[at-l] 15 billion light yrs.

[brian@patriot.net (Brian C Merrell)]

1) You may wish to look up "eudaimonism".  Mostly defunct now (at least in
a formal sense), it was a Greek philosophical/ethical concept that posited
that when doing something for yourself you were also benefitting society.

2) Remember, you're a rational human being.  You are perfectly capable of
picking and choosing, and are not held to ALL tenets of any one system or
set of beliefs.

(I'm just saying that they are only not compatible if you limit yourself
to believing fully in one or the other.)

(And yes, that quote from Fountainhead was great.  All other things aside,
Rand's stuff is well written and inspirational.  Mix that with some Robert
Persig, from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance fame, and you're
set. :)

-brian

-- 
Brian C. Merrell               | "All that glitters is not gold,
brian@patriot.net              |  All who wander are not lost."
ICBM address: 38.845 N, 77.3 W |                -J.R.R. Tolkien

On Fri, 18 Jan 2002, Clark Wright wrote:

> That post was f**kin awesome! For my entire adult life, I've struggled
> mightily with these, three fundamental (and somewhat contradictory)
> forces:
>
> 1)  My strong attraction to Ayn Rand's works, with her pure concept of
> "selfishness" [i.e., Mother Teresa is as selfish as Bill Gates - they
> both do what makes THEM feel good!] and pride in the accomplishments of
> mankind;
> 2)  My growing attraction to the pure basics of my Christian faith [no
> dusty, organized fractions of the religion need apply!] and more vague
> (but strong) feelings of "spirituality" such as recently touched on by
> Shane's posts; and
> 3)  My deep-rooted attraction to those portions of "nature" that have
> least been altered by the hand of mankind.
>
> Perhaps it is important, in struggling to reconcile such forces, to
> admit they are not fully compatible; they represent much that is deep
> and ancient, and much that is new; and they come together in various
> times and places to make me who I am, and who I may yet be . . .
>
> thru-thinker
>