RATIONALITY

Ayn Rand said of her heroes that they would "hold reason as their only absolute".

In my last post, I mentioned that the 'spiritual' principles' in my mission would be self-evident. One only needs to think of the opposite, i.e. being irrational to recognize how obvious it is that rationality needs to be a primary principle, and yet, rationality does not seem to be revered universally by any stretch. I admit that I have not done my homework in deeply studying various philosophers, but I believe there are some who have gone to great lengths to show the limits of logic.

The irony of this, as has been pointed out, is these arguments are such obvious nonsense, simply by the fact that they have to utilize logic to make an argument against it.

Also, of course, religion and mysticism have long preached that faith is superior to reason, and even denigrated logic as being a "tool of the devil" to trick us. "Don't use your brain, use your heart", and "Happy will be those who believe without seeing". In the various myths, the devil's crime is getting people to taste from the tree of knowledge.

The rate of human progress, or lack of it, can consistently be measured in terms of how prevalent these ideas have been at various times in history.

In fact, at the time of this writing, the great conflicts in the world are essentially based on the actions of mystical maniacs, who unfortunately, are far more consistent in their adherence to what they believe in, vs. those who 'somewhat' represent rationality. I say 'somewhat" because they represent rationality in such an inconsistent way embracing mongrel philosophies, never fully pronouncing what they believe or reject, because they don't even know themselves. Until this changes, I believe the future of civilizaiton and human progress is in grave danger. While I believe this is true on a global scale, it is no different with us as individuals when we don't embrace rationallity.

Evil begins and ends with the irrational. I agree that our fundamental choice is first and foremost to think. Thinking, meaning that we utilize rationality to make our decisions in what we choose to do or not to do before committing any act. Thinking allows us to consider the consequences of our actions to ourselves and others. I believe that before we commit an irrational (evil) act, we must first make the choice not to think, which is usually summarized by the conscious or subconscious "f__k it!". (Ayn Rand used "blank out") This is done in an effort to have our cake and eat it too, what Ayn Rand called whim worship. Of course if you ascribe to the mystical, then you have been told that logic is inferior, and that somehow you can have your cake and eat it too, if you "believe" enough.

I repeat and write about my mission so that I continually remind myself of the life or death importance of staying rational in my every day actions.

This entry has been longer than most, so I will leave off here, but hopefully I've made a case for why Rationality is first in the spriritual principles that I believe are essential to my happiness.

Next entry will be on "Integrity".