Another child dies in Faith Healing Church

[the_idle_threat]

Hey man, no need to bag on Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

[Tyrone Bigguns]

Hey man, no need to bag on Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

You're right. Cheap shot against Richard Bach.

Guess i just have some pent up rage at the Wisco ed system that forced me to read crap literature. Prolly some damn lib mandated a christian tome!!

[mraynrand]

Like you, i tire of you inability to figure things out. BUt, it is to be expected from someone who worships a 3rd rate thinker.

That's better than 'worshipping' a crack smoker. Worship? Again, this is absurd hyperbole. You just don't get it, even after I carefully explain it to you, over and over.(But, since you are obviously so above Rand, please direct me to your writings that shame hers. If she's third rate, then you must not even register. One can only speculate where your satirical and lyrical poetry describing your voluminous excretions is published - perhaps you are a regular letter writer to Hustler?)

I recall your first 'treatise' on Rand. I printed it out for a philosophy prof friend of mine ( a guy who writes peer reviewed and published essays on Thomistic Metaphysics) and we laughed our asses off at your total gibberish. It's clear that I cannot alter your thinking in any way shape or form - and looking at your body of writing on this site, it's clear that you never concede a point (or at least very rarely). So I shall no longer attempt to engage you - it's a waste of our time. I'll just read your books as they come out - please don't forget to let us know when they are published.

To repeat one final time for anyone else who might be paying attention (because I really don't care what "15th wonder" thinks) - It's possible to like and appreciate some aspects of Rand, without buying into everything - or even most of it (Rand's views present all kinds of problems, but that's beyond my point here). Rand's work is a good jumping off point for anyone who hasn't studied any philosophy yet. It's relatively accessible to those who have not yet studied philosophy. Rand herself admired and borrowed from Spinoza and Aristotle, and reading Rand might whet your appetite for more formal and far deeper philosophical material. What was important about Rand is that she served as a counter to extremely confused but popular 20th century philosophers like John Rawls and Richard Rorty. Also, recall that Rand lived a lot of her life early in the Soviet Union and abhorred communism - a lot of her writing demonstrates visceral hatred of communism. She also bristled against a culture in the U.S. that thought that ethics were normative and reality conditional - a culture that thought that drug use could provide true insight into reality. A good example of her thinking regarding this subject is the essay "Sullivan versus Kant." It's not so difficult and formal (nor exceptionally deep) as to be inaccessible to non-philosophy majors. And finally, an analogy to Johnathan Livingston Seagull is probably appropriate. Among the philosopher greats, Rand is but a footnote, still, if one is to tackle philosophy, like reading great literature, one typically passes from the simple to the complex.