Last night's round  of "bait the objectivist" took on the predicatable tail spin into "and you've decided that my happiness is best served based on what principles again?"  Moral absolutes are problematic given that I've never met one where an edge case  doesn't appear quickly and then require  hours of further definition to end up with something that sounds pretty subjective to me

If you have the time wander by this article by Butler Shaffer  which contains most of the experiences I've had with Rand-droids over the last few years in a form that won't upset anyone with personal info 

"Rand’s belief in objectively determined "values" is equally unsupportable, as any first year student of microeconomics will quickly attest. Dictionaries inform us that to "value" something is to "appraise" or to "rate or scale" or "to regard highly." To "estimate relative worth" or "degree of excellence" or to speak of "attributed or assumed valuation," are other definitions reflective of the subjective nature of all values.

While it may be comforting to pretend that the universe is organized around my belief system, the values that I espouse as "principles" are, I believe, nothing more than reflections of my subjective, inner sense of proper ways of living. They are not external to me, but come from deep within my very being, as expressions of what it means to be a human being. They relate to an internally-derived estimate of worthiness of both myself and you, and of the social conditions I regard as essential to that sense of worthiness......"

".........The belief in absolute truths – unburdened by doubt or skepticism – fuels the self-righteousness that is destroying mankind."

At least this is a safe "religion"  to poke fun at , they most that can happen is "they think I am an idiot"  which  The rest of his articles are worth a day of your time reviewing especially if you love the state