Ayn Rand

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed

2 Comments

“Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed” is one of Ayn Rand’s essential dictums. But did she mean to imply Leonard Peikoff’s view transcribed below?

Is it proper for a doctor to perform a sex-change operation for a patient?

Now here I say absolutely no. Unequivocally. I regard the desire of any individual who is formed already—not a hermaphrodite but who is formed already as one sex—to say, “Nature has made a mistake. I am really the opposite gender and I have to operate to fix Nature’s mistake and give myself the right body.”—I believe that that is an arch-example of a whim over reality. The definition of male and female is biological. So to say I know more than the biological, I feel, regardless of fact is … it’s more, though, than an evasion of reality, it is a war against reality. It is a way of saying, reality gives me this and I am going to smash it and turn it into something else.

I’ll give you an analogy. I mean it’s just as bad … no, it’s not as bad, because cutting off your genitals is the worst. I mean, you know, you can weigh which is worse, that or scooping out your brain, it’s a hard call.

But, suppose a person were to say, I was really intended to have no fingers. They feel alien to me and funny when I move them and I want to get back to what I really am which is, you know, a non-fingered person, and therefore I want them amputated. And then imagine that this person goes to a doctor and the doctor says, “Oh, fine, you know, ten more and then we just hand the Medicare form in.”

That is totally corrupted, the doctors who perform those operations, in my opinion, are corrupt, without qualification. I put them in the same category as the doctors in the Nazi concentration camps who took out perfectly healthy organs simply as an exercise in their skill, completely independent of the validity or the value or the morality of what they were doing. (… I’ll let that go, but you get my drift, I’m sure.)


Peter Jackson demonstrates how to scoop out brains in this clip from the movie Bad Taste.
(At approx 12:02.)

But, suppose a person were to say, “I was really intended to have no fingers. They feel alien to me and funny when I move them and I want to get back to what I really am which is, you know, a non-fingered person, and therefore I want them amputated.”

It may come as a surprise (it surprised me), but people really do say exactly this. They have a disorder called Body Integrity Identity Disorder. Leonard Peikoff take note.

See also Lindsay Perigo’s Man Qua Woman.

[Cross-posted to SOLO.]

Paul

Ephesians 6:10-13

Leave a comment

My brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. (KJV)

Humour

Darwin Award nomination attempt

3 Comments

Stuff.co.nz reports

A man has suffered extensive burns after LPG from a cylinder he was using to light a cannabis pipe exploded in his face, police say.

Sergeant Paul Lee said emergency services were called to Clyde Street in Masterton about 12.50pm today.

On arrival, they found a 22-year-old man with burns to his face, arms, thigh and knee.

Lee said it appeared the man was “pre heating a pipe used for smoking cannabis” using a 9kg gas cylinder with a modified gas valve in the laundry of his home.

“He opened a valve, there was a pause, he then operates his cigarette lighter causing an explosion.”

…

If the man had died he would have been a nominee for the Darwin Awards.

My question today is, “If you ran a Darwin Awards for creationists, what would you call it?”

Property

Paley’s other watch

10 Comments

In his book Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature, first published in 1802, William Paley wrote

In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone and were asked how the stone came to be there, I might possibly answer that for anything I knew to the contrary it had lain there forever; nor would it be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place. I should hardly think of the answer which I had given before, that for anything I knew the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone? Why is it not as admissible? When we come to inspect the watch, we perceive—what we could not discover in the stone—that its parts are framed and have been put together.
 
We notice more: we find a series of wheels, the teeth of which catch in, and apply to, each other, conducting the motion to the balance and from the balance to the pointer. Further, we notice that the wheels are made of brass to prevent rust; the springs of steel (no other metal being so elastic); that over the face of the watch there is placed a glass, a material employed in no other part of the work, and without which the hour could not been seen without opening the case. This mechanism being observed, the inference, we think is inevitable: the watch must have had a maker, and been designed for a purpose.

 
Paley’s question was, “Does the watch have an intelligent designer?”

My question is, “Does the watch belong to someone?”

[Cross-posted to SOLO.]

Christian Libertarianism, Freedom, King James Bible, Thomas Jefferson

Protestant Christianity had a Baby… Libertarianism.

3 Comments

For a Ref to Jefferson’s Religious views:
Conservapedia
Quote:

In an 1803 letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Jefferson declared that “I am a Christian,” though his view of Christianity was different from most:

I then promised you that one day or other I would give you my views of [the Christian religion]. They are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed, but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others, ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other.

However, despite Jefferson’s self-declared Christianity, many of his views would be considered heretical by most theologians. Most notably, he attempted to create the Jefferson Bible – an edited version of the New Testament that retained Christ’s moral and practical teaching, while dropping supernatural elements.

Jefferson certainly believed Jesus to be a great teacher of morality, and believed the universe to be created by a God. Less clear is his views on subjects such as the divinity of Christ, the resurrection, sin and salvation. The Jefferson Bible suggests he rejects these ideas entirely, but is not definitive. Jefferson never had his Bible published during his lifetime. He did have this to say about Christianity and the message contained in the work that he created.

There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.

Ref to John Adams here:
about.com
Quote:

“The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”

–Adams wrote this on June 28, 1813, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson.

Read/ watch more… Materialism renders Man Nought. Meaning-less, Value-less, Right-less.

The Christian Fellowship is a voluntary private society, not a theocratic political movement.

Jihad on Drugs™, Vote 2012

How not to toast a marshmallow

Leave a comment

Once upon a time, the marshmallow was a medicinal confection made from mucilaginous extracts of the root of Althaea officinalis, the marshmallow plant, and used as a remedy for a sore throat. Today, the marshmallow has nothing to do with the marshmallow plant. It is a sugary junk food containing gelatin, a substance made from the skin and bones of dead animals. I don’t eat dead animals, so I don’t toast marshmallows.

Althaea officinalis

Once upon a time, yoghurt was a dairy product produced by bacterial fermentation of milk. Now it, too, is a sugary junk food containing gelatin. Halal gelatin. I don’t eat dead animals, especially not those whose throats are slit by knife-wielding Muslims, facing Mecca, so I don’t eat yoghurt.

Tussilago farfara

Once upon a time, herbal highs contained synthetic cannabinoids and were legally available for purchase for at least a week before they got banned. The latest herbal high is Sky and it’s already been pulled from the shelves because, according to the NZ Herald, “its active ingredient is tussilago farfara, or coltsfoot,” which “has been shown to cause tumours in rats and liver failure, says a toxicologist.” Herbalists have long used coltsfoot medicinally as a cough suppressant. The name “tussilago” itself means “cough suppressant.” If you could get Sky-high smoking it, I’m pretty sure I’d have heard about it before now. I’m going to say, “I told you so.”

Kilimanjaro Sky

 
What’s the world coming to?

But I digress. This post was supposed to be about Ron Paul’s “blowback”.
Or, why 20 year old newsletters matter so damn much.

Dispensationalism, John

Letter to Laodicea

4 Comments

“To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:

These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” (NIV1984)

Give me Liberty, or give me Death!