The essence of Rand's philosophy, as as she states in your link. is ...
1. Metaphysics: Objective Reality
2. Epistemology: Reason
3. Ethics: Self-interest
4. Politics: Capitalism
And how you've managed to twist that around to end up claiming that her philosophy is founded on atheism reveals the amazing extent of your "logical" stretch.
At no place in her well-developed philosophy will you find reference to mystical arguments involving ghosts, gods, angels or scripture; and anyone attempting to twist her words into evidence of "mysticism" ... needs help.
Have a nice day.
And how you've managed to twist that around to end up claiming that her philosophy is founded on atheism reveals the amazing extent of your "logical" stretch.
As should have been clear to you, it's my opinion that she's started from atheism, and worked backwards. There's a good reason for me to hold that opinion: had Rand started from first principles, there's no way she could logically have arrived at her conclusions, given the four principles you listed above. Indeed, if we accept Rand's claims that her principles are absolute, logic tells us that her first two principles are not even consistent with the latter two.
At no place in her well-developed philosophy will you find reference to mystical arguments involving ghosts, gods, angels or scripture; and anyone attempting to twist her words into evidence of "mysticism" ... needs help.
You're just denying the obvious here. Her references to "happiness," "self-interest," "Man being an end in himself," and even "capitalism" are logically unsupportable, given that they are demonstrably not necessary in nature or human society (there's that nasty "senses and reason" clause again). For us to accept her claims, we must appeal to something other than objective reality -- call it ghosts, scripture (e.g., Rand's own writings), or whatever.
At best, one can make a utilitarian argument in favor of some aspects of Rand's philosophy, but that requires a relativist moral approach.
Rand rejects the relativist approach. As a result, she is forced to appeal to something else -- "one's own happiness," for example -- as the basis for her "absolute" morality, because that absolute basis simply cannot be found in nature. Indeed, Rand's epistomology of Reason (not to mention her own novels) would suggest to us that the real "absolute" is closer to Social Darwinism than anything else. Yet I'm pretty certain that Rand considered much of Social Darwinism to be quite evil.
Rand is very firm on the fact of evil -- which, given where she's coming from, is nothing but mysticism. Consider: suppose I point to a Pharaoh who died old, rich, and happy -- thereby satisfying Rand's "highest moral good." Yet we can be sure that Rand would still call him evil -- which means that there's apparently some other, higher, and unspoken definition of good at work.
One presumes that Rand's "additional good" would center around some version of "not sacrificing others to ourselves," but as we've already seen, Objective Reality offers no logical basis for us to treat that as absolute. If Rand is right about her "highest moral good," then the Pharaoh is not evil. And if she's right about him being evil, it's because the evil is defined someplace outside of Objective Reality as Rand would define it.