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.
Don't get comfortable.
Thanks for the tip and well wishes. I think I am going to return to lurking for now, though. I don’t need some person I don’t even know insulting me on the Internet. Maybe later, if I see something that’s not too controversial, I’ll post again.
He believed in judgement and morals, in cases of revenge. An “eye for an eye” was big in his crowd. A lot of it was based around some survival of the fittest, Individualist thing.
Then Le Vey's real progenitor is Friedrich Nietzsche. Ayn Rand made moral judgments a linchpin of her moral philosophy. She rejected Christ because she thought that "judge not, lest ye be judged" is too forgiving of evil.
That judgmentalism is very much part of canoncial Objectivism. Twenty years ago, Rand's successor Leonard Peikoff booted out David Kelley because Kelley made a minor virtue out of tolerance (of what canonical Objectivism considers to be morally bad.)
Too many coincidences for me on this.
You obviously haven't been on the Internet for more than a week, have you?
Don't forget about "Humanism" . . . and when it relates to
The early part of the 20th Century saw the rise of several materialistic philosophical outlooks.
Leninist/Stalinist Communism, Fascism and Objectivism.
Objectivism at its heart is atheistic economic Darwinism. It is a philosopical counterpoint to atheistic Communism.
Under both Objectivism and Communism the strong oppress the weak.
Allow me to throw in a curve ball: a Christian could benefit, as a Christian, by reading Atlas Shrugged. Here's how: all of Rand's villains, in one way or another, are vain. What she calls "incompetence" is a kind of vanity. Thus, Atlas can be read as a powerful illustration of why and how vanity is a deadly sin.
I should add that doing so means keeping this "lens," as it were, in the back of the mind as a pre-judgment - and returning to the Bible by reading the book of Ecclesiastes afterwards.
Thank you for the kind advice. I was afraid I had missed the “no criticism of Ayn Rand” clause in the posting rules!
Sarah Posner
RSS
June 7, 2011
9:44AM
The Problem with Ayn Rand Isn’t Atheism
Post by Sarah Posner
Comments (17)
Email
Print
Share
Detroit Examiner columnist Brandon Schlacht takes issue with the American Values Network ad, targeted at liberal Christians, which criticizes Republican affection for Ayn Rand. Schlacht writes:
Members of the American Values Network have come out in opposition to Ryan based on their Christian faith and Ayn Rand’s atheism; however, while Ryan was indeed influenced by Rand and would like to see her Objectivism influence more of Washington’s policy, his budget is not wrong due to Ayn Rand’s lack of belief in a supreme being. The real issue is not atheism, but Randian dogma, which holds a strict commitment to cutting government, promoting libertarian ideals, and allowing for the best to emerge, even if it occurs at the expense of the downtroden. . . .
The real issue isn’t God with Paul Ryan’s budget, but his strict belief that one ideal and one political ideology will fix the crippling budget problems the U.S. faces.
The American Values Network is run by the principals of the Eleison Group, a political consulting firm which describes itself as “a full-service consulting firm helping political, non-profit, business and government entities better understand America’s rich and complex faith landscape and build relationships with people of faith from across the ideological spectrum on the local and national level.” It is boasting on its website of its attendance at the upcoming Netroots Nation conference where principals Burns Strider and Eric Sapp will be on a panel, “Moving Forward With Faith.” The description on the Netroots Nation website reads, “A clear lesson to [sic] from our recent history is that faith and values communities are increasingly proving to be critical to successful progressive advocacy.” Other panelists include Elizabeth Denlinger, Director of Campaigns at Sojourners, which her biography describes as “one of the largest networks of progressive Christians in the nation,” a characterization some progressive Christians take issue with. (I’m also speaking on a different panel at the same conference.)
Eleison and the AVN are focused on making “people of faith” “comfortable” with Democrats, who’ve gotten a bad rap about being “hostile” to religion. That rap, incidentally, came from Democratic “faith” strategists, not because Democrats are demonstrably anti-religion, but it has resulted in some painful pandering to make up for these alleged deficiencies. Eleison’s Democratic clients have included Alabama’s Parker Griffith, who went on to become a Republican, and North Carolina’s Heath Shuler, a prominent Blue Dog who recently spoke at the Family Research Council’s Watchmen on the Wall conference for pastors, where he insisted that if Christians “had provided for people in our community,” then we “wouldn’t’ve needed a debate on health care.” The Family Research Council, incidentally, has signaled its full support of the Republicans’ budget-slashing. But at least Shuler’s not an atheist!
At the AVN website touting the anti-Rand ad, AVN notes, “The choice is simple: Ayn Rand or Jesus Christ. We must choose one and forsake the other.”
‘One U.S. senator has publicly confessed to being a fan of the The Satanic Bible while another calls it his “foundation book.”’
Eh? Who? When?
It would confirm my opinion of the federal government, but who, exactly, said such things?
In other words, it’s a lie. Like your entire thread.
I get the problem with AmericanValuesNetwork.com - but the source here is FirstThings.com, a respected publication.
Some folks forget that it seems.
Check your FReepmail please
I'm done on the subject. I made my case and I may be wrong. I'll leave it at that and thank you for your indulgence.
Ugh. I think I will go back to surfing youtube. Much more productive.
bookmark
“Then Le Vey’s real progenitor is Friedrich Nietzsche”
Short of Darwin, that would be the most often credited inspiration, definitely.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.