Ayn Rand

[Roark]

Any Christians read Atlas Shrugged or Fountainhead?

 

[BarbB]

I read them a long time ago and liked them, as I recall. Why?

 

[one love]

He wants to know why you read them, as your christian beliefs can conflict with Ayn Rand's. My guess. Something to do with abortion and drugs?

 

[Maggie893]

I read them. She's an excellent writer. Her philosophy is disordered however.

By the way, it has nothing to do with abortion or drugs.

 

[Roark]

He wants to know why you read them, as your christian beliefs can conflict with Ayn Rand's. My guess.

Ayn Rand was a staunch atheist. Her books were written to convey her philosophy of objectivism. She doesn't hate religion; she hates how it can used to control and manipulate gullible people. Her message isn’t as much “don’t be religious” as it is “don’t become manipulated by religion (or government, or higher authorities)”



I was just wondering if Christians agreed with Rand, despised Rand, or became enlightened by her work.

 

[maladroit]

Ayn Rand was a staunch atheist. Her books were written to convey her philosophy of objectivism. She doesn't hate religion; she hates how it can used to control and manipulate gullible people. Her message isn’t as much “don’t be religious” as it is “don’t become manipulated by religion (or government, or higher authorities)”



I was just wondering if Christians agreed with Rand, despised Rand, or became enlightened by her work.

i read "anthem" a while ago and i did like it. to me it had nothing to do with religion but more with politics... i vaguly agree with her, but i still think, that in ideal conditions, socialism would work. however, she did point out the necesity of individuality and that i cannot argue with.

 

[The Seeker]

Why would anyone want to? She was a pseudo-libertarian bore whose whole critique of socialism was limited to a lot of hand waving and the false conflation of communism with the destruction of individual identity.

 

[BarbB]

He wants to know why you read them, as your christian beliefs can conflict with Ayn Rand's. My guess. Something to do with abortion and drugs?

Ah that explains it - I must have enjoyed them because I wasn't a Christian yet!

Edited to add: I actually took her to be anti-government rather than anti-Christian.

 

[Maggie893]

Ah that explains it - I must have enjoyed them because I wasn't a Christian yet!

Edited to add: I actually took her to be anti-government rather than anti-Christian.

I agree with you. She inspired me when I was young and much less experienced in life. A lot less discriminating then I am now. She may have called herself an atheist but she truly was an early humanist without the emotion. She clearly favors intellect over emotion and actually nullifies physical and spiritual sensibilities. She has no concept of a God with power that is active in time and outside of time so she depends solely on her own intellect to create her own version of utopia. She has strong characters that lack personality and are simply intellectual machines, the weak characters are those with emotions and flaws which she exaggerates to the benefit of her stronger characters. When I first read her, being a stronger thinking person than feeling person, I identified with her strong characters. However as life continued and I saw the richness of the whole human being; mind, heart, soul and body, I realized that she was missing much of the human experience. Once I met Christ, I realized she missed way more power and strength. Oh, what she could have been if she had known Christ.

 

[UberLutheran]

Ah that explains it - I must have enjoyed them because I wasn't a Christian yet!

Edited to add: I actually took her to be anti-government rather than anti-Christian.

Like you, I gathered that she was against governments (or institutions) who repressed human individuality and individual achievements -- which would have made perfect sense, given the time in which they were written (Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Fascist Europe). In that respect, I can fully appreciate where she was coming from.

Unfortunately, Rand had a way of driving a point home over, and over, and over, and over... ... ...and over, and over, and over, and over -- to the point where we had gotten what she was trying to say 300 pages earlier and there was still 200 pages to read!

In that sense, Ayn Rand was much like the composer Kaikhosru Sorabji -- an original thinker who certainly had something worthwhile to say -- but who also had the bad manners to write way more than what was necessary to get the point across. (Sorabji's Opus Clavicembulisticum is a 14 movement monster piano composition taking 3 1/2 hours to play through -- but unfortunately, Sorabji said everything he had to say in the first three movements -- and God help you if you're stuck on the second row, center seat during a performance of that work! Ayn Rand is like that: 150-200 pages would have sufficed to get her points across.)

Suffice it to say I never composed an opera of any of her books. Wagner is hard enough to sit through: I can't imagine asking an audience to sit through five hours of Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead!

 

[BarbB]

 

[Eudaimonist]

Any Christians read Atlas Shrugged or Fountainhead?

Interesting question. In my case, Ayn Rand pushed me from an agnostic to an atheist.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Why would anyone want to? She was a pseudo-libertarian bore whose whole critique of socialism was limited to a lot of hand waving and the false conflation of communism with the destruction of individual identity.

I love it how socialists underestimate Ayn Rand's philosophy.

 

[419gam]

Why would anyone want to? She was a pseudo-libertarian bore whose whole critique of socialism was limited to a lot of hand waving and the false conflation of communism with the destruction of individual identity.

Yes evryone knows that communism doesn't lead to the destruction of individual liberty

 

[The Seeker]

Yes evryone knows that communism doesn't lead to the destruction of individual liberty

Define communism.

This should be fun

 

[one love]

I think Ayn Rand had a pretty good understanding of communism, don't you The Seeker?

 

[The Seeker]

I think Ayn Rand had a pretty good understanding of communism, don't you The Seeker?

Having argued with her followers (face it people, you're a cult ), then I'd be willing to bet that she had no idea whatsoever what communism meant.

 

[one love]

Well, she grew up in communist Soviet Union. I suppose this gives her a unique insight into communism that many of us don't have.

 

[The Seeker]

Well, she grew up in communist Soviet Union. I suppose this gives her a unique insight into communism that many of us don't have.

What did the Soviet Union have to do with communism?

 

[419gam]

Define communism, lets see maybe it has something to do with the abolishment of private property and the communal ownership of the means of production.