[Billthedrill]

The whole men are gods thing is spiritual poison...

Straight Nietszche in Rand's case (and he really did end up barking mad, literally). She tried grafting Nietszche onto Aristotle when she became disenchanted with Aristotle's conclusion that God must exist, yet convinced that Aristotle's logical system was the proper underpinning of her philosophy. The problem turned out to be that it didn't really solve any of the issues that had led Aristotle to that conclusion.

I'll happily go on record as stating that Rand was brilliant, but she was no theologian and her understanding of Christian dogma was embarrassingly superficial. That she was a Russian Jew who had decided to be an atheist at 13 is no real excuse for the lack of scholarship in that regard. IMHO, of course.

[Hegewisch Dupa]

that’s a helluva good post, man

[Matchett-PI]

"...I'll happily go on record as stating that Rand was brilliant, but she was no theologian and her understanding of Christian dogma was embarrassingly superficial. That she was a Russian Jew who had decided to be an atheist at 13 is no real excuse for the lack of scholarship in that regard. IMHO, of course."

Exactly. bttt

Now, one thing individualism implies -- as we shall see -- is God. Therefore, ideologies that promote individualism in the absence of God (and this includes some varieties of conservatism, e.g., Ayn Rand) are not only intellectually bizarre but frankly destructive and disorganizing. Pagan statism and genuine theoliberalism stand at antipodes. But it is equally true -- at least in my opinion -- that certain strands of the so-called "religious right" are not at all conservative, but quite plainly warped products of modernity, since they stand outside the perennial Tradition.