Posted on 05/11/2013 12:12:17 PM PDT by JerseyanExile
Ayn Rand was no fan of C.S. Lewis. She called the famous apologist an “abysmal bastard,” a “monstrosity,” a “cheap, awful, miserable, touchy, social-metaphysical mediocrity,” a “pickpocket of concepts,” and a “God-damn, beaten mystic.” (I suspect Lewis would have particularly relished the last of these.)
These insults and more can be found in her marginal notes on a copy of Lewis’ Abolition of Man, as printed in Ayn Rand’s Marginalia: Her critical comments on the writings of over 20 authors, edited by Robert Mayhew. Excerpts appear below, with Lewis’ writing (complete with Rand’s highlighting and underlining) on the left and Rand’s notes on the right.
(Excerpt) Read more at firstthings.com ...
When I was stationed at Ft. Lewis in the last years of the Vietnam war, my favorite hang out was the famous/infamous “Shelter Half” coffee shop in Tacoma, where I could argue politics with the radicals and watch North Vietnamese propaganda films.
Having read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead a few years before, helped me in my discussions there and I often saw positive reactions to my defense of Capitalism and American freedoms.
Yeah, I think you’re right. I read it in a pulp magazine about 50 or 60 years ago, so my memory is dim. But “Anthem” rings a bell.
What about that quote is unintelligible to you? Where do you get lost while reading it?
Words have meanings. Try looking them up in the dictionary sometime.
There is no evidence one way or the other that Adam and Eve were in the Garden for billions of years as spiritual immortal beings. Adam lived 930 years after expulsion. Before expulsion there was no compulsion to count years of life as it was irrelevant in the face of immortality.
To say that Adam was 4.5 billion years in the Garden is no less scientifically argued than to say he lived 500 years in the Garden before expulsion. These are unprovable assertions. The only tenet that any human being can attach to the former is faith. For the latter it is poor statistics much abused in similar fashion to AGW Global Warming.
Evolution is astrological whereas natural selection and adaption are scientific. The former is based on statistical maximum likelihood estimates of interspecies mapping founded on poor data and even poorer inference. The latter is observable in short lived fruitfly among other lab forms.
But nowhere is there proof that man descended from ape or other primate; all is speculation based on wrong statistical inference that has misled many and culminated in formation of a cult.
God created all living things but in Man He created an image of His Spirit. This spiritual creation never evolved, it was created. It has not changed in its nature since the expulsion of Adam until the new and perfect Adam was sent in the person of Jesus Christ.
Well God Bless you for the fight on multiple fronts soldier!!
God...how far down our society has gone. We had a brief resurgence of patriots coming to their senses during Reagan..but my how we underestimated the Marxist/commie/bill ayers/Barack Obama insurgency. They infiltratated every oriface of society...our schools,our churches,our government,our families, our employers, our media, our military.....the ultimate Alinsky joke.
Us law abiding stiffs..working long hours...paying our bills..not asking for a handout...but charitable to all...and used by all..we somehow became the enemies of society.
Time to take our country back!
However, that is also true of her philosophy. Just as many Christians have a problem separating individual charity from collective exploitism, Rand did as well, or more likely didn't consider the difference worth exploring.
She made a lot of enemies unnecessarily and wound up alienating as much as educating with Atlas Shrugged. She needed more subtlety and refinement to her philosophy and how she presented it.
I hated “Atlas Shrugged” an immoral godless story,
while I am sure that Lewis probably wanted to see her saved (as did Jesus if she’d only come to Him), he probably hated her philosophy just as much as I do.
Whilte Christians can have the similar values in support of capitalism, because we worship God (who will take care of those who He loves); we do not worship humanity, labor, property/the earth, etc, even liberty (though because God gave us these we respect them for ourselves and others). We reject Ayn Rand’s athiesm as evil, and a lie.
What would your Christian friend say to The Apposle Paul? or even Peter? Matthew? Etc..? Grace, where is the grace?
The quote is from John Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged.
The existence of our universe is self evident: it exists. And I fully agree with your second sentence because " ... there is nothing that gives any human being the standing to inquire, let alone know, God’s motives."
That does not mean I believe whatever an individual does is owned equally by other people. A system like capitalism i.e. the free market allows some to get fabulously rich, but it also makes great lives possible for those who have no hope of achieving great wealth. But even the not so great or so-called takers, as Rand might put it, make wealth possible. Everybody does their part, and everybody prospers. Some more than others. But everybody who willfully participates in a free market system does a lot better than under socialism. But Rand seems to sneer at those who aren't at the top. Nevertheless, they're important too. It's not just the "great men" who make the modern world possible. It's everybody doing their part...great and small. Rand seems to have missed that.
I never really wanted to read Ayn Rand.
And this clinches it, I never will.
Even if she had some good points, I don’t like reading anything by aggressive, angry, God hating atheists.
Not all Christians are young earth creationsists, nor do all think Jesus is God the father.
And you leave out the Vedas, which describe a creation taking place billions of years ago, and there are hundreds of millions of Hindus who believe in God.
And there is no scientific truth of evolution. There is speculation, with many lies, and much obfuscation, and sweeping under the rug evidence the evolutionists don’t like.
So maybe you shound rant on a Crevo thread, if there still are any.
Apparently, BCrago, you do not believe in the existence of the eternal soul, or that divine justice exists.
Am I correct in assuming this?
If I am correct, it’s odd that you label the belief in the eternal soul and divine justice as primitive and savage...
I give up. I’m not even referencing religion.
How’d she feel about Jerry Lewis ?
But she was vain in her imaginations and thus her foolish heart was darkened.
I am not lost reading it, I clearly comprehend her assertions therein. Why do you think otherwise?
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