I suggest you review the Ten Commandments, which HAS been what we based our laws and morality on and COMPARE it to how Ayn Rand lived her life. Ayn lived her life like an cat in heat. We HAVE Ayn's sense of morality in our representatives now and it is NOT working. If they cheat on their wife, income tax etc. - they will cheat YOU and have been cheating us. You cannot separate morality from a person. Either it is there or it is not.
We need to move beyond this juvenile what I do in PRIVATE is none of your business - but what I do in PUBLIC, when I represent you, IS your business. The two, public and private can NOT be separated. This idiotic compartMENTALization has been proven wrong, time and time again. THAT is where Ayn Rand fails.
Let me remind you of Clinton - yes what he does in PRIVATE matters - Lewdinsky is a good example - getting a blow job while he's making decisions concerning our military doesn't jive with a moral leader. How many times do we have to have, men and women who have no moral boundaries? It shows in their PUBLIC actions and decisions. They have COMPROMISED character. While no one is "perfect" as many claim for a defense, MANY are better than others. I dare say, even with Bush's flaws, he wasn't getting blow jobs in the WH while he made serious decisions.
Ayn rand would rather have you NOT look at the persons moral compass and see the relationship to the PUBLIC actions taken by the person. Ayn Rand was a drug addicted whore whose god was money. It's strange, since she understood communism but didn't see that she went to the opposite extreme with money as her god and ignoring how good character and morality played critical roles in the lives of people.
Did you even READ my post or did you just see “Ayn Rand” and go off on your rant, implying that I worship her? I just said that her vision of the future was far more accurate than Nostradamus and the History Channel should give her some time.
I am a Christian who has accepted God’s grace and leads a moral life according to scripture (or at least, I try), but I am not going to refuse to read or understand anyone that doesn’t follow the same path that I do. I don’t need to review the Ten Commandments, as you suggest, because I already know them.
I don’t have to be like someone, or condone their lifestyle, to get some useful information from their work. We can’t afford to insulate ourselves from the world around us, because it will just keep going on without us. If you only read Christian books, listen to Christian music, and watch Christian entertainment, then you remove yourself too far from society to influence those around you.
I have heard that old canard for years and it simply is not true. At best it is an oversimplification. Are you saying that if a person ever commits one sin he is guilty of them all forever? That would make the life of Jesus a rather empty gesture, wouldn't it?
What was the original sin of which we are all permanently stained? I consider it to be self-awareness, for eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge made Adam and Eve aware of self and of the good and evil which resides within them. Therefore, self-awareness or selfishness or self-centeredness or self-serving or what ever, are inescapable whether one is a Christian or not. Ayn Rand was simply advising that we use that part of ourselves rationally and called it enlightened self-interest.
Do you really believe an atheist cannot have good ideas? If an idea is a good one shouldn't we heed it? If a person has lived under Communism and takes the trouble to warn others of the dangers therein, even if she were a prostitute or Madame, shouldn't we heed them or at least see what they have to say? Was Einstein a Christian? (I really don't remember.)
IMHO, you preach folly.