Reply personal responsibility is a crock: here is why

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https://www.google.com/search?q=objecti ... e&ie=UTF-8

(of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.

Angelrho, are you joking dude?

https://www.bibleref.com/1-Corinthians/ ... -14-1.html

Look at the definition of objective.

God basically said that our actions towards others are supposed to be based in love. Love towards others is what motivates us to do for others. Yet, to be objective is not to be influenced by personal feelings or opinions at all even though love is an emotion or based in emotions. How can you claim the idea of objective love when both are diametrically opposite to each other. To be objective is to let logic and rationality guide one's actions toward others. That's not what the bible says at all.

Your beliefs contradict themselves and the Bible.

i wonder what AngelRho things of the late mr. rogers?

Fred Rogers is a tough nut to crack.

First of all...his faith in humanity and his optimism are immediately apparent. From a child development perspective, I feel that he did a lot of good in promoting positive self-esteem and was very matter-of-fact when it came to difficult child issues. He was certainly more positive and up-beat than, say, Sesame Street. And while I do enjoy Daniel Tiger, I'm not certain that Daniel Tiger quite captures the same positive spirit and vision that Fred had. I think with Daniel Tiger and Sesame Street there's just too much influence from identity politics and a persistent victim mentality that does a disservice to the underlying values those shows attempt to teach. I have no problem with my children watching shows like Mr. Rogers, Daniel Tiger, and Sesame Street. I'd encourage other parents to let their kids watch those shows. I would just advise that parents exercise caution and discernment while doing so and make sure they keep an open dialog with their children about some of the themes presented on those shows. I never felt the same negativity with Mr. Rogers as a child, nor have I ever felt that way rewatching some of those episodes as an adult.

Those are the positives. Now for the negatives...

I think it's a GOOD thing that Fred Rogers was apolitical on the show. I think it's good practice to advocate good, positive values without heavily injecting politics into the message. I think going political to some degree is inherently unavoidable, yes, but this can largely be balanced in such a way that people with differing viewpoints don't feel alienated from what they feel are the benefits of watching the show. Andy Taylor was another character that embodied positive values that resonated with conservative, evangelicals, despite Andy Griffith himself identifying more with left-wing ideologies. Notice I point out that TAGS resonated with conservative evangelicals, but TBH TAGS straddled the left-right divide. Andy Taylor RARELY draws a gun, and Barney Fife is only allowed to carry one bullet in his shirt pocket--which as I recall Andy only instructed Barney to load that one bullet ONCE in the entire series when dealing with an extremely dangerous situation. Hello gun control. So when you look at TAGS in relation to MRN, there's really nothing that screams conservative or liberal; but there are good, positive values I think would appeal to both sides.

The problem I have with, hence why I look at it as a negative, is Fred Rogers had the kind of influence and the right platform to give a name to the values he promoted. His apolitical, areligious approach made it confusing as to what his actual intentions are when it came to the values presented on the show. What we do know about Rogers is that he was a mainline protestant minister, leading one to assume that the show was a platform for propagating leftist values such as socialist justice, perpetual victimhood, and the encouragement of greed and envy. Mainline protestants hardly seem to know the Bible at all or they just outright ignore it--after all, it can't possibly be LITERALLY true--and you don't have to really look THAT hard to find elements of moral relativism leaking into the show narrative. Daniel Tiger, by contrast, doesn't even try to hide it. I mean...come on, you have this little kid running around who can't be bothered to wear any pants, meaning that while Daniel tiger is generally presumed to be male, there is no clear indication that he really is and that his gender could easily remain fluid. He has no need to cover his bottom because there's nothing to cover, no pressure to decide one way or another how to identify. He's a brat, too, and his parents are abject failures at maintaining discipline. He's allowed to do pretty much whatever he wants with no clear consequences while his parents resort to subjective calls to "use your words" when what he really needs is a good spanking. I don't suggest that physical punishment is ever appropriate for children's programming. It's that if you cannot remain objective when dealing with difficult issues such as anger management, defiance, and self-control, it's best to just leave them alone. If you mean to remain areligious and apolitical on something, you fare better simply modeling the desired behavior rather than showing that poor behavior never has unpleasant consequences. I don't recall that Mr. Rogers ever had that kind of problem, but I'm concerned that he laid the groundwork for it. Had Mr. Rogers lived, would he have betrayed that neutrality and balance? I think if Daniel Tiger is any indication, he might well have. The lesson we learn from Mr. Rogers is that if you don't take a defined moral stand, you end up displaying one, anyway, and one that might be perceived negatively. I'd like to think that Mr. Rogers would have strongly disapproved of Daniel Tiger, but this is something we can't know for sure. It is that uncertainty that has me a little concerned about Mr. Rogers himself and MRN's narrative.

I think one thing that is clear is that Fred Rogers intended his show as a platform for promoting his and his church's values. Just what those values really are, if there ever were any such values to begin with, is highly questionable. I think leaving it up to interpretation the way Fred Rogers did and even more so with Daniel Tiger is highly problematic and potentially destructive.

Another minor issue I have, speaking as an adult, is that MRN relies too much on fantasy to explore issues and solve problems. This isn't the absolute worst thing in the world, though, because imagination and allegory have always been useful in exploring moral and practical problems. My criticism of MRN is that perhaps it goes too far into make-believe that it's too difficult to connect the imagination to the real world. I think it's risky, though I do think Rogers skillfully managed it. TAG, OTOH, despite being a comedy and understandably, purposefully absurd, handled situations and characters with much more realism. It was easier to connect moral studies with real life because all parents at some point experience the kinds of problems Andy did in his relationship with Opie, and many of us rural Americans know people or are even close friends with some of the more backwoods characters that showed up from time to time. I don't think Mr. Rogers was quite so helpful, and I think his show risked turning the TV into a free babysitter with much of the good substance of the show getting lost in fantasy.

As I said earlier, I never had any problem with Fred Rogers or his show as a child, and still don't as an adult. I think he handled a lot of real child development issues in very positive ways and was strong in building self-esteem. I think his apolitical, areligious approach was both good AND bad--good in that he could push positive values and still encourage children to think for themselves, bad in that these values could be ambiguous and potentially dangerous and destructive. While I think that Mr. Roger's political/theological policy of "if you can't say nothing nice, don't say nothing at all" can mesh really well with objectivist thinking, I think it can also be grossly repurposed as promoting dangerous collectivist ideas, as well.

To be honest, as a child my main motivation for even watching Mr. Rogers was getting to see Lady A. I always had the biggest crush on her!

I'm not sure you really understand the Bible or objectivism. You certainly have no willingness to understand the relationship between love, reason, and emotion. God created everything, therefore love and logic are divine creations. The idea that the two are opposed is absurd. You're also creating a false dichotomy between emotion and logic. Emotions are the reason why people even have logic. Go back and study some more.

I often find that the biggest proponents of personal responsibility are the ones who entered life with the most privileges. A supervisor I had a few years ago said "Life actually is fair. It gives you back what you put into it." He was a trust fund baby.

And sure, they work hard. Nobody's denying that. But they never acknowledge that countless others have worked just as hard, often much harder, but they never got the same success because of poverty, disability, discrimination, or any other number of factors.

They overlook that it was simple dumb luck that it was they who happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right resources to stumble upon the right opportunity while others did not.

They ignore that it was a random fluke that it wasn't them who went bankrupt when their spouse got cancer or were crippled by a drunk driver.

They think that they somehow did something to earn the wealth that was handed to them because they happened to come out of the right womb.

Personal responsibility is a dog whistle used by the privileged to claim credit for their unearned privileges.

Not really. Wombs aren't made out of wealth. The womb is a bag made out of meat used for growing new humans. Both the rich and the poor are all made from the same snot wad shot through the same man-organ injected close to the opening of the same meat-bag.

What you're missing is the fact that the former owner of any given snot-wad or owner of any given meat-bag is capable of independently generating wealth for himself or herself. Wealth creation is dependent on innovation, forward thinking, risk-taking, and investments of time and effort. Wealth creation does not recognize its own skin color or its own victim-class identity, whatever that happens to be. All wealth creation requires is the seed of an idea watered by value, bearing fruits of goods, services, and mutual benefit through trade. The only privilege anyone has is being born under the umbrella of a government that allows inventive individuals to bring their ideas to life and to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Your father and mother have the same opportunities as anyone else, including amassing great amounts of wealth if they choose to try and happen to succeed. There is nothing special about being born into wealth, despite what jealous people say about it. All it means to be born into wealth is that one's parents thought their baby special enough to pass their wealth along to them rather than someone else. While I don't have a lot of money, I do have ability and ideas that I pass along to my children, which means they are better able to succeed in certain things more than others. But that's ok, because ALL parents can choose to do that if they want. Children succeed best when they grow up choosing to stand on their parents' shoulders rather than in their shadows. Despite however much a parent loves a child, no amount of wealth or ability can guarantee lasting success beyond a generation or so.

Rather than expressing envy for the wealthy, why not give them admiration? The ideas and the products of ideas from the wealthy contribute to a vastly improved quality of life. Gates and Jobs helped make personal computers available for every home. Even open-source developers have day jobs that support their work, and while open-source projects are free, developers reap great rewards by improving the landscape of computing, machine learning/AI, etc. There's money to be made in the single-board computing business where you have a complete system for common computer tasks or even IoT projects. Without value and wealth, without independent thinkers, without this so-called privilege, you wouldn't even be posting on this forum.

And, all you're doing is giving the same propaganda other conservatives have given me.

Not really. And even if I were, so what? How exactly have you contributed anything new to this discussion? I was actually slightly relieved that auntblabby and dorkseid showed up. I'd never considered an objectivist assessment of Mr. Rogers before. I honestly wasn't prepared for that. There may be a lot going on there that I don't necessarily agree with, but he was truly a genius when it came to child development. It wasn't that he was particularly skilled in that area, but he had the genius of recognizing people who were. Children want and deserve to feel valued and loved. So while some of his motives and methods MIGHT have been questionable, he was way ahead of his time.

I mean no offense, cube, but you and aghogday both are trapped in a single interpretation of the Bible that is often weaponized to prey on Christian guilt. That kind of emotionally abusive manipulation is only going to work on people who are afraid they might have something to feel guilty about. I don't claim to be perfect, nor do I think I have all the answers to everything. As a flawed human being I do acknowledge that I do have things to feel guilty about. But the emphasis Catholics and mainline protestants place on human guilt serves to emotionally abuse other people, which is something the church has been allowed to do for centuries. The saving act of Jesus on the cross and His resurrection erases human guilt so there is no longer any need for it. It simply becomes irrelevant. Any time someone points a finger at me and calls me out for not doing what they say Jesus meant for me to do, I can reasonably assume that they are acting out of envy and greed. There's no need for that. Anything that would be offered in God's name not from a sincere, willing heart is unacceptable. So when someone blatantly attempts to emotionally abuse me, such as what you've been trying to do, I let it go and pray for the soul of that person. Perhaps you really are a Christian believer and haven't had anything besides a gross misinterpretation of scripture to work from. If that's the case, then I pity you and hope that you'll one day repent. But in the meantime, don't expect much of a response from me after you decide to use emotionally abusive tactics. I've dealt with bullies enough in life, and still often do, that I can see it for what it is. You are envious of what you believe some of us have, therefore you think it's appropriate to weaponize the words of Jesus. I would be careful of that if I were you. Jesus, among others, had strong words to say about false teachers. Take care that you don't become one yourself.

---

Dude, It Seems You Still Don't Have

'A Clue'; How Many Times

Will It Take You to Read

'Matthew', to Understand

That if You Don't See Everyone

As Your Brother And Give them
What They Need, You Get to Burn In Hell FOREVER;

And Of Course, i Don't Believe that CR9P;

Only Someone Like Trump Or any Other

Psychopathic Leaning Person would

Write Anything About Anything

Torturing Anything Forever; that's Just plain Psychopathic;

And let's Remember, Those In Charge Of What Got Put

In the Book; An Organization That Still Protects

Pedophiles, Recently; And One Where Even 'Saint

Augustine' Didn't Change His Desire for Twelve

Year-Old-Girls to Marry until After He had his 'Fill'...

So 'Paul' Bumped His Head and Had 'a Vision';

Like Innumerable Other Folks Who have done

The Same Frigging Thing As Well and Made up

Stories; Now To Be Clear for Real, i have about as much

Knowledge about 'That Bible' as Some

Folks With Divinity Degrees; To Be

Clear, It's Just a Story; An Old One,

Written by Many Ghost Authors; Where So-Called

Yeshua, Never wrote a Frigging Word; Illiterate,

And Gone, Gone, Gone, For Decades Before

Any Greek Roman Writing Ghost Author Cherry
Picked Words Out of Oral Traditions From Many Sects...

i don't worship

A Story; i Am no Fool

For Words of Other

Ancient Writers

To Worship

As Words, Yes,

Idols Called God;

i am LoVE NoW

And i Write my

Own Bible;

Don't

Confuse me

With any other

Made-up Story;

Some of the Parts

of the Bible are About

Love and others are simply

About Cold Narcissistic Souls

Who Never Move Love Further than

The Limits of Their Selfish Desires in Life....

Yeah, A Lot like Ayn Rand's God of Money; No

Thanks Baby; My Currency Now Is Love; Pay Rate, And Pay Grade too;

Becoming Financially Independent at 47; Child's Play in A Word So Dense

And Stuck

in 'Stuff'...

As Disgusting

As Trump and

All the Souls of Love Falling in this World Still...

Falling to the God of Money; Ayn Rand's 'God of Capitalism'; no Thanks;

Other than that; all i have to do is look at a Photo of Her eyes to see What's

Missing And Any other Person i see too; That's my Autistic Savant Skill, Seeing Souls

or Lack thereof;

Nope, That's

Not

Even Human

Yes, Surely Not Love....

Brought my Name into it; Hehe, Don't

Believe You Know Anything about who i am...

Anyway i'm Love; i'm Complete; Now Without

An Ounce of Guilt, Shame, or Any Negative Illusory Emotion of Fear...

i master the all in

all; What's Within

This Love My Soul For Free;

Takes a lot of Work; Yet Doesn't everything

'Worth'
It at Least...

You Just Value

Different Things than i do..

That's Where we Disagree; sure,

i'm only Noting That the Bible is

No Different and even Worse than

Frigging Q-Anon Conspiracy Theories;

Burning Folks Forever; No, i don't Believe in Trump Either...

Love is Okay

And Enough

For me;

Sadly

Folks Seem

to Have Forgotten

How to Become Whole...

And of Course This is

Just my Opinion; i Follow

No Small or Large Crowds...

Much Rather Read A Book

On Tao than the Old Bible;

At Least it has real World Value

to Actually Move into Flow and Enjoy Autotelic

Heaven Within And Even Copious Amounts of 'Frission' too....

Theism in the

Realism

Baby;

Love Is God

Flesh of Soul

Spirit of LoVE iNDeed With SMiles

Have A Nice Day; Just to be clear Where 'i am' Coming From

Hint:

Love That's

All Folks With SMiLes...

And No i Don't Give Anyone

Any Money or Material Goods;

i Emptied All my Pockets into my

Wife's Purse; She Takes Care of everything...

And Just Leaves Me Wandering a Globe to Love With Empty Pockets

Naked

i am

Complete;

Hehe with a 'Little
Help' from my Wife..

---

I'm confused. Do you actually believe the Bible or not? I don't always understand your meaning, but it looked like you were saying you believe some parts of the Bible and not others. Is all of the Bible true, or only parts of it?

^^^

---

I'll Take
The Commandments

(As Long as The
Consume Others
With Least Harm
Clause Is Included
Regarding

All of Nature;

True, i'll have

to Add that in)

About Love From
The Jesus Story That's

('The Beatles' Agree)

All i need;

Obviously,

That Much Is True

As Most Other Religions

Already Agree And Ones

Well Before Christianity;

That Much is True And

That's All i need From the
Bible; Even That Gets Twisted

As Any Poetry Will; Metaphors are Like that;

Metaphor Will Mean Whatever Folks Interpret

Metaphors to Mean; It's Like Asking Is Poetry True;

As That's Mostly What the Bible is; i Find it amusing

That So Many Folks Bow Down to Poetry Written By Other Folks;

My, My, How

The Souls

Of those

Ghost Authors

Are Worshipped

On Bended Knee...

Again; Those Parts of the

Bible Are For Folks Who Are

Incomplete Within; True Enough,

For those Who Believe in that way of Life;

For Many

Not

Truth,

Including me;

Poetry is Rather

Relative Depending on Views...

So, In Other Words, i am Not Going

to Be the one Who Tells You What is

True For You As Verily That Would Never

Work For me Either; Again, Love is Truth for me;

The Rest of the Book Has No Value to me Personally as Truth;

Sure, i Study It Like All Religions As i Have Many Other Special Interests too...

Hehe, True That Must Be True, Considering i've Written 9 MiLLioN Words of Free Verse

Poetry in 90 Months, And Public Danced 14,453 Miles of Public Dance For Real too;

In Short,

i am

not

Impressed...

The Tao Has

More 'Objective'

Value to me, hehe,

Ironically For Real;

Yes, i Like A Consistent

Way of Heaven Within that never fails...

Works
For me

Complete Enough..

---

AngelRho, how do we all have the same opportunities exactly?

among the cognitive elites, it seems the best a tiny fraction of them can figure, is that "life is very hard for the dull-witted and slow."

Well...my view presupposes that ALL of the Bible is LITERALLY true, or if it isn’t all meant to be taken literally that it is self-interpreting. For example, psalms are LITERALLY poems and songs that bind meaning into artistic expression and this cannot be understood literally. Proverbs are literally proverbs, meaning they incorporate paradox and riddles for the purpose of meditation and reflection. Parables are parables which may or may not have dealt with actual people but serve to teach a lesson, and Jesus typically revealed the meaning to a few of His disciples. Apocalyptic literature reveals something, and while I believe the writers literally described what they saw in visions, the images represent something greater than themselves. Wheels covered in eyes represent God’s omniscience, for example, and despite the seemingly wild nature of apocalyptic visions, there is no great mystery for those willing to understand them.

Beyond that, it is safe to assume that the Bible means what it says, that none of it can be properly understood without accepting that ALL of the Bible is true and necessary. I don’t mean that one has to be a Bible scholar to be saved. I just mean that you can’t be attuned to the Gospel as well as it you’d taken the time to understand the Bible as a whole.

My views all presuppose two things: That God as described in the Bible, ALL OF IT, actually exists, and that there also exists a reality whose nature, like God’s, is fundamentally unchanging. Ayn Rand was on the right track, but sadly formulated a philosophy based on observable reality that either had to be 100% right or it would be 100% wrong EVEN IF only one thing was wrong. And Rand was DEAD wrong when it came to God.

If Ayn Rand got it right with regard to objective reality, then it is possible to piece together an internally consistent philosophy based on objective reality while correcting her mistakes. If we can understand that such a reality exists, and if we can presuppose God as described in the Bible, such a reality only exists because God made it so. If God made the laws that Moses passed to the Israelites, it follows that the same laws are woven into the fabric of objective reality. They can be deduced and inferred from observing nature. And that means the idea that someone can call himself an atheist is absurd because what one observes through science is a projection of God’s nature and law into our reality. Everyone has already seen God, in a sense, and has no excuse.

Then you have to draw conclusions about the human mind. Is the mind equipped to process objective reality? What is the nature of knowledge?

And if the mind can be trusted, what can we draw from God’s reality about ethics and morality?

That’s basically where I’m coming from. The human organism was created to be more than a meat pile triggered by a series of chemical reactions. Animals cannot choose their instincts, cannot formulate an exit strategy from this life. They are hard wired for survival. They cannot self-destruct. For humans, survival is a choice. Our capacity for reason, rather than pure instinct, is what keeps us alive. The decision to even stay alive at all is a self-serving choice—it is predicated on the individual’s desire to live and nothing else.

The human drive to live, opposed to the animal survival instinct, is therefore selfish by nature. The very act of breathing in air to exchange CO2 for O2 is inherently selfish. Selfish acts cannot happen unless motivated by something that has inherent value. What fundamental value drives all human action? Life. We know from both the Bible and nature that life is God’s own currency by which we are bought and paid for. If God assigns us value by giving us life, it means He wants us. That same desire is a selfish desire. Therefore one must conclude that selfishness is not only a virtue that ensures the survival of humanity, but that it is a divine virtue as well. God is selfish and, therefore, being a selfish creature is not a sin.

All ethics and morality flow from this simple truth. Life, love, everything. That’s why I think the Bible has been grossly misinterpreted. Even that passage from Matthew you keep going back to. It all has to be understood within the same context. The thrust of the gospels is to reveal that the kingdom of God is here and to draw all people into it. The idea of denying self is not to put away rational selfishness, but rather to understand that ALL human individuals possess the same value and potential. They are created that way by God. Christians are called upon to see that same value in others as themselves and to engage in meaningful exchange with others—primarily by sharing God’s truth, the necessity for repentance and salvation, and then by material exchange resulting in improved quality of life. That last part applies universally in daily interactions among all people, whether those people are believers or not. The former deals with eternity and the destiny of the soul. That people know God and choose unbelief reflects inner values relating to God and the soul. It is an act of self-hate and self-destruction to condemn oneself to an eternity away from God’s presence. These same self-hating and self-destructive tendencies manifest in altruistic behavior.

Altruism is evil because of its complete and total disregard for life and the right to exist. It is a tool used by greedy people to extract that which one does not deserve from those who lead productive lives, all under the rubric of putting other people first. The RC church has historically been notorious for this, culminating in the sale of indulgences that almost resulted in the total ruin of that institution—though it is obvious that the Church (Hail Mary, full of grace) never completely repented. Academic collectivism merely takes this to the next logical step and throws God out of the picture completely. There is no god but The State, and Karl Marx is His Prophet. Here again, the words of Jesus are applied to the collective guilt of the entire nation—do unto others is not simply a willing, heartfelt expression of value. It is a state mandate, a requirement, no God needed. Religion is a useful tool, an opiate by which the “do unto others” mandate is eased through collective redistribution whereby the givers in society aren’t allowed any concern for where the product of their labor is going or who benefits from it. It is easily corrupted because it is corrupt by nature. There will always be greedy administrators who decide who actually deserves wealth, there will always be needy people trying to justify why they are entitled to move to the front of the line, and there will always be some common enemy (self-interest, Satan, Donald Trump, capitalism, God, republican government, etc.) that pulls human effort away from sustaining itself and towards dividing those who have power from those who don’t.

None of that is rational, and the common enemies are fictional. Altruism isn’t rooted in reality, hence why it is sinful. It pulls good deeds away from those with genuine needs and into the hands of those seeking to satisfy their own greed, whereas rational self-interest can discern whether one’s own generous act in reality does the most good for the needy and satisfies the will of God. In order to be generous, one must first have values. And one cannot have values without being selfish. You cannot do the will of God without the will of God being important to you, without God’s will being valuable to you. If God’s will possesses no value or worth, why be concerned with it at all? The desire to do God’s will is inherently selfish yet results in the greatest good to all people touched by divine works through the hands of those doing them. Productivity is, therefore, a sacred act glorifying God, as is all works resulting in an outpouring of value for others.

Denying yourself, therefore, is not a divine mandate to practice self-hate and self-destruction. It is a call to repent from greed and envy. Don’t envy people who can work hard when you can’t, don’t envy people who have wealth that you lack, don’t envy those in positions of authority. It is their productivity, generosity, and wisdom that contribute to your quality of life. Rather, admire them. Emulate them. Imitate them. Do what you can within the reasonable boundaries of your ability and imagination. If you possess little in the way of ability, wealth, and power, then trade in the currency of ideas and love. If you have nothing else, invest in human potential through kind words. Let others do the planting, but YOU do the harvesting. Don’t bother asking for permission, you don’t need it. You have no reason to apologize to anyone UNLESS you’ve violated your own values in dealing with them. Loving others and loving God is what the Bible is all about—and neither can truly happen unless you first love yourself.

I’ve already answered that question. Several times.

You gave non answers and rethoric.