed the company of the longshoreman he worked with. There was never any question of talking down to them; he admired their competence and common sense, and often used them as sounding boards for his own ideas. 'When I was writing The True Believer,' he recalls, 'and I came to that section called 'Things Which Are Not'--the only poetic section of the book, where I say from the beginning of time men have always desired the things which are not, the cities not yet built and the gardens not yet planted--anyway, I was full of it. That day I worked with a Negro, and all day I was developing these ideas out loud. It turned out the Negro was a preacher, and the following Sunday he preached to his congregation on 'Things Which Are Not.' I felt good about that. 

You see, I have always had the impression that there wasn't a single idea that I couldn't convey to these people. These men are so ingenious, so skilled, so highly intelligent--they can do anything. Look at the way they worked out that dispatching system all by themselves. Nobody helped them. They didn't need experts. I believe the way to measure the vigor of a society is by its ability to get along without outstanding leaders; any organization that can get along without outstanding leaders is a good organization. Once, a few years ago, a professor at Berkeley told me I was wrong there; he said the vigor of a society should be judged by its ability to produce outstanding leaders. I told him, 'Fine, but it is precisely the society that can get along without them that produces them!' And we have proved that over and over in this country. After all, Eisenhower was the President for eight years, and the country got along O.K.; it functioned, didn't it?"

Hoffer worked regularly with blacks or Negroes and did not seem to mind too much. He shared his ideas with this black preacher-longshoreman and was pleased that there was some mutual sharing there. It is obvious to me that Hoffer respected blacks, but he wanted all people, colorblind or not, to pull their own weight as individuals, and he practiced what he preached.

Hoffer never directly refers to self-actualization as a capacity that the common people could strive for satisfactorily, but he sure implies it up above. Self-realization is for all, not just the elite. That is the message that I want Jordan Peterson to hear. Jordan is one of those experts that Hoffer believes that the common people do not need, but any expert should be heard because he has worked hard to master something important.

Still, gifted amateurs that are accomplished should be heard too. 

I have just taken Hoffer's insight that the little, mass people should be outstanding as should be their wont to augment their impressive, fantastic abilities. I just, under Mavellonialism, have taken individuating to its ultimate conclusion for individuals. As a nation of American anarchist, indviduating supercitizens, the average person will be so outstanding that he will be one of millions of brilliant followers as well as bosses of their politician brilliant leaders. None lack ability: what they lack is imagination, will, a goal, the hard work and self-discipline to get after it for a lifetime and the willingness to listen to their Good Spirit guardian angel to help them be all that they can be.

 

 

What Peterson Meant

 I believe that Jordan Peterson's complaint that too many problems in modern society have been politicized is correct. Activists and social justice warriors want national, collective, legal, political, and bureaucratic solutions to all our problems.

Jordan disagrees. He suggests that the best way for most of us to make a difference is to improve ourselves first and individuals, before we feel qualified to tackle national problems.

Ironically, and indirectly, if most people got their personal lives in order, or even doing more, maverized, most national and global problems would dissolve, and that is the collective, political solution. What is now framed in political terms need to be framed as personal challenges to be overcome.

 

We Agree

 An article in Breitbart this evening, Pope Francis is being criticized for admonishing married couples that opt to have pets rather than having children. I agree with Pope Francis, but I would suggest that one can have children and still enjoy one's pets.

Two Ponts Of View

 On Page 207 of the American Iconoclast, a biography of Eric Hoffer by Tom Schactman, the author wrote this: "The text of Between the Devil and the Dragon, when published in 1982, confirmed by its omissions and condensations that the publisher felt the need to excise from the canon the most intemperate aspects of Hoffer, those of the 'Reflections' newspaper columns and of the more vitriolic essays and diary entries, the Hoffer who railed against 'Negroes,' student rebels, and specific academics such as Marcuse. Even so, the compilation's 486 pages sparkle with ideas and present a lifetime's worth of the fruits of a mind making interesting inquiries into its own, and mankind's, place in the world.

Schactman, a bright and nuanced Leftist, seems to have admired Hoffer but he did not much like him. Do we want to censor a philosopher when he speaks unpleasant truths to us, dismissing them as intemperate and vitriolic writings? In the eyes of the Left, to accuse someone of racism--as Shactman seems to accuse Hoffer of being racist against blacks--is to describe the offender or putative offender as being guilty of one of the most immoral character flaws, and, that is about as low as one can go. Shactman seems to be part of the Leftist intelligentsia that participated in or approved of the Left stifling college students hearing about Hoffer, after say 1990. Christopher Klim reported this in the introduction to the Syndicated Articles, the Reflection newspaper columns so offensive to Shactman.

Hoffer did not baby blacks, white professors, academics like traitorous, unpatriotic Marcuse. He viewed them as regarding themselves as victims, accusing America of being rotten to the core--which it is not, and Hoffer knew that better than anyone. 

Hoffer instinctively and consciously realized 60 years ago what Prager and Levin are shouting from the roof tops right now: America is a wonderful if not perfect, utopian place. Such a lovely country should be morally improved, not politically through social justice and big government solutions, but primarily and mostly through self-improvement.

Hoffer anticipated the rise of Mavellonialism this century, and it takes a good and wise man to desire these culture changes for people. For a people to maverize, it requires radically free speech, limited government, and powerfully real, deep and extensive legal, political and cultural support for personal liberty. 

Hoffer loved and spoke and wrote the truth, and that offends the Left. Shactman seems to doubt Hoffer's moral worth-note above when Shactman characterizes some of Hoffer's essays as vitriolic or malicious--and I hope to set the record straight on that. We want thinkers to speak intemperately. We all require the truth, and not to be pampered and babied

. The concept of hate speech is very evil and quite unconstitutional. It needs to be decriminalized. Hate speech likely occurs, but we almost never want the government to control speech, language or public opinions stated.

Shactman seems to devalue Hoffer because he does not understand his greatness, and, at the same time, he resents bitterly Hoffer's legitimate, profoundly conservative objections to Progressive policies, recommendations, and their purveyors.

I need to be fair to Shactman too because the book that he wrote on Hoffer is well-done and thoughtful, a real feat and vital contribution made by a very competent and astute thinker and biographer.

Now, let me contrast Shactman's take of Eric Hoffer with that of Calvin Tomkins as he writes about Hoffer, in his 1968 biography of Hoffer, called Eric Hoffer; this is what Tomkins wrote on Page 37: "The book did not make him rich, and outwardly Hoffer's life remained unchanged. He kept his old room on McCallister Street. The neighborhood was changing rapidly at that time; large numbers of Negroes were moving into it, and most of the whites were moving out as a result, but Hoffer did not want to leave. He worked with Negroes on the waterfront and had no feelings of superiority."

Negro was the word used at that time. Hoffer hated to have anyone change what he thought, said or wrote. He was fiercely independent on that point, and I wish all American thinkers were so willing to buck groupthink and uniformity of opinion and speech.

Racist whites at that time fled neighborhoods where blacks moved in, but Hoffer did not, and that is what he did not what he said, and that action is indicative of who he was. Hoffer did not think he was superior to any human being, but he did expect everyone to feel grateful in America, to boostrap himself upwards to gain in wealth, education and personal edification, to make something of himself, and blame no other, and expect a handout from no other. He believed that all in America should be grateful to be here, and none had the moral high ground to feel resentful and feel aggrieved against anyone. 

CRT advocates would demonize Hoffer, dismissing him completely, in much worse, more thorough way  than Shactman's milder criticisms achieved.

The Syndicated News Articles

 In this book of Eric Hoffer's news articles, on Page 187 is these paragraphs: "The middle aged came into their own with the advent of the middle class during the 19th century. Even now the young men of both the aristocracy and the working class are more in touch with the realities of power than the young of the middle class.

Thus the present revolt of middle class adolescents is an attempt a social pattern which had been disrupted by the industrial revolution."

The title of this news article is: Our Future Might Be In The Past (September 21, 1969). What Hoffer is writing about here is that the radical revolt on the Left was a hankering by intellectuals and Progressives to return to the totalitarian past, medieval and feudal, if not the ancient river-valley civilizations.

Hoffer is alerting us to the wondrous novelty of the great American experiment that was so exceptional because the 19th century arrival of the rising middle class, the Industrial Revolution, and the middle-aged adults that gave us capitalism, constitutional republicanism, wealth, liberty and civilization. Note that adults of moderate age and moderate class are the workers that gave us this remarkable culture and civilization.

The sons of the extremist classes, the rich and the working class, want revolution the overthrow the American status quo to return to totalitarian, poor, stratified society. They are evil and extremist and are now effective because they are converting the middle-class sons--and daughters--to betray the middle class. With all the young becoming woke revolutionaries, America could well fall.

The middle-class young were moderate and good, and these are qualities that Hoffer admires. He has little use for hierarchies and class society.

When he refers to the sons of the rich and working class knowing about power, he is referring to their allegiance to overthrowing society violently, and when they convert middle class kids, we are in a world of hurt, and the latter learn to go after collective and state power, not the person power exercised in liberty as each youngster maverizes, grows up and amounts to something.

It Matters Not

 It matters not how disabled you are. Those with disabilities are required by God to individuate, to get as far as they can.One's disability need not be one's destiny.

Ethical Egoism

Ethical egoism is a kind of consequentialist ethics, so I am a consequentialist, I guess.

The Psychological Need For Hierarchies

 Jordan Peterson is correct: the need for hierarchies is an ancient biological drive. The need for social hierarchies, pecking orders of who is more in, more groupist, and more popular, and who is more out, less groupist and less esteemed, is profoundly, deep, aching need that people need to fulfill. We are born depraved: we are selfless and loathe a nasty pathetic self; one tantalizing way to compensate for this feeling of inferiority is to be able to kowtow to those above, and backhand those socially beneath one. The need for social hierarchy is the most pernicious of managed hierarchies and causes endless suffering and cruelty among humans.

This morning I was reading Eric Hoffer's The Syndicated News Articles, and he mentions hierarchies on Page 186 and 187, and I believe his mistrust of this human institution is closer to my own than Peterson's acceptance of it: "The clamor of our scribes (intellectuals) for power should be seen as reaching for the distant pass . . . If there is anything certain it is this: Wherever scribes attain power they create social order that is both hierarchical and regimented. No matter how idealistic, an intelligentsia in power becomes a privilegentsia. . ."

Hierarchies should be kept as flattened and deinstitutionalized as possible to make room for liberty and a culture of maverization.

The February 18, 20201 Firesidechat Between Craig Biddle And Dennis Prager

 I watched and took copious notes on the Fireside Chat, Ep 174, hosted by Dennis Prager who conversed with Ayn Rand scholar Craig Biddle about politics, morality, theology and more. I took copious notes on the over one-hour long podcast, and below is what I recorded, and then I periodically respond to the exchanges between Prager and Biddle. Apparently, the fireside chat was aired on 3/22/2012.

"Here is what is written above the video: "God vs. Ayn Rand: A Fireside Chat with Denis Prager and Craig Biddle. TOS Admin February 18, 2021 Craig Biddle recently joined Dennis Prager for a wide-ranging discussion about religion, Objectivism and American values. This is the conversation our culture needs to have--and a model of civility with which we need to have it. Check out the video and share it with friends. This is the way forward."

 

 Dennis Prager (Pr): "I have to have the best opponents, and Craig is that. Craig Biddle, and we disagree about God and morality, but we have the following in common: we are both crazy about liberty. I am much closer to an atheist that loves liberty then to a God-believer that doesn't."

My response: I notice two trends here. First, conservative theists and conservative atheists are uniting as transcendent of their mutual disagreements to work together to fend of the postmodernists and Marxists out to destroy America in its entirety. The cordial conversation between Dennis and Craig exemplifies the new effort to work with all traditionalists against the Progressives.

Second, only now are conservative patriots understanding that liberty is far superior and far more desirable than fraternity and equality combined. God is a free agent, and we are made in De's image, and we are instructed and expected to enjoy and apply ourselves, using our full liberty to self-realize, a living prayer of appreciation back to the Divine Couple.

Mark Levin also recognizes how precious is personal liberty, and how jealous each American adults must insist upon being to keep government, churches, cliques and big business at bay, lest they enslave the individual and rob him of his power, liberty and happiness.

Ironically, Craig Biddle, a conservative atheist that reverse liberty is spiritually and morally far superior than is a Christian Leftist who denies that there is anything special about personal liberty, and that people are not losing much to forego their freedom.

Craig Biddle (Cr):  "I am much closer to Dennis than to an atheist that likes big government."

PR: "My task here is not to win but to illuminate differences. I believe in clarity over agreement."

PR asks Cr: "Do you hope you are rights or wrong about there not being a God?"

Cr: 'I never pondered that question. If God exists, then there is no free will, due to God's omniscience and omnipotence" 

PR: "I have the opposite view. Only if there is a God, is there free will. I asked atheist Michael Sherman this question, and he answered, sure, why would I not want to see my loved ones after I died. Why would I not want there to be a God. I am surprised at your answer (Craig). I want evil judged for the horrible things done to others. It would bother me if there was no consequence. How would you deal with that?"

My response: I do not know that I agree with Dennis that there is no free will unless there is a God to judge and punish the wicked and reward the good in the afterlife. If there were no God, people would still have free will to choose to do good or evil, and the only difference would be that there would be no God, no afterlife, no consequence in that realm for what each person did when alive.

Cr: "It might be an ok question. Perhaps perpetrators should burn in hell and victims be compensated. I see no evidence for an afterlife. More important to ask is what is the best that we can do in this life? We should live well, be just, and ensure that people properly here reward the good and punish the criminals."

My response: I think we should ask ourselves what is the best that we can do in this life, for the sake of this world, and for the sake of living well, in the next life, if God exists (De does.) and there is an afterlife.

PR: "We agree that we need a just society. My religious principle is based on this life (not life in the next world). Now let us get to the free will question. You are a materialist. Materialism is not refusing to buy things. Materialism philosophically is the belief that matter is all that is. Consciousness is still physical. The neurons of my brain give me consciousness. "

Cr: "It is a scientific answer what gives rise to consciousness. I do not have the answer on that. I take the position that we know consciousness exists, because we are using it. We know gravity exists though we do not know what explains gravity."

My response: We need a just society for the sake of living in this world, and for the sake of our souls in the next world. The world of matter and the world are both real, and consciousness straddles the nexus between these two worlds.

Cr. “It is axiomatic that consciousness and existence exist. These constitute the foundation of all knowledge."

PR: “ Is consciousness a product of physical existence?"

Cr: "Yes, but though produced, it is not the same as physical matter. Of our conscious life, it is hard to see how it came from physical matter. Life from matter is hard to see."

PR: “Why is that not an argument for a creator?"

Cr: "Consciousness and a creator are not necessarily the same thing. First there was no existence then creator's consciousness created existence. There is no evidence for that view; it is very speculative. We see existence; we are living it, then posit something became before it. Why go back and speculate? Aristotle decried the theory of forms: senseless duplication, so there is not theory of forms if the premise is that you have to have a dimension to explain this dimension, then have to have another dimension to explain that dimension, an infinite regress.”

My response: I like the Randian ontology that consciousness exists, and existence exists because they do, and that does seem like the foundation of all or much knowledge. Consciousness likely predated or made or ordered always existing matter, and yet grew out of matter. Consciousness and a creator are just as likely as the lack thereof, and a theory of forms however logically vulnerable to the infinite regress argument, does offer an explanation of how the Logos or world of Forms participates in or informs matter as physical objects in this world, and there must be some reality to these claims.

PR: "There is only an infinite regress if the Creator was created, so there was no creator. But God existed forever, before the Bible was written, and because God is eternal, there is no infinite regress."

Cr: "Your position is that there had to be a God who created this existence. My position is this existence is primary. It is eternal.  The universe is in time; time is not in the universe. The universe has always existed. Time is but a measure of motion is existence."

PR: "If the is no beginning, why did Big Bang occur?"

Cr: "There can be a Big Bang without creation. An existing, dense universe that exploded did expand into an existing region. You can't get something from nothing. You can't expand into nothing."

My response: I like Dennis retort that God is infinite, so that position makes trivial the argument that there is an infinite regress is one argues Logos is built into in nature.  Is the Big Bang actually God creating the world? I do not know. Is Biddle right that the infinite universe always existing so that there is something for the universe to expand into? I do not know.

PR: "Yes, you cannot understand something from nothing. We agree on that. Where we differ is that you think the something always was--you do not have a problem with where it came from. Physics suggests a beginning. If all these material factors determine me, now how do we define this free will thing. If we are only matter, there is no consciousness. If I Dennis am only a product of material events, and all that I do is explainable from genes or the environment, where is the free will? Only if I believe in God in society, can I then believe in free will. If all that I do is a product of matter, where is your free will?"

Cr: "Good question. Ayn Rand:  existence and consciousness are why we have free will: we reason. She did not believe that you could do whatever you wanted at any time with no restrictions."

My response: I do not know that we could not have something come from nothing. God works miracles that defy logic. I like Craig's perspective that there was no creation because the universe is eternal. I do not accept it but it is an interesting explanation of his metaphysics.

Free will exists as soon as an intelligent animals have reason and speech. Both God and the angels have reason and speech on a much more sophisticated level, but their wills are free and transcend the iron natural laws of necessity controlling other types of animals. Free will could exist in intelligent homo sapiens even if they were the highest form of intelligent life int he universe.

Cr: "The locus of free will: the ability to focus your mind or not. To exist is to exert mental effort to understand the world or not. To refuse to use one's mind is to dim it down, turn it off. That is free will, a great thing. We utilize reason and that is free will. Now it is not total free will, not possible like running through a wall. One's exercising free will is clearly tempered by one's values."

PR: "People do have free will to violate their values. There is nothing non-material about it. Consciousness defines it. Do you blame people for their bad, even criminal choices?"

Cr: "Yes, I am unique among atheists. Sam Harris says there is no self, but I believe in a self. The mind and body are integrated and constitute the self, but physical elements remain.”

My response: I agree with the Randians that to enjoy and wield free will is to think, be conscious, make decisions and serve as the director of one's own affairs. And Craig is right: free will is not total. I cannot wave a magic wand and move the moon 40,000 miles to the right. I am mortal and will die though I might will to be immortal--which I do not. The self or consciousness exists, be it merely physical or part spiritual, which it is.

PR: "How do you explain if I took 1,000 atheists and 1,000 churchgoers off the street, which group would be more pro-liberty?"

Cr: "More religious people are more pro-liberty than atheists are, and it is that way because Ayn Rand is new and before here in the 50s most atheists were bad like the Frankfurt school. Atheism then was negative just concentrating on the thesis that there was no God. But the positive was never discussed; that a rich egoistic morality undergirds liberty, civil rights, etc."

PR: "I hope you succeed. The track record of most atheists is horrible."

Cr: "Yes, it is very bad."

PR: "I don't see a great future for moral atheism but there are good atheists like Craig. I am an Ethical Monotheist. God wants people to be ethical and follow the Ten Commandments."

My Response: Yes, religious conservatives are for more pro-liberty than are atheists, who like government running our lives. It could be that atheists, godless and lost, seek divine substitutes, and Big Government has become the deity that they worship. Those that love government, love tyranny, and hate liberty and individualism. Since the American Experiment was founded on Godly-guidance, and God grants us liberty and free will as natural capacities to enjoy and make productive, churchgoers more naturally will defend liberty.

Craig has a point that atheists before Rand were Marxists and pro-tyranny, not pro-liberty. Dennis admits that there are good atheists, but that as part of a godless, totalitarian, collective monster, people will not be moral, free, very loving or happy, and that makes them immoral.

I admire Prager's ethical monotheism, and it is objective ethics based upon the one true God. I am a moderate ethically, mostly pro-objective ethics, with some subjective ethics added in.

PR: "When I was a teenager, I spat with my parents but because I believe in God, I always honored my parents. If one does not have religious morals then one is likely to follow one's emotions, or one's therapist. Who is more likely to follow the Ten Commandments--an atheist or a religious person?"

Cr: "I can't answer that since I do not represent all secularists or all atheists. I offer objective morality. We can derive objective morality from logic and observation, and justice is one of its principles. People are judged on the basis of what they say and do and then treated accordingly. I honor my father because he is a good man not because he is my father.

We should follow the Ten Commandments because generally it is in your self-interest to do so, not because God wants you to do so. Follow commandments for their content not because God commands it--I disagree about the method not the content."

PR: “We are to honor our parents, but we do not have to love our parents. Parental authority is a bulwark against totalitarianism and cults. All dictators seek to own youth by their allegiance to the dictator, not to their parents. We are to honor parents even if we do not love them. If parents voted for Trump, their adult kids sometimes severed relations with them. This is secular ruthlessness."

Cr: "Individualism is also a bulwark against socialism. Parents and kids must respect each other--each has a reasoning mind and should expect that they use their reasoning mind. Family relations should be based on respectful mutualism or good relations."

PR: "I like individualism--it emanates from the Biblical view. Everyone is created in God's image and when that dies you get the herd mentality."

My response: Dennis maintains that religious people, more than secularists, are more likely to follow the Ten Commandments, and I believe that is correct. Craig counters that he follows objective morality as a Randian, so therefore, his reason and logic propel him to follow the Ten Commandments for their content, not because God ordered secularists to do so. I do not much accept his theory, but I like Rand's commitment to objective morality, and, yes, following the Ten Commandments is reasonable, and yet their come from Yahweh and they and He are good.

Prager offers parental authority as a bulwark against totalitarianism and that is wise. Craig offers individualism as a bulwark against tyranny, and he is smart too.

Prager offers that individualism emanates from the Bible, that everyone is made in God's image, and this is close to the divine spark in each individual that Jordan Peterson alludes to.

Pr: "Murder: if there is no God, then murder is not wrong. Catholics converted Europeans to Christianity, and the hardest group to convert were German tribes. The Germans rejected Christianity by asking why it is wrong to kill--we are the toughest so by killing we conquer and dominate--the survival of the fittest. Where there is an absolute, objective moral point, there is no killing."

Cr: "We must use observation and reason not revelation and faith to reach the obvious conclusion not to murder. To talk about morality, we need a standard of value. Dennis's standard is God's will. Craig's standard: he does not accept God as the objective source of morality for two reasons:

First, God does not exist; Second, if God did exist, He is still a consciousness giving a command, and any consciousness is subjective, so its moral command is subjective morality. 

Here is the Randian objective moral standard: the factual requirements of human life on earth compels us, a rational animal, to use reason to survive. Human life constitutes the standard of human value, the requirements of the kind of animal we are and reference to those requirements will tell us if an action is objectively good or objectively bad,"

My response: Dennis is offering an objective morality that is God-based: if God does not exist, there is no absolute standard of right and wrong--all replacement ethical standards are mere personal feeling or opinion, so then who is to say that murder is not good or desirable? With his example of pagan German tribes, Prager suggests that without objective morality, murder is widespread. Only in godly countries is killing rather rare. He is more right than wrong.

Craig refutes religious objective morality, citing that God does not exist, and if He did, his subjective consciousness would entail that his moral pronouncements are subjective.

His objective moral standard is secular and worldly: human life is the standard of human value, and our reasoning will inform us as to which action is good or bad as we compare/contrast each action to see if it preserves and enriches human life or leads it to be degraded or even perish.

I like objective ethics and would blend both religious and secular ethically objective codes together, more Prager than Biddle, but both, with some subjective ethical, and feeling-based elements included.

Cr: "Freedom is objectively good because the human needs to live and prosper. He must be free to act on his judgments, to produce goods, to trade them voluntarily to mutual advantage. If he can't be free, he can't live as a human being. He must be free to be happy. This is a fact (moral) is an observable fact. Rand's entire moral theory: a right is a recognition of the fact that to live a human being must act in this way--he must be free to enjoy his right to life, liberty, property, etc."

My response: this is accurate and eloquent Randian ethical stance.

Pr: "All of that is your opinion that freedom is important. Admirable view but not absolute or objective. You have no argument against critics."

Cr: "I do have an argument that works. 1. How do you make clear that the requirements of human are objective and correct, not just opinion? 2. Rand offers this fact: Her morality is the philosophically worked out proof of what the Founding Fathers said in the Declaration of Independence. What she means by that is the rights to life, liberty, and happiness. Rand says about each of these rights that not only do you have a right to each of them but that it is morally correct that you pursue them. She can prove this with reason, observation and logic--prove it objectively in a standard of value. 

Take life:  You have the right to live but not to murder as self-evident or granted by the Creator or both. Rand wants you to live your life in your self-interest while not violating the rights of others.

Life is the fundamental right because it is also the standard of moral value. Why is that? Life is the only reason we can pursue values--i.e., we are alive, and why we need to pursue values. Rocks, rivers can't pursue value. Humans are alive to pursue value and that is a necessity. Human life makes values possible, necessary to human life is the moral standard."

My response: Prager attacks Biddle as a ethical subjectivist morally, that his claim to be ethically objective is mere opinion, however commendable its content. Biddle is more right here than Prager, in that Biddle is advocating an objectivist ethic, but he lacks the power of God's authority and command that we obey the Ten Commandments.

Biddle offers human life as the ethical moral standard, and those values make that life worth living, I concur.

PR: "Your view is commendable. But many don't agree. It is still opinion. It is your leap of faith. I made a leap of faith to believe in God that said to protect life. Your view is not provable. Many chose death. So on pragmatics: who will be more effective preventing murder? Those that die and that is the end for us, or those that die, but heaven or hell awaits them? Which is more likely to keep people moral if punishment for wrongdoing after death is real, or there is no consequence for sinning?"

Cr: "Yes, if consequences, it is a moral deterrent. I know you do not believe in hell."

PR: "No, I believe in hell though Jewish secularists don't. Maimonides, the greatest Jewish intellectual ever, said reward and punishment after death, was one of the sacred Jewish principles."

Cr: "If nihilistic or atheist view of the world, then anything goes, nothing matters versus God and afterlife alternatives, the historically people behaved, when good for fear of hell. A third alternative is the Ayn Rand view of no afterlife but behave anyway in this world.

My response: It seems likely to me that there is an afterlife, and that for some believers, perhaps most people, a fear of going to hell is a deterrent on their this-worldly behavior. But people that believe in heaven in the afterlife also behave well in this world, out of love and respect for God, a willingness and determination to please God, and perhaps receive a reward in heaven for a life faithfully and morally well-lived.

Cr: "We both know it is true that you can act anyway you want and be happy."

My response: I disagree with Craig here completely. If I was a sadistic Buchenwald guard herding Jews into gas chambers, and I found extreme pleasure in hurting and killing them--I am capable of this, as Jordan Peterson admits about himself and 98% of the rest of society--I would enjoy and be addicted to my sick pleasure of killing innocent victims, but that would not make me happy. An evil, vicious act committed again and again in an institutional setting could not emanate from the psyche of a happy person, I suspect that happy people are loving, creative and spiritually good. Those that habitually commit acts of great wickedness are acting out something rotten that they feel about being and themselves internally.

Cr: "We would tell our kids be moral for that alone will make you happy. Being immoral guarantees unhappiness."

My response: Biddle here is talking about the connection between being ethical and being happy that is roughly equivalent to my paragraph just up above objecting to his remarks on personal happiness.

Cr: "Ayn Rand: Life is the standard of value and happiness is the moral purpose of life, and that makes this a science. Happiness is the state of consciousness that arises from achievement of your values, and it has to be a state on non-contradictory joy, values in harmony, not at war with each other in your soul. Your Ten Commandments to be obeyed in your self-interest. I say do it for self-interest, not for the sake of the Ten Commandments."

PR: "We need God for objective morality and for the practical needs of the community. We used to have secular communal activities: bowling, Lions, Rotary, Kiwanis. Now the only communities in America are Jew of Christian religious gatherings. I do not know of any atheist communities. I enjoy my Jewish religious gatherings. Community is a value; do you not agree?"

My response: Ayn Rand's understanding of happiness is moral and based upon achieving one's values and that seems realistic to me. Our values should be in harmony, and we should follow the Ten Commandments out of self-interest, and for God's sake, and for the sake of the community, finally.

Though I am a staunch individualist, I know better than to downplay the value and richness emotionally from communal ties and events, most of which are absent from my life, not so much by choice, as being ostracized by non-individuating joiners for refusing to cease maverizing.

Cr: "Yes, of course, but not all religious communities are life-affirming, life-serving values. We do get together."

My response: Most atheists are likely academics isolated from other academics so weekly communal services to uplift each other would be rare but desirable. And not all religious communities are life-affirming, if by life-affirming one means each person in the community is existing as a self-actualizer, dedicating her life and achievements to God and the betterment of the world.

PR: "There are no credible proofs for God's existence. Can you clarify a proof for God's existence or evidence for God's existence, as there is no proof or argument for God's existence? We both exist. It came from rocks, a leap of faith that is absurd. DNA is information--how could it not have intelligence behind it? The complexity of the eye is another example. It is not likely so that everything came from matter as atheists insist. Charles Krauthammer--Atheism--everything came from nothing."

Cr: "It seems incredible the rise of life (from nothing) or did life always live? It is a logical fallacy: If you can't say where life came from scientifically, ergo God. This is the fallacy of the argument from ignorance. Evolution is good science."

My response: proofs for or against or evident-based arguments for or against the existence of God cannot be definitively determined or dismissed, so I enjoy them all, side with the believers over the atheists, but am willing to admit we all need to keep open-minds over these controversies and continue to tolerantly agree to agree to disagree with freedom of conscience enjoyed by all.

PR: "A pattern exists but we cannot explain it--it may be explainable scientifically how it exists but cannot tell why it exists, which religion does."

Cr: "It is an axiomatic issue that existence is something rather than nothing. Why do we need to assume existence wasn’t always here. We know we exist because we can observe it.

Here is a question? Are the multiplicity of religions a proof against God?"

Pr: "People yearn to know the Creator; we have universal ideas with many interpretations"

My response:  It is probably true that something can't come from nothing, and that we can say nothing about nothing but the ontological moderate in me does not agree with these statements. Usually but not always something cannot come from nothing, and usually but not always we can say nothing about nothing.

Craig is suggesting the existence of one Absolute God is disproven by the multiplicity of religious interpretations contradicting each other and conflicting with each other? Dennis is right in that the religious search for meaning and a personal relationship with the divine is universal, but people are individual so their interpretation of such an intimate encounter will vary without being self-contradictory.

Also, God and De's angels are individuals, so though they are on the same team, their personal account of how to relate to the Divinity, and the name attributed to that Divinity, will vary widely. These are moderate strengths not wishy-washy, subjective weaknesses. Collectively and cumulatively the insight gathered from the varied inputs will enrich all to provide for the most objective interpretation possible about the state of being that God is.

Cr: "Religious factions do not happen in science."

My response: Really. There are not Leftist scientists alarmist about global warming and reputable scientists among the opposing climate-deniers? Professors in college do not in factions claiming to be objective scientists? I think that Craig is offering that, scientists, ideally and at their traditional best, are logical, intellectually honest and open, and geared to the evidence, will accept the truth and even change their theories should the evidence rule out their favored previous theories.

Cr: "Scientists use reason to debate and the best reason over tie wins. Religion is based on faith so no easy way to handle disagreement."

PR: "If there is no God, anything goes."

Cr: If faith is how we gain knowledge, anything foes."

PR "How about abortion?"

Cr: "Abortion is a woman's right right up to the day of birth." The right to life applies to a human being is a social context and the fetus before birth is not yet an individuated human being."

PR: "Life is the basis of living. Eugenics is rational thinking, get rid of those unworthy of life."

 I watched and took copious notes on the Fireside Chat, Ep 174, hosted by Dennis Prager who conversed with Ayn Rand scholar Craig Biddle about politics, morality, theology and more. I took copious notes on the over one-hour long podcast, and below is what I recorded, and then I periodically respond to the exchanges between Prager and Biddle. Apparently, the fireside chat was aired on 3/22/2012.

"Here is what is written above the video: "God vs. Ayn Rand: A Fireside Chat with Denis Prager and Craig Biddle. TOS Admin February 18, 2021 Craig Biddle recently joined Dennis Prager for a wide-ranging discussion about religion, Objectivism and American values. This is the conversation our culture needs to have--and a model of civility with which we need to have it. Check out the video and share it with friends. This is the way forward."

 

 Dennis Prager (Pr): "I have to have the best opponents, and Craig is that. Craig Biddle, and we disagree about God and morality, but we have the following in common: we are both crazy about liberty. I am much closer to an atheist that loves liberty then to a God-believer that doesn't."

My response: I notice two trends here. First, conservative theists and conservative atheists are uniting as transcendent of their mutual disagreements to work together to fend of the postmodernists and Marxists out to destroy America in its entirety. The cordial conversation between Dennis and Craig exemplifies the new effort to work with all traditionalists against the Progressives.

Second, only now are conservative patriots understanding that liberty is far superior and far more desirable than fraternity and equality combined. God is a free agent, and we are made in De's image, and we are instructed and expected to enjoy and apply ourselves, using our full liberty to self-realize, a living prayer of appreciation back to the Divine Couple.

Mark Levin also recognizes how precious is personal liberty, and how jealous each American adults must insist upon being to keep government, churches, cliques and big business at bay, lest they enslave the individual and rob him of his power, liberty and happiness.

Ironically, Craig Biddle, a conservative atheist that reverse liberty is spiritually and morally far superior than is a Christian Leftist who denies that there is anything special about personal liberty, and that people are not losing much to forego their freedom.

Craig Biddle (Cr):  "I am much closer to Dennis than to an atheist that likes big government."

PR: "My task here is not to win but to illuminate differences. I believe in clarity over agreement."

PR asks Cr: "Do you hope you are rights or wrong about there not being a God?"

Cr: 'I never pondered that question. If God exists, then there is no free will, due to God's omniscience and omnipotence" 

PR: "I have the opposite view. Only if there is a God, is there free will. I asked atheist Michael Sherman this question, and he answered, sure, why would I not want to see my loved ones after I died. Why would I not want there to be a God. I am surprised at your answer (Craig). I want evil judged for the horrible things done to others. It would bother me if there was no consequence. How would you deal with that?"

My response: I do not know that I agree with Dennis that there is no free will unless there is a God to judge and punish the wicked and reward the good in the afterlife. If there were no God, people would still have free will to choose to do good or evil, and the only difference would be that there would be no God, no afterlife, no consequence in that realm for what each person did when alive.

Cr: "It might be an ok question. Perhaps perpetrators should burn in hell and victims be compensated. I see no evidence for an afterlife. More important to ask is what is the best that we can do in this life? We should live well, be just, and ensure that people properly here reward the good and punish the criminals."

My response: I think we should ask ourselves what is the best that we can do in this life, for the sake of this world, and for the sake of living well, in the next life, if God exists (De does.) and there is an afterlife.

PR: "We agree that we need a just society. My religious principle is based on this life (not life in the next world). Now let us get to the free will question. You are a materialist. Materialism is not refusing to buy things. Materialism philosophically is the belief that matter is all that is. Consciousness is still physical. The neurons of my brain give me consciousness. "

Cr: "It is a scientific answer what gives rise to consciousness. I do not have the answer on that. I take the position that we know consciousness exists, because we are using it. We know gravity exists though we do not know what explains gravity."

My response: We need a just society for the sake of living in this world, and for the sake of our souls in the next world. The world of matter and the world are both real, and consciousness straddles the nexus between these two worlds.

Cr. “It is axiomatic that consciousness and existence exist. These constitute the foundation of all knowledge."

PR: “ Is consciousness a product of physical existence?"

Cr: "Yes, but though produced, it is not the same as physical matter. Of our conscious life, it is hard to see how it came from physical matter. Life from matter is hard to see."

PR: “Why is that not an argument for a creator?"

Cr: "Consciousness and a creator are not necessarily the same thing. First there was no existence then creator's consciousness created existence. There is no evidence for that view; it is very speculative. We see existence; we are living it, then posit something became before it. Why go back and speculate? Aristotle decried the theory of forms: senseless duplication, so there is not theory of forms if the premise is that you have to have a dimension to explain this dimension, then have to have another dimension to explain that dimension, an infinite regress.”

My response: I like the Randian ontology that consciousness exists, and existence exists because they do, and that does seem like the foundation of all or much knowledge. Consciousness likely predated or made or ordered always existing matter, and yet grew out of matter. Consciousness and a creator are just as likely as the lack thereof, and a theory of forms however logically vulnerable to the infinite regress argument, does offer an explanation of how the Logos or world of Forms participates in or informs matter as physical objects in this world, and there must be some reality to these claims.

PR: "There is only an infinite regress if the Creator was created, so there was no creator. But God existed forever, before the Bible was written, and because God is eternal, there is no infinite regress."

Cr: "Your position is that there had to be a God who created this existence. My position is this existence is primary. It is eternal.  The universe is in time; time is not in the universe. The universe has always existed. Time is but a measure of motion is existence."

PR: "If the is no beginning, why did Big Bang occur?"

Cr: "There can be a Big Bang without creation. An existing, dense universe that exploded did expand into an existing region. You can't get something from nothing. You can't expand into nothing."

My response: I like Dennis retort that God is infinite, so that position makes trivial the argument that there is an infinite regress is one argues Logos is built into in nature.  Is the Big Bang actually God creating the world? I do not know. Is Biddle right that the infinite universe always existing so that there is something for the universe to expand into? I do not know.

PR: "Yes, you cannot understand something from nothing. We agree on that. Where we differ is that you think the something always was--you do not have a problem with where it came from. Physics suggests a beginning. If all these material factors determine me, now how do we define this free will thing. If we are only matter, there is no consciousness. If I Dennis am only a product of material events, and all that I do is explainable from genes or the environment, where is the free will? Only if I believe in God in society, can I then believe in free will. If all that I do is a product of matter, where is your free will?"

Cr: "Good question. Ayn Rand:  existence and consciousness are why we have free will: we reason. She did not believe that you could do whatever you wanted at any time with no restrictions."

My response: I do not know that we could not have something come from nothing. God works miracles that defy logic. I like Craig's perspective that there was no creation because the universe is eternal. I do not accept it but it is an interesting explanation of his metaphysics.

Free will exists as soon as an intelligent animals have reason and speech. Both God and the angels have reason and speech on a much more sophisticated level, but their wills are free and transcend the iron natural laws of necessity controlling other types of animals. Free will could exist in intelligent homo sapiens even if they were the highest form of intelligent life int he universe.

Cr: "The locus of free will: the ability to focus your mind or not. To exist is to exert mental effort to understand the world or not. To refuse to use one's mind is to dim it down, turn it off. That is free will, a great thing. We utilize reason and that is free will. Now it is not total free will, not possible like running through a wall. One's exercising free will is clearly tempered by one's values."

PR: "People do have free will to violate their values. There is nothing non-material about it. Consciousness defines it. Do you blame people for their bad, even criminal choices?"

Cr: "Yes, I am unique among atheists. Sam Harris says there is no self, but I believe in a self. The mind and body are integrated and constitute the self, but physical elements remain.”

My response: I agree with the Randians that to enjoy and wield free will is to think, be conscious, make decisions and serve as the director of one's own affairs. And Craig is right: free will is not total. I cannot wave a magic wand and move the moon 40,000 miles to the right. I am mortal and will die though I might will to be immortal--which I do not. The self or consciousness exists, be it merely physical or part spiritual, which it is.

PR: "How do you explain if I took 1,000 atheists and 1,000 churchgoers off the street, which group would be more pro-liberty?"

Cr: "More religious people are more pro-liberty than atheists are, and it is that way because Ayn Rand is new and before here in the 50s most atheists were bad like the Frankfurt school. Atheism then was negative just concentrating on the thesis that there was no God. But the positive was never discussed; that a rich egoistic morality undergirds liberty, civil rights, etc."

PR: "I hope you succeed. The track record of most atheists is horrible."

Cr: "Yes, it is very bad."

PR: "I don't see a great future for moral atheism but there are good atheists like Craig. I am an Ethical Monotheist. God wants people to be ethical and follow the Ten Commandments."

My Response: Yes, religious conservatives are for more pro-liberty than are atheists, who like government running our lives. It could be that atheists, godless and lost, seek divine substitutes, and Big Government has become the deity that they worship. Those that love government, love tyranny, and hate liberty and individualism. Since the American Experiment was founded on Godly-guidance, and God grants us liberty and free will as natural capacities to enjoy and make productive, churchgoers more naturally will defend liberty.

Craig has a point that atheists before Rand were Marxists and pro-tyranny, not pro-liberty. Dennis admits that there are good atheists, but that as part of a godless, totalitarian, collective monster, people will not be moral, free, very loving or happy, and that makes them immoral.

I admire Prager's ethical monotheism, and it is objective ethics based upon the one true God. I am a moderate ethically, mostly pro-objective ethics, with some subjective ethics added in.

PR: "When I was a teenager, I spat with my parents but because I believe in God, I always honored my parents. If one does not have religious morals then one is likely to follow one's emotions, or one's therapist. Who is more likely to follow the Ten Commandments--an atheist or a religious person?"

Cr: "I can't answer that since I do not represent all secularists or all atheists. I offer objective morality. We can derive objective morality from logic and observation, and justice is one of its principles. People are judged on the basis of what they say and do and then treated accordingly. I honor my father because he is a good man not because he is my father.

We should follow the Ten Commandments because generally it is in your self-interest to do so, not because God wants you to do so. Follow commandments for their content not because God commands it--I disagree about the method not the content."

PR: “We are to honor our parents, but we do not have to love our parents. Parental authority is a bulwark against totalitarianism and cults. All dictators seek to own youth by their allegiance to the dictator, not to their parents. We are to honor parents even if we do not love them. If parents voted for Trump, their adult kids sometimes severed relations with them. This is secular ruthlessness."

Cr: "Individualism is also a bulwark against socialism. Parents and kids must respect each other--each has a reasoning mind and should expect that they use their reasoning mind. Family relations should be based on respectful mutualism or good relations."

PR: "I like individualism--it emanates from the Biblical view. Everyone is created in God's image and when that dies you get the herd mentality."

My response: Dennis maintains that religious people, more than secularists, are more likely to follow the Ten Commandments, and I believe that is correct. Craig counters that he follows objective morality as a Randian, so therefore, his reason and logic propel him to follow the Ten Commandments for their content, not because God ordered secularists to do so. I do not much accept his theory, but I like Rand's commitment to objective morality, and, yes, following the Ten Commandments is reasonable, and yet their come from Yahweh and they and He are good.

Prager offers parental authority as a bulwark against totalitarianism and that is wise. Craig offers individualism as a bulwark against tyranny, and he is smart too.

Prager offers that individualism emanates from the Bible, that everyone is made in God's image, and this is close to the divine spark in each individual that Jordan Peterson alludes to.

Pr: "Murder: if there is no God, then murder is not wrong. Catholics converted Europeans to Christianity, and the hardest group to convert were German tribes. The Germans rejected Christianity by asking why it is wrong to kill--we are the toughest so by killing we conquer and dominate--the survival of the fittest. Where there is an absolute, objective moral point, there is no killing."

Cr: "We must use observation and reason not revelation and faith to reach the obvious conclusion not to murder. To talk about morality, we need a standard of value. Dennis's standard is God's will. Craig's standard: he does not accept God as the objective source of morality for two reasons:

First, God does not exist; Second, if God did exist, He is still a consciousness giving a command, and any consciousness is subjective, so its moral command is subjective morality. 

Here is the Randian objective moral standard: the factual requirements of human life on earth compels us, a rational animal, to use reason to survive. Human life constitutes the standard of human value, the requirements of the kind of animal we are and reference to those requirements will tell us if an action is objectively good or objectively bad,"

My response: Dennis is offering an objective morality that is God-based: if God does not exist, there is no absolute standard of right and wrong--all replacement ethical standards are mere personal feeling or opinion, so then who is to say that murder is not good or desirable? With his example of pagan German tribes, Prager suggests that without objective morality, murder is widespread. Only in godly countries is killing rather rare. He is more right than wrong.

Craig refutes religious objective morality, citing that God does not exist, and if He did, his subjective consciousness would entail that his moral pronouncements are subjective.

His objective moral standard is secular and worldly: human life is the standard of human value, and our reasoning will inform us as to which action is good or bad as we compare/contrast each action to see if it preserves and enriches human life or leads it to be degraded or even perish.

I like objective ethics and would blend both religious and secular ethically objective codes together, more Prager than Biddle, but both, with some subjective ethical, and feeling-based elements included.

Cr: "Freedom is objectively good because the human needs to live and prosper. He must be free to act on his judgments, to produce goods, to trade them voluntarily to mutual advantage. If he can't be free, he can't live as a human being. He must be free to be happy. This is a fact (moral) is an observable fact. Rand's entire moral theory: a right is a recognition of the fact that to live a human being must act in this way--he must be free to enjoy his right to life, liberty, property, etc."

My response: this is accurate and eloquent Randian ethical stance.

Pr: "All of that is your opinion that freedom is important. Admirable view but not absolute or objective. You have no argument against critics."

Cr: "I do have an argument that works. 1. How do you make clear that the requirements of human are objective and correct, not just opinion? 2. Rand offers this fact: Her morality is the philosophically worked out proof of what the Founding Fathers said in the Declaration of Independence. What she means by that is the rights to life, liberty, and happiness. Rand says about each of these rights that not only do you have a right to each of them but that it is morally correct that you pursue them. She can prove this with reason, observation and logic--prove it objectively in a standard of value. 

Take life:  You have the right to live but not to murder as self-evident or granted by the Creator or both. Rand wants you to live your life in your self-interest while not violating the rights of others.

Life is the fundamental right because it is also the standard of moral value. Why is that? Life is the only reason we can pursue values--i.e., we are alive, and why we need to pursue values. Rocks, rivers can't pursue value. Humans are alive to pursue value and that is a necessity. Human life makes values possible, necessary to human life is the moral standard."

My response: Prager attacks Biddle as a ethical subjectivist morally, that his claim to be ethically objective is mere opinion, however commendable its content. Biddle is more right here than Prager, in that Biddle is advocating an objectivist ethic, but he lacks the power of God's authority and command that we obey the Ten Commandments.

Biddle offers human life as the ethical moral standard, and those values make that life worth living, I concur.

PR: "Your view is commendable. But many don't agree. It is still opinion. It is your leap of faith. I made a leap of faith to believe in God that said to protect life. Your view is not provable. Many chose death. So on pragmatics: who will be more effective preventing murder? Those that die and that is the end for us, or those that die, but heaven or hell awaits them? Which is more likely to keep people moral if punishment for wrongdoing after death is real, or there is no consequence for sinning?"

Cr: "Yes, if consequences, it is a moral deterrent. I know you do not believe in hell."

PR: "No, I believe in hell though Jewish secularists don't. Maimonides, the greatest Jewish intellectual ever, said reward and punishment after death, was one of the sacred Jewish principles."

Cr: "If nihilistic or atheist view of the world, then anything goes, nothing matters versus God and afterlife alternatives, the historically people behaved, when good for fear of hell. A third alternative is the Ayn Rand view of no afterlife but behave anyway in this world.

My response: It seems likely to me that there is an afterlife, and that for some believers, perhaps most people, a fear of going to hell is a deterrent on their this-worldly behavior. But people that believe in heaven in the afterlife also behave well in this world, out of love and respect for God, a willingness and determination to please God, and perhaps receive a reward in heaven for a life faithfully and morally well-lived.

Cr: "We both know it is true that you can act anyway you want and be happy."

My response: I disagree with Craig here completely. If I was a sadistic Buchenwald guard herding Jews into gas chambers, and I found extreme pleasure in hurting and killing them--I am capable of this, as Jordan Peterson admits about himself and 98% of the rest of society--I would enjoy and be addicted to my sick pleasure of killing innocent victims, but that would not make me happy. An evil, vicious act committed again and again in an institutional setting could not emanate from the psyche of a happy person, I suspect that happy people are loving, creative and spiritually good. Those that habitually commit acts of great wickedness are acting out something rotten that they feel about being and themselves internally.

Cr: "We would tell our kids be moral for that alone will make you happy. Being immoral guarantees unhappiness."

My response: Biddle here is talking about the connection between being ethical and being happy that is roughly equivalent to my paragraph just up above objecting to his remarks on personal happiness.

Cr: "Ayn Rand: Life is the standard of value and happiness is the moral purpose of life, and that makes this a science. Happiness is the state of consciousness that arises from achievement of your values, and it has to be a state on non-contradictory joy, values in harmony, not at war with each other in your soul. Your Ten Commandments to be obeyed in your self-interest. I say do it for self-interest, not for the sake of the Ten Commandments."

PR: "We need God for objective morality and for the practical needs of the community. We used to have secular communal activities: bowling, Lions, Rotary, Kiwanis. Now the only communities in America are Jew of Christian religious gatherings. I do not know of any atheist communities. I enjoy my Jewish religious gatherings. Community is a value; do you not agree?"

My response: Ayn Rand's understanding of happiness is moral and based upon achieving one's values and that seems realistic to me. Our values should be in harmony, and we should follow the Ten Commandments out of self-interest, and for God's sake, and for the sake of the community, finally.

Though I am a staunch individualist, I know better than to downplay the value and richness emotionally from communal ties and events, most of which are absent from my life, not so much by choice, as being ostracized by non-individuating joiners for refusing to cease maverizing.

Cr: "Yes, of course, but not all religious communities are life-affirming, life-serving values. We do get together."

My response: Most atheists are likely academics isolated from other academics so weekly communal services to uplift each other would be rare but desirable. And not all religious communities are life-affirming, if by life-affirming one means each person in the community is existing as a self-actualizer, dedicating her life and achievements to God and the betterment of the world.

PR: "There are no credible proofs for God's existence. Can you clarify a proof for God's existence or evidence for God's existence, as there is no proof or argument for God's existence? We both exist. It came from rocks, a leap of faith that is absurd. DNA is information--how could it not have intelligence behind it? The complexity of the eye is another example. It is not likely so that everything came from matter as atheists insist. Charles Krauthammer--Atheism--everything came from nothing."

Cr: "It seems incredible the rise of life (from nothing) or did life always live? It is a logical fallacy: If you can't say where life came from scientifically, ergo God. This is the fallacy of the argument from ignorance. Evolution is good science."

My response: proofs for or against or evident-based arguments for or against the existence of God cannot be definitively determined or dismissed, so I enjoy them all, side with the believers over the atheists, but am willing to admit we all need to keep open-minds over these controversies and continue to tolerantly agree to agree to disagree with freedom of conscience enjoyed by all.

PR: "A pattern exists but we cannot explain it--it may be explainable scientifically how it exists but cannot tell why it exists, which religion does."

Cr: "It is an axiomatic issue that existence is something rather than nothing. Why do we need to assume existence wasn’t always here. We know we exist because we can observe it.

Here is a question? Are the multiplicity of religions a proof against God?"

Pr: "People yearn to know the Creator; we have universal ideas with many interpretations"

My response:  It is probably true that something can't come from nothing, and that we can say nothing about nothing but the ontological moderate in me does not agree with these statements. Usually but not always something cannot come from nothing, and usually but not always we can say nothing about nothing.

Craig is suggesting the existence of one Absolute God is disproven by the multiplicity of religious interpretations contradicting each other and conflicting with each other? Dennis is right in that the religious search for meaning and a personal relationship with the divine is universal, but people are individual so their interpretation of such an intimate encounter will vary without being self-contradictory.

Also, God and De's angels are individuals, so though they are on the same team, their personal account of how to relate to the Divinity, and the name attributed to that Divinity, will vary widely. These are moderate strengths not wishy-washy, subjective weaknesses. Collectively and cumulatively the insight gathered from the varied inputs will enrich all to provide for the most objective interpretation possible about the state of being that God is.

Cr: "Religious factions do not happen in science."

My response: Really. There are not Leftist scientists alarmist about global warming and reputable scientists among the opposing climate-deniers? Professors in college do not in factions claiming to be objective scientists? I think that Craig is offering that, scientists, ideally and at their traditional best, are logical, intellectually honest and open, and geared to the evidence, will accept the truth and even change their theories should the evidence rule out their favored previous theories.

Cr: "Scientists use reason to debate and the best reason over tie wins. Religion is based on faith so no easy way to handle disagreement."

PR: "If there is no God, anything goes."

Cr: If faith is how we gain knowledge, anything foes."

PR "How about abortion?"

Cr: "Abortion is a woman's right right up to the day of birth." The right to life applies to a human being is a social context and the fetus before birth is not yet an individuated human being."

PR: "Life is the basis of living. Eugenics is rational thinking, get rid of those unworthy of life."