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Ayn Rand Really, Really Hated C.S. Lewis
First Things ^ | March 27, 2013 | Matthew Schmitz

Posted on 05/11/2013 12:12:17 PM PDT by JerseyanExile

Ayn Rand was no fan of C.S. Lewis. She called the famous apologist an “abysmal bastard,” a “monstrosity,” a “cheap, awful, miserable, touchy, social-meta­physical mediocrity,” a “pickpocket of concepts,” and a “God-damn, beaten mystic.” (I suspect Lewis would have particularly relished the last of these.)

These insults and more can be found in her marginal notes on a copy of Lewis’ Abolition of Man, as printed in Ayn Rand’s Marginalia: Her critical comments on the writings of over 20 authors, edited by Robert Mayhew. Excerpts appear below, with Lewis’ writing (complete with Rand’s highlighting and underlining) on the left and Rand’s notes on the right.

(Excerpt) Read more at firstthings.com ...


TOPICS: Religion; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: abolitionofman; atheism; atheists; aynrand; cslewis; cslewismysticism; evilwoman; lewis; libertarians; magic; medicalmarijuana; misquoting; objectivism; pages; rand; randians; science; tao; theology
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To: saganite

If Rand has given any original argument for atheism, it can only crumble under the weight of God’s truth.


21 posted on 05/11/2013 1:15:06 PM PDT by reasonisfaith ("...because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved." (2 Thessalonians))
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To: JerseyanExile

Ayn Rand, like Christopher Hitchens and Bertrand Russell, etc., are currently having their theology straightened out.


22 posted on 05/11/2013 1:17:52 PM PDT by Do Not Make Fun Of His Ears (Quit whining about the media not doing their job! GET THE WORD OUT!)
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To: JerseyanExile

By the way, I did read JRRT’s authorized biography. Tolkein it seems had many conversations with C.S. Lewis within their mutual writer’s club (the Inklings). It seems JRRT convinced Lewis to become a Christian. I have known at least one Christian who disliked Lewis because of his earlier paganistic writings. I hope not to be judged based on my youthful ignorance.


23 posted on 05/11/2013 1:18:28 PM PDT by Telepathic Intruder (The only thing the Left has learned from the failures of socialism is not to call it that)
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To: JerseyanExile

Ayn Rand’s philosophy is one that leads souls to hell, and nations to destruction.


24 posted on 05/11/2013 1:19:48 PM PDT by EternalVigilance
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To: Do Not Make Fun Of His Ears

Tat was a very poorly constructed sentence on my part. Oh well. You know what I meant.


25 posted on 05/11/2013 1:21:06 PM PDT by Do Not Make Fun Of His Ears (Quit whining about the media not doing their job! GET THE WORD OUT!)
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To: JerseyanExile

This point is not missed—that the atheist is led by ideology to hate the Christian, while the view of the Christian is to love the atheist.


26 posted on 05/11/2013 1:21:59 PM PDT by reasonisfaith ("...because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved." (2 Thessalonians))
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To: JerseyanExile

Then I am done ever even thinking her name, because Lewis was an intellectual giant and creative genius aside as well as one of the most significant Christians of the 20th century.


27 posted on 05/11/2013 1:37:33 PM PDT by kabumpo (Kabumpo)
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To: reasonisfaith
... it can only crumble under the weight of God’s truth.

The content weight of all the Bibles and Korans on Earth is nothing compared to the weight of scientific truth about evolution found in modern technical publications. The Earth, for instance, came into being about 4.6 billion years ago, long before Jesus appeared ... prompting a question. Why did God wait so long to send humans (and only humans) a savior?

28 posted on 05/11/2013 1:41:31 PM PDT by OldNavyVet
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To: Telepathic Intruder

I consider the works of Lewis to be among the most important re politics and theology of our time. You have missed out on a great treasure.


29 posted on 05/11/2013 1:41:33 PM PDT by kabumpo (Kabumpo)
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To: JerseyanExile

I wonder whether Ayn Rand would even have known what capitalism is without the insights of the Protestant Reformation that found Scriptural basis not only in the profit motive but the obligation to pursue that profit in the context of thoroughly incorporated ethics. Like don’t cheat your customers, you win in the short run, but you lose in the long run.


30 posted on 05/11/2013 1:42:01 PM PDT by gusopol3
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To: SoFloFreeper

That’s the problem with the cult of Rand. Materialist atheism, whether Randian or Marxist, is going to produce a world no sane person would choose to live in. There is no humanity in either of their visions. She may have done good service as a counterweight against the intellectual bankruptcy of socialism, but at the end of the day she was still selling a brand of madness. Two sides of the crazy coin, IMO.


31 posted on 05/11/2013 1:47:35 PM PDT by Trod Upon (Every penny given to film and TV media companies goes right into enemy coffers. Starve them out!)
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To: JerseyanExile

She really understood socialism but just from reading Atlas Shrugged, you can tell she’s a b*tch


32 posted on 05/11/2013 1:50:08 PM PDT by MNDude (Sorry for typos. Probably written on a smartphone, and I have big clumsy fingers.)
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To: JerseyanExile
I gave up on Rand when I read her thoughts on self-sacrifice and altruism.

It begs the question, would Rand have been willing to die in defense of her beliefs? Would she have expected others to do so? If a Randian utopia, a Galt's Gulch were established and came under attack, would its citizens band together to repel the threat and face mortal peril for the good of their fellow man (and in doing so violate their own canon), or would they merely stand fast and just defend their own property?

33 posted on 05/11/2013 1:55:00 PM PDT by Joe 6-pack (Qui me amat, amat et canem meum.)
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To: OldNavyVet; reasonisfaith

“The content weight of all the Bibles and Korans on Earth is nothing compared to the weight of scientific truth about evolution found in modern technical publications.”

When viewed from eternity, the “weight of scientific truth about evolution” won’t count for diddly. At heart, it is assuming the right to question God, to see if God is good enough to satisfy OUR morality. As CS Lewis points out in “God in the Dock”, that is ridiculous. If God is great enough to create the universe, then it is not for us to judge Him. What matters is not what we think about God, but what God thinks about us.

“We are inveterate poets. Our imaginations awake. Instead of mere quantity, we now have a quality–the sublime. Unless this were so, the merely arithmetical greatness of the galaxy would be no more impressive than the figures in the telephone directory. It is thus, in a sense, from ourselves that the material universe derives its power to over-awe us. To a mind which did not share our emotions, and lacked our imaginative energies, the argument from size would be sheerly meaningless. Men look on the starry heavens with reverence: monkeys do not.”

(CS Lewis, God in the Dock, p.41).


34 posted on 05/11/2013 1:55:02 PM PDT by Mr Rogers (Liberals are like locusts...)
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To: Menehune56

Ayn Rand despised everyone who did not share ALL of her views. That was her ultimate tragedy - frankly she was a very arrogant and unpleasant person (as many philosophers are) and the fact that life dealt her a particularly unpleasant hand may be a reason, but not an excuse for that.


35 posted on 05/11/2013 1:55:36 PM PDT by Vanders9
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To: JerseyanExile

Ayn Rand had a bolt loose.


36 posted on 05/11/2013 1:58:01 PM PDT by betty boop (We are led to believe a lie when we see with, and not through the eye. — William Blake)
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To: Fzob
For my 2 cents Rand can’t hold a candle to Lewis.

One thing that's always disturbed me about Ayn Rand was her lack of faith and atheistic views.

Still, on economic systems and the need for a profit motive, I believe she was exactly correct.

On matters of faith, I trust CS Lewis.

Strange that the two books that completely altered my life view were first the Bible and second Atlas Shrugged.

37 posted on 05/11/2013 1:58:53 PM PDT by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: OldNavyVet

4.6 billion years is a blink of the eye in eternity. And Jesus (being divine) is eternal.


38 posted on 05/11/2013 1:59:45 PM PDT by Vanders9
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To: OldNavyVet

The arguments for evolution constantly change as what was supposedly scientific proof a few years ago is shown to be incorrect. You can place your faith in scientiffic journals which look ridiculous in 15 to 25 years but I will put my faith in the never changing word of God which has stood the test of time and is every bit as relevent and true today as it was the day it was written.


39 posted on 05/11/2013 2:04:00 PM PDT by dschapin
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To: JerseyanExile
Atlas Shrugged is great but extremely one-dimensional and shallow. Rand simply ignored everything that did not fit her worldview.

It is also worth remembering that many christians have trouble distinguishing between personal charity and sacrifice called for in the bible and collective efforts that are really sloughing off those responsibilities to "someone else".

40 posted on 05/11/2013 2:09:04 PM PDT by hopespringseternal
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