Posted on 07/20/2010 6:42:03 AM PDT by marshmallow
Then you really must love Methodists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians -- among others. You really should broaden your hatred to include all Christian groups. //sarcasm off
Oh my bad,, i thought we were talking about the ideas expressed in her writings,, not the ideas and actions of people who oddly worship her. I don’t like the cult types either.
“If the highest apostle of a philosophy violates same at every turn ... what are we to make of both the philosopher and her philosophy?”
Lucky for us all the popes and missionaries have been such shining examples. Some were first class SOB’s. But it doesn’t logically follow that the behaviors of some cruel men in the church, proves Chistianity is incorrect.
Likewise, many other brilliant people are incredibly poor at following what they correctly tell us is the right path. This only means they are weak, but not that their philosophy is incorrect.
There is a difference between deriving joy from your children, and having children only because of what joy they can bring you.
Those who are the latter usually make terrible parents.
The highest apostle of Christianity is the pope and missionaries?
Ann Rand makes this clear in her book, “Fountainhead”. Roark voluntarily gives assistance and charity to his friend the sculptor, and gives a somewhat lengthy explanation for his reasons for doing so.
That is correct. They do not have any rights. The individuals in those groups do. Making sacrifices for one's born or unborn children, one's elderly parents or other family members becomes anathema for Ayn Rand.
Nope. That statement is a straw man. "No man," she emphasizes, "can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation, an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as 'the right to enslave." Big difference.
Rand’s philosophy makes more sense than everything ever babbled by all the Popes combined.
ping
...thereby proving your unfamiliarity with her works.
Rand was definitely trying to make a point by killing off Eddie Willers.
And that point pretty much seems to be, "every man for himself, and no amount of loyalty and hard work is worthy of reciprocation."
Unlike (we are led to believe) every single person in Galt's Gulch, Eddie does not have the ability to fix a locomotive, and apparently that sort of thing is the standard by which a Rand character must live or die. In essence, Eddie Willers was no more than a tool of Taggart Transcontinental -- a mere employee, content and proud to be so, and disposable for that reason.
The underlying premise in Atlas Shrugged -- and by extension, Rand's overall philosophy -- is there are really only two types of people: titans of industry, and those who exist to serve them... and the latter cannot operate or even survive on their own without the presence and activity of the former. One is either a producer or a looter, and there is no middle ground.
Whittaker Chambers once noted that Rand's characters can be traced back to Nietzsche:
Miss Rand acknowledges a grudging debt to one, and only one, earlier philosopher: Aristotle. I submit that she is indebted, and much more heavily, to Nietzsche. Just as her operatic businessmen are, in fact, Nietzschean supermen, so her ulcerous Leftists are Nietzsche's "last men," both deformed in a way to sicken the fastidious recluse of Sils Maria. And much else comes, consciously on not, from the same source.)
There is no middle ground for her.... unlike in the real world.
Why not address my amplification above, rather than just spouting a mindless and incorrect opinion?
“I am a Muslim first, an American second.”
Uh...I thought Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan said that. Barry never said that.
This article is simply a rant against Libertarianism. Yes, Rand was self-actualized, and thus obnoxious to those around her. It is unwise to concentrate on the author, and ignore the philosophy.
I wouldn’t hammer the Catholic Church over this, as the author doesn’t speak for the Church at large. There are even academics, with Catholic “cover”, that question even the Gospels. With as many conflicting doctrines being espoused by various Catholic “flavors” (liberation theology for one), it is hardly worth getting worked up dissecting the thoughts of one religious academic. It’s just one guy’s opinion.
Rand’s philosophy is more applicable now, than when she lived.
That's not the pagan creed. It is specific to Aleister Crowley's Thelema religion, and is usually quite misunderstood out of context. It isn't even an original idea of Crowley's.
There is the Wiccan Rede, "An it harm none, do what ye will," but that's mainly just a restatement of the Golden Rule ideal.
Galt's Gulch had children; Dagny talks to a mother about the way she raises her children.
If you want to make the case that Objectivism is a less than complete recipe for a full life, that's already been done...by no less than Nathaniel Branden.
Amplify that, and try to be something besides an irritant.
"Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers, whose flaming editorials...had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks....
"Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing the truth... the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual and moral freedom.
"I am forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly."
She never said any such thing about voluntary choices. Her objection was to governments (or quasi-governmental churches like the author's) compelling sacrifice from their victims.
Yet she left her parents behind in Russia never to see them again, alienated most of her acquaintances and died an extremely lonely old lady, some say due to her emphasis on "self".
Don’t confuse him with logic, facts and reason.
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