Posted on 01/19/2019 1:59:31 PM PST by huckfillary
“For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors—between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it.”
— Ayn Rand
I’m a fan!
She’s absolutely right Neither the state nor my neighbor owns me. I own myself.
Ayn Rand was nothing more than an agnostic stoic. There is virtually nothing new or unique about her writings. The best that can be said about her is that with her popular writing she rallied some at critical time against the Left.
Big fan of Ayn Rand and Objectivism.
Thanks for the post.
Read “Anthem”......
A teleological moral code depends on a system of teleological measurements of the graded relationships of means to a standard of value, which is an end. When existence (life) is chosen as the ultimate standard of value, good is what is beneficial to life.
There are some areas where I strongly disagree with Rand, but there are other areas where I agree with her just as strongly. And as Jerome Tuccille once wrote, “It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand.”
She did a lot of good, though many conservatives didn’t like her. Bill Buckley essentially read her out of the movement. I think there is room for both.
Her book _The Virtue of Selfishness_ is the primer interested folks should read first to get a handle on her philosophy of Objectivism and to unlock the proper point-of-view while reading her novels. _The Ayn Rand Lexicon_ is also a great book for learning the why for opinion on a lot of topics. Both books spell out her work pretty plainly and she doesn’t talk down to you nor dive into philosophical wonk-speak to explain herself.
Anthem is a great book. Doubters would do well to read it.
“self sacrifice for the ghosts in heaven” no that does not discribe faith based life at all. Ayns premise is false.
The Ayn Rand Lexicon is one of my bookmarks. I pick out a different subject everyday to read.
I agree with her on a lot of things. Others don’t. No big deal. It changes nothing.
Thanks for posting it, huck.
Ayn Rand has some good thoughts, but doesn’t understand God.
God is Love and the two great commandments are to love God and love your neighbor.
If we would all live and peace and not sin, then we would a better world and a great future with God in Heaven.
Ayn doesn’t realize that everything we have in from God - the air we breathe, the food we eat and we should put aside our pride and thank God for everything he has given us.
“...but doesn’t understand God....”
No one ever satisfactorily proved that God exists to her, and she was never able to prove it to herself either.
It is what it is.
Well said.
She’s a mixed bag for me. Some great insights along with some insufferable nonsense.
She’s a good read for high school & college kids....helps snap many of them out of the statism they are being taught.
Outside of her hypocrisy of being a feminist, she was dead on.
“No one ever satisfactorily proved that God exists to her, and she was never able to prove it to herself either.”
No one ever satisfactorily proved to me that Morality can exist without God. Ayn Rand wasn’t able to do it.
She is certainly right about many aspects of human nature that even she could not explain, though.
Like I said. It is what it is.
People believe what they want, others do too.
That’s the way freedom works. But it ends when one side steps on the other in the name of THEIR beliefs. ANY side.
And then you have the choice of either resisting it, or complying with it.
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