Manfred,

Here I reply your message with detail, as you made several assumptions that are incorrect.

“My mentioning the article of Al-Azm was just an indication to the fact that there are also members of the Arabic/Moslemic community that don’t agree with terrorism.”

I hope so. But when will those unnamed, unorganized members of the Muslim community raise and say that they “don’t agree with terrorism” and reject the ideology of jihad, which means the spread of Islam by all available means, included mass murder and genocide?

I won’t hold my breath, as I recognize the tenets of Islam as the root of the problem the West and the whole mankind faces.

“Of course your comment that we are involved in a clash of values is correct… if we compare Islamic values with Objectivist values.”

Islam clashes not only with Objectivist values, but also with Western values. Here you have the arguably two fundamental examples:

1.- The West loves life. Islam reveres death.

2.- According to the West, all humans are equal before the Creator and/or have legal Equality before the Rule of secular Constitutional Law.

According to Islam, there is a theological inequality --defined by the Koran, the Hadith, etc. and the Sharia, the canonical Islamic law-- between Muslim men and Muslim women, between Arab Muslims and non-Arab Muslims, and between Muslims and non-Muslims (“infidels”). In the last link you will see that, according to Islamic law, the non-Muslims must surrender to their Muslim masters, and then they are at the mercy of their masters and have to pay a tax (jitza) in order to be conceded the right to “live”.

The West defined the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, while the Islamic states proclamed the superiority of Shari’a law upon the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam of 1990, by issuing the following articles:

 
"Article 24: All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari'ah.  "Article 25: The Islamic Shari'ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification to any of the articles of this Declaration."

More info on that point here and here. Islamic "morality" is inhumane. Judge by yourself.

  

 “Unfortunately those values to which “Reborn Christian” Bush and all the other “leaders” of the West (all of them of the collectivist-altruist variety, being Socialists, Conservatives, Communists, etc.) refer to have all the same origin that the Islam has.”

Sadly, those leaders are misguided, as they are basing their policies in prejudice and Islamic disinformation (takiyya and kitman). In example, the term “Abrahamism” corresponds to that deceitful propaganda masterfully described by Diana West. In example, there has been a lot of Islamic infiltration in the American intelligence agencies and Government (see in example this book by Paul Sperry.) In the European Union is worse.

“We all know the history of these “exalted views of human existence”, with their murderous Crusades, Inquisitions and Jihads.”

You need to be careful with history in order to not to repeat it. The Crusades were a counter-attack to the first wage of jihad (still, we should recognize that the Crusader's methods did not fit to the contemporary Western sensibility.)

“So, you see, as deeply well as I do understand the meaning of what you say about “a clash of values” I cannot agree with it, since here we are basically facing a clash of the same values against the same values.”

Manfred, you’re misguided. See my former paragraphs in this post.

You can find more information in the website of the SOLOist Jason Pappas, “Liberty and Culture”, the website of the Objectivist Jack Wheeler, in the books written by Bat Yeor and Robert Spencer, and in the websites jihadwatch.com , dhimmiwatch.com , and sixthcolumnsagainstjihad.com .

 Best wishes,

Joel Català

(Edited by Joel Català on 7/08, 5:17am)

To Joel Català:

1)      On “But when will those unnamed, unorganized members of the Muslim community raise and say that they “don’t agree with terrorism” and reject the ideology of jihad, which means the spread of Islam by all available means, included mass murder and genocide?”

I don’t know if these unorganized members will ever raise themselves and reject the ideology generally accepted by the Muslim community neither do I know when will the Christians leave theirs and which originated, as I said, from the same roots, nor do I care, since this isn’t what’s involved here. The task of Objectivists is to spread the values of Objectivism (Reason, Purpose and Self-Esteem) with the corresponding virtues required to obtain and establish those values: Rationality, independence, Integrity, Honesty, Justice, Productiveness and Pride  (from “Atlas Shrugged”). To accept such an code of  ethics religious people, whether they are Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hinduists, Buddhists or you name it, have to leave their respective “codes”, which shouldn’t even be considered to be such for they are all designed for the human being to live in favor of “the glory” of a “higher”, nonexistent being. Hence, these “codes” turn human beings into slaves and don't promote what Objectivism considers human beings to be: independent rational beings.

All religions degrade and, thus, despise the human being, considering him merely as a tool for the “goals” of that nonexisting being, not to live for his (the human being’s) own sake.

It is more than just well known that Christians, like all other religions, are against rationality and Jason Pappas states this very clearly (“Conservatives, in particular, just can’t believe a religion can be bad. What conservatives won’t acknowledge is that it’s our secular heritage that makes us great and vastly superior to the Islamic barbarians.”)

And it’s really not necessary to point out specifically that ALL these on Plato-based religions consider females to be abject creatures, merely allowed to live because “god” (Sorry, I will never write this word in capitals) “made” them to serve their human “masters”. History is filled up to the brim and far beyond with the struggle that women had to go through and still are going through (yes, also within Christianity) to reach the same level as man (which would still be below human worthiness since man is also below that pretended “god”). I think, Mr. Catalá, that you should read the works of the great atheists (D’Holbach, Twain, Ingersoll, to mention just a few of a long list) just so that I haven’t to mention Rand on every second sentence.

2)      On: “West loves life” and  “According to the West, all humans are equal before the Creator and/or have legal Equality before the Rule of secular Constitutional Law.”

The West may love life but it does so by not saying it officially. Officially (read the Christian rules) life here on earth is not the “real thing” but merely a preparation for the “real life” that begins after death, in “Heaven” (whatever this may be). Hence, the Jewish as well as the Christian religion propounds the same as the Islam (which, as I mentioned in my earlier comment, originates there): Prepare your miserable earthly existence for the marvels of the “world to come”. The early Christians entered the ring of the Coliseum to be devoured by lions, etc. with the same conviction that moves Islamites to blow themselves up.

Further on: Humans may have legal Equality before the rule of the secular Constitutional Law (with all the slightings that still upset women) but this is the secular rule. The religious rules have never been changed (how could they since, after all, they were dictated by a “superior being”). The German author Karlheinz Deschner presented this very clearly in his book “Das Kreuz mit der Kirche” (“The Problem with the Church – The Sex History of Christianity”) but this book has never been translated into English (Why, oh, why? How could it be that it never was… translated, that is?)

3)      To: “Sadly, those leaders are misguided, as they are basing their policies in prejudice”

By this you confirm my own assertion, but they are not just misguided, they are in conscious error. They couldn’t otherwise. Ayn Rand presented the reasons for this very clearly. Their political ideas originate in religion, i.e. superstition, not in reason.
With reference to the secular constitutional law I suppose that you refer to its foundation, The American Constitution which, as Libertarians would say, is void where forbidden by law: It could almost be considered a “miracle” that, for once, some human beings used Reason to write such a glorious Declaration of the Rights of the Individual, as I call it. Jefferson did his best not to introduce the word “god” into its preamble, but had to give in to obtain the approval of some of the signers which were clergymen.

For the time being we are living through a period (once more?) where we are basically facing a clash of the same values against the same values.

Best regards,

Manfred F. Schieder

To Sharon Romagnoli Macdonals:

“I think we can start; by drawing attention to it as Manfred has, by first naming it at every opportunity.” It’s always good to have someone appreciating what I wrote. Evidently you got the idea. All Objectivists have to promote Rand’s marvellous philosophy and denounce whenever and wherever they can those “leaders” who claim to defend the Western world cloaked in falseness.



(Edited by Manfred F. Schieder on 7/08, 8:53am)

Michael,

Thank you for receiving my analysis and proposed solution so positively. To oppose a religion with another religion is to remain in what could be called “the irrational area”. We, the Objectivists, have the values and virtues which will eventually lead the world… if mankind wants to have a future, as Ayn Rand stated very precisely in one of her articles.

Will this happen? I do hope so and do my own, small but very personal best towards this end. Of course, there is no assurance that we will succeed. But it will be worth the effort, particularly in view of the fact that the world’s population and its “leaders” continue to wail the same lines of “We must help them more and more” and “Placate them, Conciliate and Sooth them” which was also Chamberlain’s way of “handling” Hitler’s assaults on other countries. But if this goes on, we will face what I call “The Way of the Alcoholic”: If the alcoholic doesn’t leave alcohol, alcohol will leave him… dead. Or, as Mises said in “Human Action”: “The body of economic knowledge is an essential element in the structure of human civilization; it is the foundation upon which modern industrialism and all the moral, intellectual, technological, and therapeutical achievements of the last centuries have been built. It rests with men whether they will make the proper use of the rich treasure with which this knowledge provides them or whether they will leave it unused. But if they fail to take the best advantage of it and disregard its teachings and warnings, they will not annul economics; they will stamp out society and the human race.”

Which is just another way of pointing out the same matter of survival.

Best regards,
Manfred

(Edited by Manfred F. Schieder on 7/10, 2:15am)

To Joel Català:

1.- The West loves life. Islam reveres death.

I read what you wrote and replied on this matter already twice, clearly explaining that unofficially people may love life but whenever they go to church they automatically adhere, precisely because they are going to church, to what Christianity says about preparing in this life for the “goodness” of the coming “real” life (I explained this too and gave sufficient examples of it). So, only atheists and Objectivists (excepting those who have a tremendous mess in their brain by adhering both to religion and Objectivism) state clearly and officially that they love life. The rest of the population may do so, but adhere officially to what religions say, i.e. that this is a “miserable life” (see the examples I gave). So, the West may love life but I, for one, would surely like to hear this voiced from every podium and platform, through every Western broadcast and TV channel, printed in every newspaper and magazine and declared in every pro-Western Website!

2.- According to the West, all humans are equal before the Creator and/or have legal Equality before the Rule of secular Constitutional Law.

By stating the first part of this assertion you are either a religionist or, else, you adhere to a religious claim, the end result being the same. To mention a religious contention in relation with this controversy is, if you are an Objectivist, a very strange procedure, for an Objectivist would never come up with a religious declaration since Objectivists are Atheists.

Besides, may I refer you to the Bible for all the rulings of the alleged “Creator” where this alleged “Creator” condemns all females to be inferior to man? I really don’t think it is necessary to do so. In what refers to the Equality before the Rule of secular Constitutional Law, reality does not confirm Equality to be so equal either. It reminds me of Orwell’s “Animal Farm” where all animals were equal… but some were more equal than others. Reality proves you wrong, Mr. Català, for, else, why would the West have so many associations of women fighting for their equal rights? If this would exist already, any such endeavour would prove itself to be totally senseless. Reality, however, shows that it is very sensible for women to fight for their rights.

And in what refers to the Western “values” that you defend they seem to be fully rejected. Tibor R. Machan proves the point in his recent article (http://solohq.com/Articles/Machan/Machans_Musings_-_Why_Bother_Celebrating_the_Fourth.shtml)

I suspect to know to what values you refer (some of them implied in the Objectivist values) and I would agree with you if you were to state that Western people have far more rights (including liberty, of course) than any other “culture” (if we could even call Islam, etc. to be a culture, as Multiculturalists would like this to be, but I, again for one, does not consider these “cultures” to be cultures at all). Unfortunately, “far more rights” means a partiality and not an absolute.

Finally, when it comes to “values” I don’t see that Objectivist values are universally recognized. Quite the contrary, the main Western “values” seem to be “Repent, you were born in guilt”, “You must live for your next of kin”, “Live for God and Government”, “Be altruistic”, “The collective is the important thing”, “Wealth is a sin”, etc. Do you know who said “The common good is more important than the individual good”? It was Goebbels, the statement being a fully socialist one.

“Mises was totally right in the merely economic --the materialist-- area. Yes, the proper philosophy must provide the values for the pursuit of material progress.”

Philosophy must provide the values only for the material progress? Rand said: "In order to live, man must act; in order to act, he must make choices; in order to make choices, he must define a code of values; in order to define a code of values, he must know what he is and where he is – i.e. he must know his own nature (including his means of knowledge) and the nature of the universe in which he acts – i.e. he needs metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, which means: philosophy. He cannot escape from this need; his only alternative is whether the philosophy guiding him is to be chosen by his mind or by chance."

So Objectivism involves a lot of spirit, as I see it, though, of course, NOT a religious spirit, but a mental one, i.e. consciousness. It was Rand who eliminated the soul (consciousness)-body dichotomy.

I cited Mises in a completely different context, the context being the assertion that the West will not survive if it doesn’t start taking up the Objectivist values and virtues.

Best regards,

Manfred F. Schieder

Joel:

The Ayn Rand Institute says, and this is a basic concept for Objectivists, that “A culture that values freedom, progress, reason and science is good; one that values oppression, mysticism and ignorance is not.” I took this, for timesake reasons, from a recent article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-1697223,00.html.

We are at war, no doubt, and the way history reads it seems that this is the “natural state” for mankind…Beyond this general comment I don’t go with appeasers, and I stated this very clearly already in the message I sent to Michael Stuart Kelly in this thread.

It is fully clear that Islam, Islamists and all those who adhere to such criminal ideologies (this, of course, includes Communists, Nazis and all further dictatorships who I resume in the articles I write as “Stalitlers”) are against freedom, progress, reason and science.

Unfortunately, I don’t see these values to be neither held up as banners nor even respected by the Leading Nation of the West: the U.S.A. and, I must hasten to add, I am very, very sorry to have to say this. America is overflowing with religions of all types (recently a Sunday preacher even bought a whole stadium to make room for his followers, I think it was in Texas, but I didn’t register the name of the place when I heard the news… still, it’s in the States, that’s for sure; all this besides Cruise and Travoltas’s promoting Scientology) and the president of the US himself is a “Reborn Christian” whose heavy drinking really doesn’t calm my nerves. See:(http://www.rawstory.com/exclusives/mayhew/bush_couch_review_71804.htm), http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/052305Y.shtml, etc. I don’t go with these left-winger websites whenever they yell against the West but when it comes to what they say about the religious people who are ruling the world there is much truth in their words.

Now you say that these people are waging war in favour of my freedom as an atheist. Whatever they are doing, they are NOT representing me, precisely because I am an atheist and, thus and of course, an Objectivist also. Surely I have to live or die thru what is now happening, since I live at this time. But the West is by no means defending the correct values and, thus, is not defending my freedom. The correct values are, in a nutshell and as said before, freedom, progress, reason and science. These values are totally against more government control, more status quo, more religion and mysticism of any kind whatsoever. The West would be defending me if it held the values and virtues of Objectivism (the values mentioned above are part of the Objectivist values). Then it would be a war of Atheism against the Islamists. The way it is, we have a modern repetition of the religious wars of the past. Apparently humanity hasn’t learned anything in all in all the time gone by. And this is a most unfortunate fact.

Since we have war as the topic of this interchange of comments, may I point out the following?

1)      When the Americans succeeded in Iraq I saw a car travelling through the dusty streets of Baghdad with a young girl leaning wide out of the window and holding a large sign on which she had scrawled “Thank You, USA”. About a year later, during a round table held by a German TV-channel I saw and heard an Iraqi disappointedly saying: “We all expected that the United States would bring Capitalism to us all, but the Americans deceived us, for they didn’t establish Capitalism in our country.” Where are the Western values???

2)      Kuwait is still a hereditary monarchy that rules dictatorially. Where are the Western values???

3)      What is happening now in Iraq, with Shiites and Sunnites bombing each other to pieces, was already prognosticated by Frederick Forsyth in his book “The Fist of ‘god’” On page 429 (Chapter 18) a detailed document is presented to the reader (I don’t know nor care whether this “document” really exists or is just a product of Forsyth’s clear reasoning) where somebody signing as “PIAG” (whatever this could mean) presents a detailed account of what would happen (and is happening now) if the United States enters and takes Iraq. Finally, as an epilogue, there is “A Final Note” presenting a solution of what should be done but isn’t.
Of course the West deserves to win, and it would be a great disservice to Ayn Rand if it didn’t but, most unfortunately, I don’t see neither Bush nor Blair (whose free hand-outs to Third World dictators and their henchmen of the money made by productive people and exploited by extortive taxes are pure socialist populism and, thus, an idiocy of incredible dimensions) to have the guts for it. Only Objectivism will do the “trick” but we’re only at the beginning of the road.

Best regards,

Manfred