Posted on 12/29/2001 12:09:43 AM PST by Starmaker
While Ayn Rand, the author of Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and essays on politics, culture and philosophy, was a great advocate of free market capitalism and a significant anti-communist, she also made mistakes in her thinking which are presently being slavishly parroted by her devout coterie of followers at the Ayn Rand Institute. While Rand publicly championed the individual, she privately insisted, according to former close associates, on a high degree of conformity within her inner circle. This is reflected today in her followers, who call themselves Objectivists, and who tend to spout her dogma and mimic her mannerisms in a fashion that is at times positive and at times unbecoming.
A case in point is the recent article "Why Christmas Should be More Commercial" by Dr. Leonard Peikoff who referrers to himself as the foremost authority on Objectivism and is the founder of the Ayn Rand Institute. While Peikoff revels in the commercial aspects of Christmas, he sneers at "assorted Nativity tales and altruist injunctions (e.g., love thy neighbor) that no one takes seriously." I would beg to differ. Most of us, to varying degrees, enjoy the commercial aspect of Christmas and gift giving and see no contradiction between this and the religious aspect. In this season this year, which comes on the tail of hijackers crashing planes into buildings, thousands of grieving families, friends, and a grieving nation, and anthrax in the mail, thinking about G-d, and loving thy neighbor contributes greatly to a more significant sense of meaning and purpose in life, certainly more so than a mere commercial transaction. I don´t agree with Peikoff and his extreme atheism, I think people do take these things very seriously.
The Objectivists hold to the irrational theory of evolution which is that man somehow evolved from the primordial ooze. They dismiss as a superstition the more rational idea, in my opinion, that the creation of life, with all of its incredible facets, had to involve a supernatural and divine aspect. They reject the theory of creation not because it is irrational but because the Atheist Ayn Rand rejected it. As an admirer of reason, I find the creation theory to be much more rational while at the same time providing a varied and nuance sense of life, certainly more so than the morally neutral idea that man somehow miraculously evolved out of the mud.
In his Christmas article, Peikoff asserts "America´s tragedy is that its intellectual leaders have typically tried to replace happiness with guilt by insisting that the spiritual meaning of Christmas is religion and self sacrifice for Tiny Tim or his equivalent." Unless I´m missing something, America´s "intellectual leaders" haven´t insisted on religion any time recently but rather an atheistic, morally neutral, scientific socialist culture that claims to be based on "reason." As far as American religion being an advocate of "self sacrifice," this is just nonsense. Self-sacrifice is a policy of the abovementioned intellectual leaders who have no intention of sacrificing anything themselves, only the fruit of the labor of others. Religion tends to advocate voluntary tithing for the needy and private charities.
Peikoff wants to "take the Christ out of Christmas, and turn the holiday into a guiltlessly egotistic, pro-reason, this-worldly, commercial celebration." His utopian idea of happiness seems to be a world where man is not fettered by such obstacles as guilt or worry about anything but the here and now. Much of the article venerates earth-worshipping paganism, which is where many Atheists, hungering for meaning and purpose, seem to end up. Ayn Rand and the Objectivists made great contributions to capitalism, freedom and individual rights but, unfortunately, that contribution is somewhat eclipsed by a darker side. Perhaps Rand was more influenced by her own Stalinist high school and College education than she realized. Either way, it´s a shame that such glaring mistakes threaten to discredit such important work.
There is nothing miraculous about it. It was actually a slow process of chemicals and environmental conditions coming together over billions of years to produce man.
Miracles are illogical fantasies that religious people use to explain their beliefs where logic falls short.
Furthermore, I don't reject creation because Ayn Rand does. I reject creation because it cannot be scientifically proven. Anyone who wants you to believe in creation usually tells you that you must have "Faith", and then asks you to donate 10% of your salary for "God".
I am quite willing to risk an eternity in hell, for intellectual freedom on earth. I think that hell and heavan are simply stories that men have created for two reasons: 1)They have unanswered questions such as "How did I get here? in their minds, make up an incredible story to explain it rather than accept that they may never know the answer. 2) They want to have power over others, so they claim that there is a great place in the afterlife (that can't be proven) and tell others that they must perform acts of self depravation to them to get their. We call these power hungry people priests and ministers.
You're confusing the question of "how it got there" with "how it works". Evolution might tell me how we came to respect each other's rights, but it cannot tell us the moral principle of why we should do so.
The one area where I seriously part with the Objectivists is in the interpretation of quantum mechanics. It's especially maddening because the basic epistemological premise of Objectivism--the independent existence of reality--is correct, but often gets lost in quantum philosophizing.
I reject creation, as outlined in the Bible, because it has been scientifically disproven.
I read most all of Rand's works as a young adult. I used to think of myself as a "Christian Objectivist", but discovered that I didn't need to pollute my Christianity by unequally yoking it to Randian Objectivism.
I have since seen Rand as a "blind squirrel" who occasionally found an acorn.
Well that's already happened, but Peikoff's not responsible.
Isn't it sad, to see Objectivism degenerating into militant atheism, under his influence?
There is nothing miraculous about it. It was actually a slow process of chemicals and environmental conditions coming together over billions of years to produce man.
Tell you what, sit down and calculate the probability that these random chemicals would come to "life" even over 5 Billion years. It is an extremely low number! All science has ever "created" were basic amino acids in numberous experiments. None of these sprang to life. No, I see the Intelligent Designer at work in the design of life on earth.
Miracles are illogical fantasies that religious people use to explain their beliefs where logic falls short.
If you accept God as The Creator, He certainly can perform actions in our time and space that that would be well beyond our ability to understand and explain.
Early? What time do your cows need milking?
How incredibly sad and short sighted. It is the fool who says, "There is no God."
Tony Snow tells the story of the Washington reporter who called him after the 1994 elections for introductions to Republicans. The reporter said "I don't know any."
And wasn't it the film critic Pauline Kael who, stunned at Nixon's landslide victory in 1972, said "Everybody I know voted for McGovern."
It's just as easy to be an intellectually ingrown atheist as it is to be a Democrat, or a country parson.
I do not accept God as The Creator. One reason is because of what you said. I read it as this: If I turn off all logic and reason (by blindly accepting God as the creator) then anything is possible because there is no need to question it. Life has no consequences except for those that are outlined in the bible ( the most nonsensical book I have ever read). I am sorry. I cannot make that leap of Faith, especially when some backwoods swindler is supposed to "guide" me to the light.
I do agree with you that the chance of ammino acids coming together to create life over 5 billion years is very slim, but there are billions and billions of different gallaxies with billions of different planets, that increases the chances dramatically, and it may be possible that our planet is the luck one that happend to produce these odd organisms called man. IMHO.
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