Rand and Peikoff on God and Existence

The following is by Leonard Peikoff, acolyte of Ayn Rand:

Every argument for God and every attribute ascribed to Him rests on a false metaphysical premise. None can survive for a moment on a correct metaphysics . . . .

Existence exists, and only existence exists. Existence is a primary: it is uncreated, indestructible, eternal. So if you are to postulate something beyond existence—some supernatural realm—you must do it by openly denying reason, dispensing with definitions, proofs, arguments, and saying flatly, “To Hell with argument, I have faith.” That, of course, is a willful rejection of reason.

Objectivism advocates reason as man’s sole means of knowledge, and therefore, for the reasons I have already given, it is atheist. It denies any supernatural dimension presented as a contradiction of nature, of existence. This applies not only to God, but also to every variant of the supernatural ever advocated or to be advocated. In other words, we accept reality, and that’s all.

Most professional philosophers consider Rand and Co. not worth discussing.  Nihil philosophicum a nobis alienum putamus, however, is one of my mottoes (see here for explanation); so I will engage the Randian ideas to see if they generate any light. But I will try to avoid the polemical and tabloid style Rand and friends favor.  

In the quotation above we meet once again our old friend 'Existence exists.'  Ayn Rand & Co. use 'existence' to refer to what exists, not to something — a property perhaps — in virtue of which existents exist.  Now It cannot be denied that all existing things exist, and that only existing things exist.  This is entirely trivial, a logical truth.  Anyone who denies it embraces the following formal-logical contradiction:  There are existing things that do not exist. We should all agree, then, with the first sentence of the second paragraph. Existence exists!

So far, so good. 

But then Peikoff tells us that to postulate something supernatural such as God is "to postulate something beyond existence."  Now it may well be that there is no God or anything beyond nature.  But how would it follow that there is something beyond existence, i.e., beyond what exists, if God exists? It may well be that everything that exists is a thing of nature.   Distinguished philosophers have held that reality is exhausted by the space-time system and its contents.  But the nonexistence of God or of so-called abstract objects does not follow from the triviality that everything that exists exists.  Does it take a genius to see that the following argument is invalid?

1. Existence exists.

ergo

2. God does not exist.

One cannot derive a substantive metaphysical conclusion from a mere tautology. No doubt, whatever exists exists.  But one cannot exclude God from the company of what exists by asserting the tautology that whatever exists exists.  The above argument is a non sequitur.  Here is an example of a valid argument:

3. Nothing supernatural exists.

4. God is supernatural.

ergo

5. God does not exist.

For Peikoff to get the result he wants, the nonexistence of God, from the premise 'Existence exists,' he must conflate 'existence' with 'natural existence.' Instead of saying "only existence exists," he should have said 'only natural existence exists.' But then he would lose the self-evidence of "Existence exists and only existence exists."  And he would also be begging the question.

Conflating a trivial self-evident thesis with a nontrivial controversial thesis has all the advantages of theft over honest toil as Russell said in a different connection.  It would take a certain amount of honest philosophical toil to construct a really good argument for the nonexistence of any and all supernatural entities.  But terminological mischief is easy.  What Peikoff seems to be doing above is smuggling the nonexistence of the supernatural into the term 'existence'  Clearly, this is an intellectually disreputable move.  

It is like a bad ontological argument in reverse.  On one bad version of the ontological argument, one defines God into existence by smuggling the notion of existence into the concept of God and then announcing that since we have the concept of God, God must exist.  Peikoff is doing the opposite: he defines God and the supernatural out of existence by importing their nonexistence into the term 'existence.'  But you can no more define God out of existence than you can define him into existence.  

An Objection and a Reply

"You are missing something important.  The claim that existence exists is the claim that whatever exists, exists independently of all consciousness, including divine consciousness.  It is a substantive claim, not a mere tautology.  It is a claim about the nature of existence.  It asserts the primacy of existence over consciousness.  It is a statement of extreme metaphysical realism: to exist is to be independent of all minds and their states. This axiom implies that no existents are created or caused to exist by a mind.   But then God, as the creator of everything distinct from himself, cannot exist."

Here, then, is a Rand-inspired argument for the nonexistence of God resting on Rand's axiom of existence.

1) To exist is to exist independently of all consciousness. (The notorious axiom)

2) Things other than God exist. (Obviously true)

Therefore

3) Things other than God exist independently of all consciousness. (Follows from 1 and 2)

4) If God exists, then it is not the case that everything that exists exists independently of all consciousness. (True given the classical conception of God as creator according to which whatever exists that is not God is maintained in existence moment-by-moment by God's creative power.)

Therefore

5) God does not exist. (Follows from 3 and 4 by standard logical rules including modus tollens)

This argument stands and falls with its first premise. Why should we accept it?  It is not self-evident.  Its negation — some items that exist depend for their existence on consciousness — is not a contradiction. Indeed, the negation is true: my current headache pain exists but it would not not exist were I not conscious of it.  My felt pain depends for its existence on consciousness.

Note also that the argument can be run in reverse with no breach of logical propriety. Simply deny the conclusion and then infer the negation of the initial premise. In brief: if God exists, then Rand's existence axiom is false.  This shows that the argument is not rationally compelling. Of course, the argument run in reverse is also not rationally compelling. So we have a stand-off.

We read above that existence, i.e. existents, are uncreated, indestructible, and eternal.  Well, if there is no God, then existents are uncreated.  But how could they be indestructible?  Is the Moon indestructible? Obviously not.  Is there anything in nature that is indestructible? No. So what might Rand or rather Peikoff mean by his strange assertion?  Does he mean that, while each natural item is destructible, it is 'indestructible' that there be some natural items or other? 

And how can natural items be eternal? What is eternal is outside of time. But everything in nature in in time. Perhaps he means that everything in nature is omnitemporal, i.e., existent at every time. But the Moon did not always exist and will not always exist.

I conclude that the Randian existence axiom does not bear up well under scrutiny. Classical theism has its own problems to which I will be returning.

(Rand below looks a little like Nancy "the Ripper" Pelosi. Both leave a lot to be desired character-wise, but Rand is sharp as a tack while Pelosi is dumb as a post.)

Rand-Peikoff

Why Was Italy Hit So Hard?

I have been puzzling over this.  Now I have an answer:

The coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China, has now swept through 126 countries, infected close to 170,000 people worldwide, and is responsible for more than 6,400 deaths as of March 15. China is leading the world in the number of confirmed cases and deaths. What many people find shocking is that Italy and Iran are the second- and third-hardest hit nations in this outbreak.

By any common-sense measure, both countries should have much lower numbers of confirmed cases and deaths because they are geographically far from the epicenter of the outbreak. The reason these two countries are suffering the most outside China is mainly due to their close ties with Beijing, primarily through the “One Belt and One Road” (OBOR) initiative.

UPDATE (3/24). Dr. Vito Caiati comments (bolding added to express my approbation):

In support of your small post of yesterday (“Why Was Italy Hit So Hard?”), which, referencing Helen Raleigh’s article in The Federalist, calls attention to Italy’s integration into Communist China’s OBOR scheme, the data on the large number of Chinese citizens residing in that Mediterranean country is particularly salient. 

As of 1 January 2019, these equaled 299, 823 persons, or almost 6 percent of all foreigners living in Italy. In terms of the Chinese virus that is devastating the world, the data is even more revealing, since five of the six regions in Italy with the greatest morbidity from this disease (Lombardia, Toscana, Emilia Romagna, and Piemonte [“Coronavirus, “La Mappa del contagion in Italia,” La Corriere della Sera, 24 March 2002, 1) are those with the highest numbers of foreign Chinese residents (“Cinese in Italia” (https://www.tuttitalia.it/statistiche/cittadini-stranieri/repubblica-popolare-cinese/ ). 

Overall, these five regions account for 35% of the total number Chinese nationals in the country, and the industrial and commercial center of Italy, Lombardia, which has been hardest hit by the epidemic, had the greatest number such persons, 34,182, or 12 percent of the overall national total. 

Every effort will be made by the globalist elite in Italy and their European and American counterparts to hide this and other disturbing truths about the origins, initial history, and propagation of this disease, since their revelation would jeopardize the material and ideological foundations of their hegemony.

Regards,

Vito 

Might we speak of the Silk (Rail) Roading of Italy?

Some wit just e-mailed me: "One Belt and One Road and One Virus."

“If it saves just one life, it will have been worth it.”

This is a popular but highly dubious pattern of reasoning.  Heather Mac Donald:

Less than 24 hours after California governor Gavin Newsom closed ‘non-essential’ businesses and ordered Californians to stay inside to avoid spreading the coronavirus, New York governor Andrew Cuomo followed suit. ‘This is about saving lives,’ Cuomo said during a press conference on Friday. ‘If everything we do saves just one life, I’ll be happy.’

Heather Mac goes on to raise serious questions about such knee-jerk responses.

Around 40,000 Americans die each year in traffic deaths. We could save not just one life but tens of thousands by lowering the speed limit to 25 miles per hour on all highways and roads. We tolerate the highway carnage because we value the time saved from driving fast more. Another estimated 40,000 Americans have died from the flu this flu season. Social distancing policies would have reduced that toll as well, but until now we have preferred freedom of association and movement.

 

When the Crunch Comes, Who is Important?

My man Hanson:

In a sophisticated society under lockdown, is it more existentially valuable to know how to fix a toilet, replace a circuit breaker, or change a tire, or to be a New York fashion designer, a Hollywood actor, or a corporate merger lawyer? At 9 p.m., when you go downtown in need of a critical prescription, are you really all that furious that a law-abiding citizen who has a gun and concealed [carry] permit is also in line—or would you be more relieved that gun control laws might ensure that his ilk never enters an all-night pharmacy?

Read it all.

Are You an Introvert? Take this Test!

This is a re-post from April 2012 with minor edits and additions.

…………………………

The bolded material below is taken verbatim from Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking (Crown 2012), p. 13.  I then give my responses.  The more affirmative responses, the more of an introvert you are.

1. I prefer one-on-one conversations to group activities. Absolutely!  Especially in philosophical discussions.  As Roderick Chisholm once said, "In philosophy, three's a crowd."

2. I often prefer to express myself in writing.  Yes. 

3. I enjoy solitude.  Is the Pope Catholic?  Beata solitudo, sola beatitudo.  Happy solitude, the sole beatitude.

4. I seem to care less than my peers about wealth, fame, and status.  Seem?  Do!

Money is a mere means.  To pursue it as an end in itself is perverse.  And once you have enough, you stop acquiring more and turn to higher pursuits.  

As for fame, it is a fool's cynosure. Obscurity is delicious.  To be able to walk down the street and pass as an ordinary schmuck is wonderful.  The value of fame and celebrity is directly proportional to the value of the fools and know-nothings who confer it.  And doesn't Aristotle say that to  be famous you need other people, which fact renders you dependent on them? He does indeed, in his Nicomachean Ethics.

Similarly with social status.  Who confers it? And what is their judgment worth?

5. I dislike small talk, but I enjoy talking in depth about topics that matter to me.  More than once in these pages have I ranted about the endless yap, yap, yap, about noth, noth, nothing.

6. People tell me I'm a good listener.  Yes.  My mind drifts back to a girl I knew when I was fifteen.  She called me her 'analyst' when she wasn't calling me 'Dr. Freud.'

7. I'm not a big risk-taker.  That's right.  I recently took a three-day motorcycle course, passed it, and got my license.  I  had been eyeing  the Harley-Davidson 883 Iron.  But then I asked myself how riding a motorcycle would further my life tasks and whether it makes sense, having come this far, to risk my life and physical integrity in pursuit of cheap thrills.

8. I enjoy work that allows me to "dive in" with few interruptions.  Right.  No instant messaging.  Only recently acquired a cell phone.  I keep it turned off.  Call me the uncalled caller.  Still don't have a smart phone.  My wife is presently in a faraway land on a Fulbright.  That allows me to unplug the land-line.  I love e-mail; fast but unintrusive.  I'll answer when I feel like it and get around to it.  I don't allow myself to be rushed or interrupted.

9. I like to celebrate birthdays on a small scale, with only one or two close friends or family members.  I don't see the point of celebrating birthdays at all. What's to celebrate?  First, birth is not unequivocally good.  Second, it is not something you brought about.  It befell you.  Better to celebrate some good thing that you made happen.

10. People describe me as "soft-spoken" or "mellow."  I'm too intense to be called 'mellow,' but sotto voce applies.

11. I prefer not to show or discuss my work with others until it is finished.  Pretty much, with the exception of these blog scribblings. 

12. I dislike conflict.  Can't stand it.  I hate onesidedness.  I look at a problem from all angles and try to mediate oppositions  when possible.  I thoroughly hate, reject, and abjure the blood sport approach to philosophy.  Polemic has no place in philosophy.  This is not to say that it does not have a place elsewhere, in politics for example.  Don't confuse politics with political philosophy. 

13. I do my best work on my own.  Yes.  A former colleague, a superficial extrovert, once described me as 'lone wolf.'  'Superficial extrovert' smacks of pleonasm. An extrovert is like a mirror: nothing in himself, he is only what reflects.  Is that fair? Fair enough for a blog post. Or an extrovert is like an onion: peel away the last skin and arrive at — precisely nothing.  The extrovert manages to be surface all the way down.  Or you could say that he is merely a node in a social network. He is constituted by his social relations, and nothing apart from them; hence no substance that enters into social relations.

14. I tend to think before I speak.  Yes.

15. I feel drained after being out and about, even if I've enjoyed myself.  Yes.  This is a common complaint of introverts.  They can take only so much social interaction.  It depletes their energy and they need to go off by themselves to 'recharge their batteries.'  In my case, it is not just an energy depletion but a draining away of my  'spiritual substance.'  It is as if one's interiority has been compromised and one has entered into inauthenticity, Heidegger's Uneigentlichkeit.  The best expression of this sense of spiritual depletion is probably Kierkegaard's remark in one of his early journal entries about a party he attended:

I have just returned from a party of which I was the life and soul; witty banter flowed from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me — but I came away, indeed that dash should be as along as the radii of the earth's orbit ———————————————————- wanting to shoot myself. (1836)

16. I often let calls go through to e-mail.  Yes. See comment to #8 above.

17. If I had to choose, I'd prefer a weekend with absolutely nothing to do to one with too many things scheduled.  I love huge blocks of time, days at a stretch, with no commitments whatsoever. Dolce far niente.  Sweet to do nothing.

18. I don't enjoy multitasking.  Right. One thing at a time.

19. I can concentrate easily.  Obviously, and for long stretches of time.

20. In classroom situations, I prefer lecture to seminars.  Especially if I'm doing the lecturing.

Here is a description of the Myers-Briggs INTP.  And here is another.

The Introvert Advantage

We introverts make up about a quarter of the population. No surprise, then, that we are poorly understood.  We are not shy or anti-social. Extroverts abuse us, but there is no need to reply in kind since the present turn of events will do the job for us. They will suffer. We will have no trouble maintaining our social distance. We have rich inner lives and welcome the opportunity to have an excuse to withdraw from the idle talkers, the unserious, the spiritless, and the superficial.  Call it the Introvert Advantage.  

‘Journalists’ of the Garbage Cult Media

Here:

These people are all part of a garbage cult, a garbage cult where not a single one of them has the moral courage to come out and tell the truth… And here is the truth…

On Friday, after Trump expressed his own personal optimism and sense of hope about chloroquine, a malaria drug that may or may not (and the president was clear it may not work) mitigate the coronavirus, Alexander decided to debate and argue with the president:

Continue reading “‘Journalists’ of the Garbage Cult Media”

Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Gambler He Broke Even

As you know, Kenny Rogers has died at the age of 81.  

A few days ago, on my way back from a traipse in the local hills, I encountered a couple the female half of which suffers from Parkinson's. Being the over-clever fellow that I am, I asked her what condition her condition was in, thereby alluding to a curious '60s number. Her husband caught the allusion and hipped me to a fact hitherto unknown to me, namely, that the band in question, The First Edition, was headed by Kenny Rogers before he went country.  He was quite the genre-hopper. Before the acid-rock tune. he sang with the New Christy Minstrels, a 'sanitized' and 'wholesome' collegiate folk outfit. Here is "Green Green" with upbeat Barry Maguire in the lead. This was before Maguire got all topical and protesty and dark with Eve of Destruction in the summer of '65.

I never listened to much Kenny Rogers, but of course I know and like his signature number, now a permanent bit of Americana that taps into the myths that move the red-blooded among us. I mean The Gambler:

And when he finished speakin'
He turned back toward the window
Crushed out his cigarette
And faded off to sleep
 
And somewhere in the darkness
The gambler he broke even
But in his final words
I found an ace that I could keep
 
You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run
 
You never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin'
When the dealin's done.
 
Bonus cuts:
 
Clancy Bros., Ramblin' Gamblin' Willie
 
Byrds, Eight Miles High.  Referenced in the 'condition' tune.

Is the World Inconceivable Apart from Consciousness?

That depends. It depends on what 'world' means.

Steven Nemes quotes Dermot Moran on the former's Facebook page:

[1] In contrast to the outlook of naturalism, Husserl believed all knowledge, all science, all rationality depended on conscious acts, acts which cannot be properly understood from within the natural outlook at all. [2] Consciousness should not be viewed naturalistically as part of the world at all, since consciousness is precisely the reason why there was a world there for us in the first place. [3] For Husserl it is not that consciousness creates the world in any ontological sense—this would be a subjective idealism, itself a consequence of a certain naturalising tendency whereby consciousness is cause and the world its effect—but rather that the world is opened up, made meaningful, or disclosed through consciousness. [4] The world is inconceivable apart from consciousness. [5] Treating consciousness as part of the world, reifying consciousness, is precisely to ignore consciousness’s foundational, disclosive role. ( Dermot Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology, p. 144

This strikes me as confused. I will go through it line by line. I have added numbers in brackets for ease of reference.

Ad [1]. I basically agree. I'm an old Husserl man. But while conscious acts cannot be properly understood from within die natürliche  Einstellung, it doesn't follow that they cannot be understood "at all" from within the natural attitude or outlook. So I would strike the "at all." I will return to this issue at the end.

Ad [2].  Here the trouble begins. I grant that conscious acts cannot be properly understood in wholly materialistic or naturalistic terms. They cannot be understood merely as events in the natural world. For example, my thinking about Boston cannot be reduced to anything going in my brain or body when I am thinking about Boston. Intentionality resists naturalistic reduction. And I grant that there is a sense in which there would not be a world for us in the first place if there were no consciousness. 

But note the equivocation on 'world.' It is first used to refer to nature itself, and then used to refer to the openness or apparentness of nature, nature as it appears to us and has meaning for us.  Obviously, without consciousness, nature would not appear, but this is not to say that consciousness is the reason why there is a natural world in the first place.  To say that would be to embrace an intolerable form of idealism.

Ad [3] We are now told that this is not idealism. Very good!  But note that the world that is disclosed and made meaningful is not the world that is inconceivable without consciousness.  The equivocation on 'world' persists.  There is world in the transcendental-phenomenological sense as the 'space' within which things are disclosed and become manifest, and there is world as the things disclosed.  These are plainly different even if there is no epistemic access to the latter except via the former.

Ad [4] To be precise, the world as the 'space of disclosure' is inconceivable without consciousness. But this is not the same as the natural world, which is not inconceivable without consciousness.  If you say that it is, then you are adopting a form of idealism, which is what Husserl in the end does.

Ad [5] In the final sentence, 'world' clearly refers to the physical realm, nature. I agree that it would be a mistake to reify consciousness, to identify it with any physical thing or process. Consciousness plays a disclosive role. As OF the world — genitivus objectivus — consciousness is not IN the world.  But the world in this sense IS conceivable apart from consciousness. 

And so the confusion remains.  The world in the specifically pheomenological sense, the world as the 'space' within which things are disclosed — compare Heidegger's Lichtung or clearing — is inconceivable without consciousness. But the world as that which is disclosed, opened up, gelichtet, made manifest and meaningful, is NOT inconceivable apart from consciousness. If you maintain otherwise, then you are embracing a form of idealism.

So I'd say that Moran and plenty of others are doing the 'Continental Shuffle' as I call it: they are sliding back and forth between two senses  of 'world.'  Equivalently, they are conflating the ontic and the broadly epistemic.  I appreciate their brave attempt at undercutting the subject-object dichotomy and the idealism-realism problematic.  But the brave attempt does not succeed.  A mental act of outer perception, say, is intrinsically intentional or object-directed: by its very sense it purports to be of or about something that exists apart from any and all mental acts to which it appears.  To speak like a Continental, the purport is 'inscribed in the very essence of the act."  But there remains the question whether the intentional object really does exist independently of the act. There remains the question whether the intentional object really exists or is merely intentional.  Does it enjoy esse reale, or only esse intentionale?

I recommend to my friend Nemes that he read Roman Ingarden's critique of Husserl's idealism.  I also recommend that he read Husserl himself (in German if possible) rather than the secondary sources he has been citing, sources some of which are not only secondary, but second-rate.

To return to what I said at the outset: Conscious acts cannot be properly understood naturalistically.  But surely a full understanding of them must explain how they relate to the goings-on in the physical organisms in nature that support them.  A sartisfactory philosophy cannot ignore this. And so, to end on an autobiographical note, this was one of the motives that lead me beyond phenomenology.

 

Husserl consistency

Equality is a Norm, not a Fact. Does it Have a Ground or is it Groundless?

As a matter of empirical fact, we are not equal, not physically, mentally, morally, spiritually, socially, politically, or economically.  By no empirical measure are people equal.  We are naturally unequal.  And yet we are supposedly equal as persons.  This equality of persons as persons we take as requiring equality of treatment.  Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), for example, insists that every human being, and indeed very rational being human or not, exists as an end in himself and therefore must never be treated as a means to an end.  A person is not a thing in nature to be used as we see fit.  For this reason, slavery is a grave moral evil.  A person is a rational being and must be accorded respect just in virtue of being a person.  And this regardless of inevitable empirical differences among persons.   Thus in his third formulation of the Categorical Imperative in his 1785 Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant writes:

Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only.  (Grundlegung 429)

In connection with this supreme practical injunction, Kant distinguishes between price and dignity. (435)  "Whatever has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; on the other hand, whatever is above all price, and therefore admits of no equivalent, has dignity."  Dignity is intrinsic moral worth.  Each rational being, each person, is thus irreplaceably and intrinsically valuable with a value that is both infinite — in that no price can be placed upon it — and the same for all. The irreplaceability of persons is a very rich theme, one I explore, with the help of the great Pascal, in Do I Love the Person or Only Her Qualities?

These are beautiful and lofty thoughts, no doubt, and most of us in the West (and not just in the West) accept them in some more or less confused form.  But what do these pieties have to do with reality?  Especially if reality is exhausted by space-time-matter?

Again, we are not equal by any empirical measure.  We are not equal as animals or even as rational animals.  We are supposedly equal as persons, as subjects of experience, as free agents.  But what could a person be if not just a living human animal (or a living 'Martian' animal).  And given how many of these human animals there are, why should they be regarded as infinitely precious?  Are they not just highly complex physical systems?  Surely you won't say that complexity as such confers value, let alone infinite value.  Why should the more complex be more valuable than the less complex?  And surely you are not a species-chauvinist who believes that h. sapiens is the crown of 'creation' just because we happen to be these critters.

If we are unequal as animals and equal as persons, then a person is not an animal.  What then is a person?  And what makes them equal in dignity and equal in rights and infinite in worth?

Now theism can answer these questions.   We are persons and not mere animals because we are created in the image and likeness of the Supreme Person.  We are equal as persons because we are, to put it metaphorically, sons and daughters of one and the same Father.  Since the Source we depend on for our being, intelligibility, and value is one and the same, we are equal as derivatives of that Source.  We are infinite in worth because we have a higher destiny, a higher vocation, which extends beyond our animal existence: we are created to participate eternally in the Divine Life.

Most of the educated cannot credit the idea of a Supreme Person.

But if you reject theism, how will you uphold the Kantian values adumbrated above?  If there is no God and no soul and no eternal destiny, what reasons, other than merely prudential ones, could I have for not enslaving you should I desire to do so and have the power to do so?

Aristotle thought it natural that some men should be slaves.  We find this notion morally abhorrent.  But why should we if we reject the Judeo-Christian God?  "We just do find it abhorrent."  But that's only because we are running on the fumes of the Judeo-Christian tradition.  What happens when the fumes run out?

It is easy to see that it makes no sense, using terms strictly, to speak of anything or anybody as a creature if there is no creator. It is less easy to see, but equally true, that it makes no sense to try to hold on to notions such as that of the equality and dignity of persons after their metaphysical foundations in Christian theism have been undermined.

So here you have a Nietzschean challenge to the New Atheists.  No God, then no justification for your classically liberal values! Pay attention, Sam Harris.  Make a clean sweep! Just as religion is for the weak who won't face reality, so is liberalism.  The world belongs to the strong, to those who have the power to impose their will upon it.  The world belongs to those hard as diamonds, not to those soft as coal and weak and womanish. Nietzsche:

Here one must think profoundly to the very basis and resist all sentimental weakness: life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation – but why should one for ever use precisely these words on which for ages a disparaging purpose has been stamped?

Beyond Good and Evil, Chapter 9, What is Noble?, Friedrich Nietzsche    Go to Quote

More quotations on strength and weakness here.

Self-Defense Shootings in Times of Turbulence

Governments that favor criminals over the law-abiding cause the latter to look to their own defense, often with tragic results.  Massad Ayoob offers sage advice for citizens who plan to arm themselves. On matters of personal defense and the use of firearms, Ayoob is a reliable and recognized authority.

Ayoob has made a number of useful videos. Here is one: Don't Answer the Door!

More videos and articles here.

Don't forget: when you vote Democrat you are voting to 

  • Open the borders (to illegal aliens, drugs, human trafficking, guns, and diseases)
  • Empty the prisons, hamstring the police, and undermine the rule of law
  • Violate the rights of citizens, especially First, Second, and Fourth Amendment rights.