Peikoff's Seventh Podcast (Redirect)

I briefly discuss Leonard Peikoff's seventh podcast at FreeColorado.com.

I had been mentioning the podcasts here, but, since I've devoted this web page to matters of religion, generally I'll mention Peikoff's new podcasts at the other page.

My Religious Background

"Dan" asked about my January 16 post, "How about a summary of your own religious background and how you came to your current thinking on religion?" Fair enough.

I would (briefly) describe my life in three main stages. Of course, it took me several years to transition from one stage to the next.

1. Deeply religious childhood. I was raised in an independent Christian Church, and I attended Bible studies and camps growing up. In addition to the Bible, I read various, more modern Christian works, including parts of Evidence that Demands a Verdict and a couple of books by C.S. Lewis. I remember distinctly in high school that one of my Christian friends invited me over to another one of his friend's house to talk about religion. The other friend was not religious. We talked for quite a while, and I argued that Christianity is demonstrated by God's works in nature and his impact on human lives.

2. Struggling atheist. I also started to read Ayn Rand in high school, and she posed serious challenges to my religious beliefs. My first lengthy paper, and my best paper of high school, attempted to reconcile the doctrines of Christianity with the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Unfortunately, I did not integrate the moral virtues as described by Rand (most of which are widely regarded as legitimate, though Rand puts her unique spin on them) into my personal behavior very well. (It can be difficult to transition from a morality of "God says so" to one based on the requirements of human life as discovered by reason.) I remained deeply rationalistic in my understanding of philosophy, and I grew deeply pragmatic in my personal life. I did some really stupid things during these years that I really regret.

3. Maturing thinker and actor. Slowly, I have learned a lot more about life, prudence, character, and philosophy. I'm still working to improve myself in various ways, but basically I consider myself to be "on track." I've been part of a stable (and fun and developing) marriage for nearly a decade. I'm older (36 now) and a bit wiser. I'm an atheist but not fundamentally an atheist -- atheism merely rules out certain beliefs; it does not define a positive philosophy. Especially over the last couple of years, I've grown to appreciate the contributions of Leonard Peikoff a lot more. In Peikoff's terms, I went from "Misintegration" to mild "Disintegration" to "Integration," which I continue to work toward.

My interest in religion, then, arises from two main sources. First, it dramatically impacted my youth and thus the rest of my life. Second, obviously religion has an enormous cultural and political influence. I think my comments, then, may be of interest to Christians as they contemplate their own beliefs, to atheists as they figure out a positive alternative to religion, and to those interested in the impact of religion on the world in which we live.

Car Crash

On Tuesday night, my wife and I were involved in a car crash. The other driver ran a red light. While my wife was taken by ambulance to a hospital -- St. Joseph's, which admitted and released her amazingly quickly -- the move was more precautionary because she hit her head against the side window. We're both sore. We went in for massages on Wednesday, and our backs were full of knots. I'm also going to see a chiropractor. We can be thankful that the crash wasn't worse than it was. Because I was able to swerve a bit, the collision took place at an angle less than 90 degrees. Most of the energy of the crash went into car damage and tire friction; we were spun around about 180 degrees.

I'm grateful that the other driver and three witnesses provided accurate information to the police and to the insurance companies. So if you're a primary witness to a crash, please stop, not only to help if needed, but to affirm the basic facts of the case. I'm very thankful for the time of the three witnesses.

I'm also grateful that my insurance, American National, and the other driver's insurance, State Farm, have so far been very good about things. (I have yet to go through the claims process with State Farm, but I'm hopeful that it will go smoothly.) I've been impressed by the rapid responses and consideration shown by agents of both companies.

This is another reminder for us (and maybe for you, too) to keep our priorities straight.

Return from Thanksgiving

I'm back after a few days off for Thanksgiving. I intend to blog nearly every day, but I will take a day off now and then for holidays and the like.

Blog Evolution

I've already made a few technical changes to the blog. I turned the column widths into percentages rather than fixed pixels. I added a link for comments. Note that comments will be moderated ruthlessly, as most unmoderated comments that I've seen are basically worthless (or worse).

More importantly, though, I've decided to narrow the scope of the blog. One of my friends persuaded me that a more focused blog is more useful than one with random comments. Now, the description says, "Notes on politics, religion, and culture." Granted, that's still extremely broad. However, I had been planning to include more notes about products, recipes, etc. Now, I'll include such personal matters only rarely.

The purpose of the blog is to advocate reason based on sensory experience; individual rights, liberty, and capitalism; and life-enhancing values. I will therefore criticize religion, political violations of rights, and cultural problems such as moral subjectivism and nihilism. I am most influenced by Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, though I continue to struggle with some of its tenets.

I'm going to try to use the "labels" function to its full effect. I'm going to label every post with one (or more) of five main tags: politics, religion, books, art, culture, and personal. Then I may add additional labels that are more specific. For example, a post about art might be further labeled as movies, music, or fine art. The category for culture is intended as a catch-all for culturally interesting items that don't seem to fit elsewhere.

So now I think my blog is on track. Perhaps it's worth mentioning my goals in blogging. First, writing a blog will help me formalize my thoughts about particular issues. Writing for an audience generally demands more rigor than merely mulling something over. Second, I'll be able to search my own blog as a way to help me remember particular things. Third, I hope to persuade readers. The point, after all, is to facilitate positive cultural change, not merely to complain about what's wrong. Fourth, I hope that the blog draws readers' attention to my other projects.

So I'm ready to take the dive...

Welcome to AriArmstrong.com

Welcome to my blog. Even though the blog is new, I've been writing for the internet since 1998 via the Colorado Freedom Report. I'll continue to publish material on that page, as well, and I'll make a note on the blog about new material there. I literally predate blogs (which I guess makes me an old timer). According to Wikipedia's entry on blogs, the term "weblog" was coined in 1997, and the term was shortened to "blog" in 1999.

Yet I've never been that "up" on the technology. I'm more interested in the writing than in the presentation. It is with no shame that I admit to having learned HTML from one of the Dummies books. So my blog is simple. I'll improve it over time. I'm open to suggestions.

I started the blog because posting short comments is so easy. Otherwise, I have to load up a template in my word processor, save the file in the correct folder, load up the FTP software, and upload the file. Blogging services automate the process. I'll continue to use my traditional process with the Report for longer, more formal articles (especially regarding Colorado politics).

My goal is to use the labels to organize my blogs into broad categories. So far these are the categories I plan to cover: Colorado politics, national politics, movies, fiction, nonfiction, music, products, home, health, and blogging. My goal is to post at least one entry every day. So I hope you'll check back often.