Posted on 06/08/2011 9:34:29 PM PDT by Shalmaneser
Over the past few years, Anton LaVey and his book The Satanic Bible has grown increasingly popular, selling thousands of new copies. His impact has been especially pronounced in our nation’s capital. One U.S. senator has publicly confessed to being a fan of the The Satanic Bible while another calls it his “foundation book.” On the other side of Congress, a representative speaks highly of LaVey and recommends that his staffers read the book.
A leading radio host called LaVey “brilliant” and quotations from the The Satanic Bible can be glimpsed on placards at political rallies. More recently, a respected theologian dared to criticize the founder of the Church of Satan in the pages of a religious and cultural journal and was roundly criticized by dozens of fellow Christians.
Surprisingly little concern, much less outrage, has erupted over this phenomenon. Shouldn’t we be appalled by the ascendancy of this evangelist of anti-Christian philosophy? Shouldn’t we all—especially we Christians—be mobilizing to counter the malevolent force of this man on our culture and politics?
As you’ve probably guessed by this point, I’m not really talking about LaVey but about his mentor, Ayn Rand. The ascendency of LaVey and his embrace by “conservative” leaders would indeed cause paroxysms of indignation. Yet, while the two figures’ philosophies are nearly identical, Rand appears to have received a pass. Why is that?
Perhaps most are unaware of the connection, though LaVey wasn’t shy about admitting his debt to his inspiration. “I give people Ayn Rand with trappings,” he once told the Washington Post. On another occasion he acknowledged that his brand of Satanism was “just Ayn Rand’s philosophy with ceremony and ritual added.” Indeed, the influence is so apparent that LaVey has been accused of plagiarizing part of his “Nine Satanic Statements” from the John Galt speech in Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.
Devotees of Rand may object to my outlining the association between the two. They will say I am proposing “guilt by association,” a form of the ad hominem fallacy. But I am not attacking Rand for the overlap of her views with LaVey’s; I am saying that, at their core, they are the same philosophy. LeVey was able to recognize what many conservatives fail to see: Rand’s doctrines are satanic.
I realize that even to invoke that infernal word conjures images of black masses, human sacrifices, and record needles broken trying to play “Stairway to Heaven” backwards. But satanism is more banal and more attractive than the parody created by LeVay. Real satanism has been around since the beginning of history, selling an appealing message: Your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God.
You can replace the pentagrams of LeVayian Satanism with the dollar sign of the Objectivists without changing much of the substance separating the two. The ideas are largely the same, though the movements’ aesthetics are different. One appeals to, we might say, the Young Libertarians, and the other attracts the Future Wiccans of America.
What is harder to understand is why both ideologies appeal to Christians and conservatives. My guess is that these groups are committing what I’d call the fallacy of personal compatibility. This fallacy occurs when a person thinks that because one subscribes to both “Belief X” and “Belief Y,” the two beliefs must therefore be compatible. For example, a person may claim that “life has meaning” and that “everything that exists is made of matter” even though the two claims are not compatible (unless “meaning” is made of matter). This take on the fallacy has long been committed by atheists. Now it appears to be growing in popularity among conservatives and Christians as well.
But to be a follower of both Rand and Christ is not possible. The original Objectivist was a type of self-professed anti-Christ who hated Christianity and the self-sacrificial love of its founder. She recognized that those Christians who claimed to share her views didn’t seem to understand what she was saying.
Many conservatives admire Rand because she was anti-collectivist. But that is like admiring Stalin because he opposed Nazism. Stalin was against the Nazis because he wanted to make the world safe for Communism. Likewise, Rand stands against collectivism because she wants the freedom to abolish Judeo-Christian morality. Conservative Christians who embrace her as the “enemy-of-my-enemy” seem to forget that she considered us the enemy.
Even if this were not the case, though, what would warrant the current influence of her thought within the conservative movement? Rand was a third-rate writer who was too arrogant to recognize her own ignorance (she believed she was the third greatest philosopher in history, behind only Aristotle and Aquinas). She misunderstood almost every concept she engaged with—from capitalism to freedom—and wrote nothing that had not been treated before by better thinkers. We don’t need her any more than we need LeVay.
Few conservatives will fall completely under Rand’s diabolic sway. But we are sustaining a climate in which not a few gullible souls believe she is worth taking seriously. Are we willing to be held responsible for pushing them to adopt an anti-Christian worldview? If so, perhaps instead of recommending Atlas Shrugged, we should simply hand out copies of The Satanic Bible. If they’re going to align with a satanic cult, they might as well join the one that has the better holidays.
I suspect you've never read her works.
Le Vey may preach against Christian morality, but that is in itself a (false) moral stance. He says that Christianity is wrong. Modern emasculated Christianity accepts many of these critiques.
I have not read Rand. When she speaks of "higher power", is she referring to government or God?
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When I was in 8th grade, our Bible class teacher brought in a video called Hell’s Bells, about Satanic influences in rock music. I only watched for one class period, because it gave me nightmares. My mother wrote a note to the teacher allowing me to go the library for that period.
Besides being scary, the video brought attention to several obscure performers that we never would have heard of otherwise. How many teenagers in 1990 were listening to Current 93, Psychick TV or Diamanda Galas?
Wrong...
If you had actually read the book, you would know that it says that the Israelites were only supposed to have God as their King and not an earthly monarch... (this is also in the Bible) BUT, as the story goes, Moses was the first to say that our rights do not come from an earthly monarch... and the Israelites rejected God as their King...
So, God let them have their earthly rulers... and how did that work out?
And, incidentally, Hobbes had no other choice but to be a monarchist, in those days losing your head was very easy...
That does not come from Rand...
Rand’s source of “morality” is undefined...
Here it is again (it is from myself)...
Morality and any associated ideal is rooted entirely in a presupposition that some higher power defines what is correct for human behavior.
Without one singular source defining “morality,” it is nothing more than the appetites of individual men and not from any divinity.
Well Brian, most of the Randites don't understand that cultural marxism always leads to economic marxism...
And, trying to tell them so is really a waste of time, they are caught up in the cults of personality.
The real root of their troubles and those of many of the churches is their obstinate rejection of everything in Genesis...
Even most so-called "atheists" will not admit that human evolution is only possible with heterosexual relationships.
So, the religious faggot atheists want gay marriage?
I guess they tossed evolution out the window along with Genesis...
Actually, I have.
She has some good points, but her worldview is one of selfishness. Not to mention the writing is pretty horrible.
I might have agreed with that as little as 20 years ago.
Not anymore.
I think it is a huge straw man to equate Ayn Rand with Anton LaVey...
At best it is asinine...
Putting up scarecrows and straw men is how the left operates.
The idea that freedom in economics is somehow “satanic” or evil is the socialist byline...
The use of dead people... is a sort of necromancy...
What does this even mean?
Just what I said... necromancy...
Divination through raising spirits of the dead... straw men... phantasms... hobgoblins... ghosts... scarecrows...
The trouble with man is that most men believe their weenies come from heaven and that this gives them some sanctified excuse to pass the collection plate at gunpoint for their false gods of religion - - or their gods of communism...
And speaking of Weiners from heaven,...
I might have agreed with that as little as 20 years ago.
Not anymore.
Good for you... this is a typical Left wing meme...
"You are selfish, bigoted, homophobic and greedy, so be happy we are going to save you by shoving a gun in your face and taking whatever we can steal...
If you had actually read the book...
Leviathan? I have read it, and I don't recall any recommended restraints on the sovereign. There are none noted in Wikipedia's summary of the book.
If I'm wrong, then you're either referring to another book by Hobbes or else you're pointing to a rather obscure part of it.
It's true that Hobbes had little choice to be a monarchist - but a supporter of absolute monarchy? Does he even mention Magna Carta?
The Leviathan also says, as does the Bible, that the Israelites rejected having God as their King, so God granted them their earthly rulers.
Restraints on a monarch's power is the hand of God and the fact that all men die.
Everything Hobbes discusses in the Leviathan is also referenced in the Bible, and this is why both the Papists and Presbyters wanted to murder him.
It was Moses who first revealed to men that their rights did not come from an earthly monarch.
God is not subject to the rule of men. God is also a monarchist and the Bible says this quite clearly. And, because men rejected the rule of God and are fallen, they die.
You can make all the arguments you want to against Leviathan, but you have yet to illustrate how anything written in Leviathan is not consistent with the Bible.
Please, if you want to criticize Leviathan, how about actually reading the Bible?
Wikipedia is socialist bullshiite...
Ancient Greeks?
Plato’s Euthyphro is a great illustration....
Socrates advances the argument to Euthyphro that, piety to the gods, who all want conflicting devotions and/or actions from humans, is impossible. (Socrates exposed the pagan esoteric sophistry.)
Likewise, morals are such a construction of idols used by the Left as a rationale for them to demand compliance to their wishes in politics, which most often are a skewed mess of fallacies in logic. “Morals” are a deceptive replacement for the “avoidance of sin.”
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