From: mangoe@cs.umd.edu (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: The Good Book -- Rand's or God's
Date: 15 Nov 92 23:13:39 GMT

Mr. Katz:

>My debate with Charley began when he made dismissive comments about
>Ayn Rand, a philosopher whom I admire. He made these responses based,
>apparently, on reading one work of fiction by her and little of her
>non-fiction philosophical texts. His dismissal seemed to be based
>primarily on the fact that the text was dated.

I am uninterested in debating whether or not these statements are true,
although I think this line of discussion speaks to the presence of a larger
critique than is admitted here.  However, I do intend to justify some of
these criticisms.

Except for a few brief asides to _Intro._, this argument has revolved around
_Atlas Shrugged_, which happens to be a novel.  A modern theologian might
refer to it as a myth, which is to say, a story whose purpose is to convey
something fundamental about human existence.  (Mr. Katz should take note
that the word "myth" here is not pejorative.)  And the book is very commonly
referred to by objectivists in some of the same ways that, say, christians
refer to the parables of Jesus.  As far as I know, Ayn Rand never disowned
any of her fiction and always regarded it as part of her output as a
philosopher.

_Atlas_ is also one of the ways that people are introduced to objectivist
thought; as such, it is subject to literary criticism as an argument.  It is
subject particularly to the criticism that it is unrealistic, since an
unrealistic book of this sort translates into a philosophy based on wishful
thinking.  The criticism I have made against the book is that its principal
characters are unrealistic.  As far as being dated applies, this is a
criticism of a different order.  _Atlas_ is also a very peculiar sort of
science fiction novel, seemingly written for the future of a 1940's America,
the future of the American Industrial Might.  Galt's Gulch in particular has
almost a comic book feel to it.  In an era where computers are becoming
ubiquitous, its vision of an attack upon inventions as property has no real
correspondence to what has happened instead.

As far as my participation in this is concerned, several people from the
sideline indicated gestures of support for my criticisms.  One thing that is
rather remarkable about this line of discussion is the repeated appeal to
debates won in the past as testimony to the soundness of objectivist thought.
This is precisely parallel to the figure of St. Catherine, martyred for
defeating a number of pagans in theological argument.  It is also exactly
parallel to the inevitable reappearance of _Evidence That Demands A Verdict_
as a source of authoritative arguments for christian faith.

I am by no means as certain of my positions as Mr. Katz and Mr. Wales seem
to be of theirs.  I don't consider this to be a weakness; the evidence of
arguments on the net is that those most dead certain of their positions
present the weakest arguments.

Somewhere in the course of this, things turned to Rand's critique of
religion (and to some degree, an argument over whether she ever made one).
This is more important than perhaps may be realized; the point at which I
see Rand as being most vulnerable, her understanding of human nature, is
precisely the point at which christianity's understanding of human nature is
strongest.

Inevitably, arguments about religion in this group turn into arguments about
evidence.  They are, in essence, epistemological disputes.  I don't want to
continue this too far in this line, but Mr. Katz's arguments about unicorns
merit a specific response.  Several times I have pointed to the existence of
religions as evidence about the supernatural, saying that it requires
refutation.  Mr. Katz's reply this time:

>And I suppose the existence of the concept of unicorns is sufficient to
>allow someone to believe in their existence (if there is no contrary
>evidence). What would evidence of the non-existence of unicorns consist of?

Evidence of the non-existence of unicorns lies in the fact that people, for
the most part, understand them as fabulous beasts; furthermore, it is
apparent that in earlier times the knowledge of the world and the
then-current understanding of "science" made it reasonable to accept that
unicorns *might* exist even if one knew nobody who had seen one, in the same
manner that belief in the existence of passenger pigeons as an extinct
species is reasonable now to those of us who have never seen one.  Talk
about evidence has to actually be about the evidence, the real evidence, not
evidence in the hypothetical.

Mr.  Katz then pomposizes:

>Observant readers will immediately spot this as an example of 'social
>metaphysics', that is the belief that the nature of the universe is whatever
>the most people think it is.

... and of course, this is so unobjective.  My criticism is in fact in quite
a different direction: in this case, it is a criticism of the view that the
nature of the universe is what the most perceptive people say it is.
Objectivism as a position is hopeless in a world where people's "concepts"
are often found at variance with experience-- and our world is such a world.

The argument then brushed by the Mormons at the door as evidence for
religion:

>A bunch of people coming to my door and arguing does not constitute evidence
>of the supernatural! The organization members claim that _they_ have had
>supernatural experiences. Why should I believe them, they have a strong
>incentive to mislead me, they are probably not competent to judge what
>is supernatural, etc....

But from their point of view, you suffer the same problems!  As a
non-believer (i.e., non-Mormon), you are committed to an erroneous viewpoint
and are therefore liable to self-delusion; furthermore, as a non-Mormon your
competency to judge it is questionable.  This is baldly a prejudice toward
yourself as a right-thinking person as opposed to all those muddle-headed
christians/Mormons.

Also, this standard rather obviously fails to distinguish between a
christianity with a real ressurection in it, and one which does not.  A real
christianity or a "fake" one would both be driven to proselytizing.

Christianity as an organized religion is objectively real.  It is up to you
to confront it and refute it.  To simply assume that it is wrong because it
arises, most fundamentally, from the authority of the witnesses to the
ressurection is to make a most fantastic epistemological claim about
knowledge from authority.

Conveniently, the discussion turns in this direction, and Mr. Katz
characteristically either completely misunderstands or completely
misrepresents my position.  I wrote:

>>In the second place, your personal experience isn't necessarily as good as
>>anyone else's.  Indeed, with respect to conversion, someone else's
>>experience typically starts out having priority, in much the same way that
>>any other information passed on authority-- like the morning paper--
>>initially has priority.

>Another appeal to authority, even balder. Wingate's message, don't reason 
>for yourself let others do it for you.

I am not arguing here that christianity's REAL authority is necessarily any
better than yours.  My point here is that your implicit appeal to your own
reasoning is an appeal to the authority of your own experience.  In a test
between that and christianity's authority, christianity's authority starts
out with an advantage.  Your argument basically amounts to the assertion
that you are under no obligation to check to see whether the house is on
fire simply because someone tells you it is.  This just plain wrong.  If you
want to escape death or injury, you at least have to go and check for
yourself, if not just take the person at their word and get out.

At this point, we have the morning paper as a metaphor for Rand...

>If the morning paper ever made the preposterous metaphysical, epistemological,
>ethical, or political claims that religion makes, it would cease to be an
>authority (in my book) instantly.

Rand makes (or in this case, you are making on her behalf) such absurd
claims.  Therefore, she is not worthy as an authority and I wonder why you
bother with her.  Christianity, by contrast, has a much better grasp of
human nature, which I contend should make a reasonable person prefer it over
objectivism as an authority.

I'm simply going to let the issue of definition slide right by, even though
this is Rand's other great weak point.  I've treated this in a separate
article, and it would make an overly long article too long by half.

However, there's always time for the ad hominem section-- which,
interestingly, seems to be the only argumentative fallacy which objectivists
don't acknowledge:

>You remind me of the most primitive of door-to-door religion salesmen. They
>are ecstatic when they find some passage in the bible that might possibly
>refer to something that is said to them. They parrot it and think they have
>found a brilliant response, after all, it was in the bible.  We don't want to
>hear your appeals to authority anymore. We want *you* to defend *your* ideas.

Sorry.  I don't have to defend *my* participation in christianity *from*
you, particularly as you are obviously predisposed to rationalize it away
rather than confront it honestly.  I am willing to expose my depths to those
who will take it seriously and who are willing to judge themselves as well
as me.  Your article shows that you are interested only in attacking the
integrity of my experiences.

>If you hack this up, leaving only the ad hominem, and a few weak sentence
>fragments, and include a brief and dismissive reply, you will be revealed to
>all for what you are, a transparent psuedo-intellectual who dodges the tough
>stuff and parades himself as an authority figure.

The only authority to which I have appealed is simple experience, and at that,
not even my own.

And consider what you are saying.  If I am a "pseudo-intellectual", I would
hold myself to be a *sincere* p-i, at least to the extent of being "deluded"
by my own arguments.  That alone should speak to the insufficiency of human
reasoning as a *final* test.  Anyone who reads the net for more that two
weeks, particularly those foolish enough to venture into, say,
talk.religion.misc, will find people arguing with utter conviction on both
sides of almost any given argument.  One side has to be defective, at
least-- usually both sides are repeating arguments they've gotten from
elsewhere, and arguments which a lot of other people think are garbage.  You
are potentially in the same position, repeating as you do objectivist
arguments.

As far as trimming articles is concerned, this I do without apology.
Discourse on the net simply cannot survive if it must carry the burden of
every word ever written there.
-- 
C. Wingate        + "The peace of God, it is no peace,
                  +    but strife closed in the sod.
mangoe@cs.umd.edu +  Yet, brothers, pray for but one thing:
tove!mangoe       +    the marv'lous peace of God."