In the quote above, she defines her use of the word faith as "belief apart from reason,". Meaning, if there is a "reason" to believe something, that would not fall into the category of "faith" (either mystical or Biblical). It is not "faith" that your car will start in the morning. A working light switch is not a matter of faith.
If you do not like her specific definitions, that is fine. However, it makes no sense to apply your definition and still expect that she'd be saying the same thing. It is "blind faith" that she speaks about, always. To her, the "blind" part is redundant.
If you present "overwhelming evidence" of something, then the discussion can proceed via reason and logic -- faith would not be required in that situation.
On a different topic, here's something I recently re-read. Again, she makes the point of defining her terms at the very start. This is the begining an essay called, "The New Fascism: Rule By Consensus.":
“I shall begin by doing a very unpopular thing that does not fit today’s intellectual fashions and is, therefore, anti-consensus. I shall begin by defining my terms, so that you will know what I am talking about:
Let me give you the dictionary definitions of three political terms: socialism, fascism, and statism:
Socialism – a theory or system of social organization which advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production, capital, land, etc. in the community as a whole.
Fascism – a governmental system with strong centralized power, permitting no opposition or criticism, controlling all affairs of the nation (industrial, commercial, etc.).
Statism – the principle or policy of concentrating extensive economic, political, and related controls in the state, at the cost of individual liberty.
It is obvious that ‘statism’ is the wider, generic term, of which the other two are specific variants. It is also obvious that statism is the dominant political trend of our day. But which of the two variants represents the specific direction of that trend?
Observe that both “socialism” and “fascism” involve the issue of property rights. The right to property is the right of use and disposal. Observe the difference in those two theories: socialism negates private property rights altogether, and advocates “the vesting of ownership and control” in the community as a whole, i.e. in the state: fascism leaves ownership in the hands of private individuals, but transferscontrol of the property to the government.
Ownership without control is a contradiction in terms: it means “property” without the right to use it or to dispose of it. It means that the citizens retain the responsibility of holding property without any of its advantages: while the government acquires all the advantages without any of the responsibility.”
(Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal 1965).
Keep in mind that over the years Piper has often commented on Rand. This Interview was not meant to be an exhaustive critique. In the following link Piper deals more directly with her ideas.
http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-ethics-of-ayn-rand
Hank weighs in too (a blast from the past)...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2408625/posts
She rejected faith as a means of cognition.
She simply is using the definition 'belief which is not based on proof'.
But the other meaning of faith is 'confidence or trust in a person or thing'.
That trust and confidence is based on various proofs.
Christianity never claimed that one should believe it's claims without proof.
In fact, it claimed it could defend it's claims of Christ's resurrection with 'many infallible proofs (Acts 1:3)
It is not faith that starts your car in the morning, but it is faith that it will start in the morning. Sometimes it doesn't for some reason unknown to us (leaving the lights on)
No doubt the system that the U.S. has adopted is fascism, as Rand predicted when she observed John F. Kennedy's administration.