You should familiarize yourself with Objectivism. Certainly not a crowd looking for "total governance."
You don't really understand atheism, clearly.
You also don't understand that believing in absolute authority, when in reality men decide in completely subjective ways what this absolute authority means and change the definition at their own mortal convenience, achieves nothing greater than we can achieve without an invisible sky daddy. In fact, it has less authority. It means less. It is less empowering. Is is less absolute. It is more constraining and pessimistic.
You don't understand that. That's not your fault. You've been subjected to the tyranny of faith your entire life. The biggest snake oil scam there has ever been. Your parents believed in the magic, you were surrounded by an entire community who believed in the magic. There was nothing but ostrification if you rejected the magic. The omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, creator being is the foundation of your false reality. You are making a claim that it doesn't matter if He is real or false, but that believing is better. Reality matters. Truth matters. And the invisible sky daddy is a lie.
This indeed appears to be a substantial line of reasoning, the kind of thing I'd like to take off this thread into my LTE. I'm a little peeved at PKM for his take on the LTE as some kind of huge arrogant display on my part, but I see it can be taken that way and maybe to a lot of folks. But my little gig in here is to find stuff to talk about that transcends obvious, objective, pat settled answers.... stuff that could be reasonable played out in an extended set of issues, at great length....
My father was not a believer in religion. When he came to stuff like his kids' missionary farewells or funerals at the church he was pretty noticeably put off with all the piety. My mom, during the years I can recall, never undertook to make a fuss about criticizing him, choosing to present him in a positive light. My father was a solid scientist, the chief chemist for a set of related corporate companies, in his day, including Allegheny Steel, National Lead Industries, Titanium Metals Corporation of America, Dutch Boy Paints and Baroid. He was based in Henderson, NV.
At one time he was a college prof at Dixie College, from the time it was an LDS school in 1930, in the Depression when all families could pay for tuition was milk, eggs, beef, bacon, and veggies from the family gardens. I don't think the Depression was quite so hard on family farmers.... but it was bad enough.
Because his father was the Partriarch, he was inducted into the stake High Council. I know he wrote a science article on the Word of Wisdon once, but by the time I knew him he drank, gambled, smoked cigarettes, and paid the rent for two families. My sister said, when she lived in Vegas working at the test site, she saw him cruising The Strip with unknown but stylish ladies....
My grandpa tried to give him the family farm at a really easy price, but my mom revolted saying the kids needed stuff and how could we afford it. My older siblings said my mom was quite the nag and critic and never gave my dad any understanding, and justified his turning to the Home Economics lady at the college for the understanding she gave in spades. At any rate, it was quite the scandal about town. My mom tried to talk to the stake president, who was the College pres as well, about it, but he said it was all her fault. He later left town in his own scandal of adultery.
My grandpa tried to reason with my dad, preaching repentance and whatnot, but my dad stopped the car....they were out at the farm, ten miles from town, and grandpa was in his eighties, my dad in his forties, in 1951 the year I was born. My dad got out and went around and threw the passenger side door open and ordered my grandpa to "Either shut up, or get out."
Grandpa told my mom not to get a divorce, that someday God would set things right, and never stopped telling his kids to be respectful of their dad. My mom said she had no peace until one day she heard a voice while she was fretting in the kitchen. She said she was told "there's nothing you can do." while at once she was given complete peace about it.
My other "mom", the nice lady from the college, stayed with my dad for the next fifty two years... endured his profligacy about chasing the skirts, gambling, and drinking, and provided him a stable consistent understanding home to come home to. She was an ex-Mormon convert to Catholicism. She would never speak to my mom, and blamed my mom for "Mormonizing" my father's kids.
I love my dad the way his dad loved him.
I would be glad to discuss all the ramifications of your belief system, in comparison with my own and the reasons why I choose to believe, all you want. That would be a fine topic for that LTE I've been neglecting.
The "other lady" was about as decent a human being as you would ever find in this mortal world. She taught school after leaving Dixie College at Basic High School in Henderson, and did volunteer care service at the Catholic hospital there. She welcomed us kids to her home when we came there, and some of us stayed with her while we worked good-paying jobs.
One of the truly great stories my dad ever told was about how he had to stand up to the leaders of the community in St. George on one occasion. He said he was sure he was going to lose his job and membership in the Church over it....
There is a very huge iron ore district northwest of St. George in the mountains south of Enterprise and Southeast of Caliente, NV. Not the also huge iron ore district west of Cedar City.
In the depths of the Depression, a scammer came to town with a letter of recommendation from Pres. Heber J. Grant in Salt Lake City.... the LDS Church President.... and a bunch of letters of recommendation from some Eastern big bankers too. His claim was that there was enough iron ore to make St. George the next Pittsburgh. And all he needed was for the city fathers to pony up some seed capital from the College, and the college would profit immensely, and all their financial woes would be long gone. My father was the science prof.
After the letters were passed around, everyone was all for the investment. My father stood up and condemned it as a fraud. My father said that the manganese content in that ore body was difficult to deal with, and would make the iron more expensive than the market would bear. The pious Churchly folks said... "But how can you dispute the Prophet?". My dad said the facts demanded more respect. He got up and left, and waited to hear about his firing and excommunication.
My dad took me to the place where the huge timbers were left in the mountain gulch where Pittsburgh was going to be.
