| | Adam,
Bonk. That was one of your best posts.
Thanks, I'll get that third Atlas guy yet. Which is weird since I've been posting since the ye ole days of Joy Bushnell lol.
Anywho...
I'll give it a second shot, Robert, since you think I ignored your argument. I am not here to argue what Deism is or what Ayn Rand thought of the founding fathers who happened to be deists. What I am aruging is whether or not the benevolent universe premise has deist connotations as the thrust of your argument suggests that it might.
In my first post I argued that within the context of Ayn Rand's system of thought, that it would be impossible that she would say anything that could be interpreted as supporting any sort of mysticism. Deism even with its lip-service towards being 'natural' religion, is still a religion advocating a mystical entity beyond man's comprehension. There is no way for this to be confused with Objectivist metaphysics. You also said:
The axioms you are talking about have to do with man qua man as nature intended him to be on Earth.
First of all, nature does not posess free will. If it does could you send me a video of you arguing with it?
Second, the axioms of existence apply throughout the universe, not just on planet Earth. Looking at the moon we know that it is not made of green cheese as the Apollo missions have demonstrated. If the law of identity did not hold then we could be correct in saying that its surface is both green cheese and regolith all at once. If the law of causality did not hold then two astronauts (assuming equal mass) could walk on its surface with one sinking and drowning in the regolith/cheese mixture, with the other bouncing off the surface like he's jumping on a motel bed. Why? The moon's surface is all green cheese and all regolith. Thus there is no identity to what the surface of the moon actually is therefore you cannot accurately know the moon's nature in terms of how it reacts in the presence of other entities. Obviously this is bullshit since we do have knowledge of the moon's surface and that we know how biological bipedal motion works on its surface. So you see, the axioms of existence apply beyond our earthly boundaries.
But what about a supreme creator who created a world explainable through science via natural laws? I see this as phony for two reasons. First something cannot be created from nothing. However, lets assume this creator has a ton of modeling clay from which to shape the universe. We still don't have any idea of who or what created the creator, or who created the creator of the creator, etc. Or in otherwords, we have the series of infinite regression. How about a different take. Let's say that existence simply exists, and God simply oversees existence, neverminding the fact that God seems to be a disembodied conscience. He looks at Moses needing to cross the Red Sea, and parts it for him. Is there anything that scientists know about the nature of the any sea, or of gravity that would allow it to part in such a manner? I thought so.
Lets look at another quote of yours.
Would the universe seem benevolent to a man asked to survive on Saturn or the Sun?
Who would be asking man to survive on Saturn or the Sun. If you answer nature, I'll just say what I said before. Nature does not have free will. We are not here because nature wanted us here on Earth (the only planet suitable for human life in this solar system), no more than we are here due to random chance. We are here as an inevitable result of natural causality. Causality is the underlying explanation for everything that is in the universe not here of man's choice. Ironically, man's ability of free will itself is a product of causality as it became imperative for our survival during the evolutionary proccess.
With that out of the way, you claim that the 'benevolent universe' is a personification. That is precisely what it is, but that does not mean that it is a logical fallacy either. I'll try restating in a more Objective sense, since you seem unable to get the message in the simplest metaphorical term. To a man who acts in accordange with his knowledge of the universe he gained by means of reason for a rational moral purpose, the universe is percieved by such a man to be benevolent. If you are still unable to see that there is no possiblity of a connection between Deism and the benevolent universe premise after this post, then you are not anywhere near an Objectivist.
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