Posted on 07/05/2011 7:23:13 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The American Values Network, a left-wing group, with considerable funding by George Soros, has launched a media blitz under the banner "Ayn Rand vs. Jesus Christ." As an Institute founded by Ayn Rand's heir and devoted to advancing her philosophy, Objectivism, we would like to respond. Since this is an issue Rand faced repeatedly in her lifetime, our response is basically to let her speak for herself.
The AVN campaign is right in saying that Rand opposes accepting any ideas on faith -- i.e., in the absence of rational evidence. Reason, based on sensory observation, is man's only means of knowledge -- the knowledge on which his life depends. Accordingly, she considers not only religious faith but any departure from reason to be destructive both personally and culturally.
But the AVN is wrong in bringing religion into politics at all. The American system treats religion as a private matter, not something to shape government policy. This is a corollary of the separation of church and state. The AVN campaign goes to shocking lengths in violating this principle. A recent video shows a young man pursuing Paul Ryan in a parking garage urging him to follow the Bible not Rand (whom he has praised) in his congressional budget proposal. Bringing religion into politics doesn't get much cruder than that.
In a 1963 letter to Congressman Bruce Alger, who had questioned Rand on much the same grounds as the AVN, she wrote:
In accordance with the principles of America and of capitalism, I recognize your right to hold any beliefs you choose -- and, on the same grounds, you have to recognize my right to hold any convictions I choose. I am an intransigent atheist, though not a militant one. This means that I am not fighting against religion -- I am fighting for reason. When faith and reason clash, it is up to the religious people to decide how they choose to reconcile the conflict. As far as I am concerned, I have no terms of communication and no means to deal with people, except through reason.
Although religion does not belong in politics, reason certainly does. And it is a rational philosophy to which fans of Atlas Shrugged and Rand are responding. Atlas Shrugged dramatizes a non-contradictory form of the original American philosophy of reason, individualism, and free enterprise -- i.e., capitalism. Many in the Tea Party movement admire Rand because she provided a moral defense of those values, particularly of capitalism. She showed that it is immoral -- unjust -- for the state to rob some to benefit others. It is even worse when the state sacrifices the productive to the unproductive, punishing success while rewarding failure ("too big to fail" being the latest manifestation of that perversity).
To live, man must use his mind; he must think. All human values -- from money to art to love -- are based on and require unbroken commitment to rationality. This is why, in the Objectivist ethics, rationality is the primary virtue.
If I were to speak your kind of language, I would say that man's only moral commandment is: Thou shalt think. But a "moral commandment" is a contradiction in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.
As to those on the "right" who seek to combine reason, individualism, and individual rights with the religious faith and the primordial view of man as an object of sacrifice, Rand was clear: "In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit."
To those who seek such a compromise, we say: if you think you can reconcile reason and faith in your personal life, go ahead and try. But we urge you not to base your support of freedom and capitalism on religion: to say freedom stems from faith is to say that reason is on the side of dictatorship.
The enemies of freedom could hardly hope for a bigger boost.
Harry Binswanger, PhD, is a member of the Ayn Rand Institute Board of Directors, and teaches philosophy at the Objectivist Academic Center.
Man was created by God with a faculty of reason and with a rational nature, that is man's means of survival, and that makes man different in kind from other beings. God intended man to use his faculty of reason and ability to think rationality to survive and to live a life proper to a rational being. Ayn Rand's philosophy describes how to live the life that God intended.
Obviously the age-old question in modern guise.
Genesis 3:1 - "Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say...?"
I don’t see how thinking that those verses are ‘have nothing to do with copies on earth’ is any kind of a ‘profound Truth’.
Different subject. You would have found that addressed HERE, had you been interested, which you're not.
Actually, that's where I got it. Logic would point Matt 5:18 in the direction of literalism without the "a priori intuition of Truth", and 'lead one over the abyss' of bibliolatry as the link you referenced indicated. So the assumption that those verses 'have nothing to do with copies on earth' must be one of those 'most important truths' that your post indicated is 'self-evident' to the 'higher self'. If that assumption is not a 'higher, profound Truth', how do you arrive at a basis for overturning 'the literal, inspired words by the Word and about the Word'?
"... had you been interested, which you're not."
How do you know?
I’m sure glad someone can frame my argument in such a way that suits themselves so well... Makes it really easy to “defeat”, doesn’t it?
How else would you frame your argument? You claim that reason is subjective therefore 2+2= whatever subjective amount someone decides it is.
I’m getting here kinda late but I agree with the author. Religion and government should not be mixed (and, no, that doesn’t mean you can’t say a prayer before a meeting of the town council, etc.).
The idea behind AVN’s campaign is specious.
Easy. Thoughtful people aren't "knee-jerkers".
You continue to assign motive and avoid answering the questions.
Is that how thoughtful people do it?
Me saying, "Thoughtful people aren't "knee-jerkers".", is not "assigning motives". To accuse me of it is merely another instance of one of your "knee-jerk reactions".
Knee-jerk this:
To avoid the impasse that results from religion becoming a mechanical system. The point is not to replace religion, but merely to help prevent it from becoming saturated with a fixed and mechanical meaning.
This is something that human beings habitually do, that is, attempt to contain reality within their own little manmade container, when that is strictly impossible. The moment God becomes contained and saturated, then you're no longer dealing with God, but with your own container, or graven image.
It all comes down to the error of seeing the world atomistically instead of holistically.
My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.
In solitude, I like objectivism. In the company of others, competition must ensue. Do we say that every man will see the same rational answer to a moral questiion? I say no, as there will be arguable differences of perception. Then, how does one proceed objectively other than to follow ones own that
The AVN campaign goes to shocking lengths in violating this principle.
At their (AVN) site...Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged vs Holy Bible...Battle For The Soul Of America.
They have set up a false conflict. The battle is between the individual and the collective, particularly the socialist collective.
From...The Law...
The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish!
If this is true, it is a serious fact, and moral duty requires me to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to it.
Life Is a Gift from God
We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life — physical, intellectual, and moral life.
But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural resources we convert them into products, and use them. This process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course.
Life, faculties, production — in other words, individuality, liberty, property — this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.
What Is Law?
What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.
Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?
If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.
If a nation were founded on this basis, it seems to me that order would prevail among the people, in thought as well as in deed. It seems to me that such a nation would have the most simple, easy to accept, economical, limited, nonoppressive, just, and enduring government imaginable — whatever its political form might be.
Under such an administration, everyone would understand that he possessed all the privileges as well as all the responsibilities of his existence. No one would have any argument with government, provided that his person was respected, his labor was free, and the fruits of his labor were protected against all unjust attack. When successful, we would not have to thank the state for our success. And, conversely, when unsuccessful, we would no more think of blaming the state for our misfortune than would the farmers blame the state because of hail or frost. The state would be felt only by the invaluable blessings of safety provided by this concept of government.
It can be further stated that, thanks to the non-intervention of the state in private affairs, our wants and their satisfactions would develop themselves in a logical manner. We would not see poor families seeking literary instruction before they have bread. We would not see cities populated at the expense of rural districts, nor rural districts at the expense of cities. We would not see the great displacements of capital, labor, and population that are caused by legislative decisions.
The sources of our existence are made uncertain and precarious by these state-created displacements. And, furthermore, these acts burden the government with increased responsibilities.
But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its proper functions. And when it has exceeded its proper functions, it has not done so merely in some inconsequential and debatable matters. The law has gone further than this; it has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense.
Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter — by peaceful or revolutionary means — into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.
Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails among the mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize the power to make laws! Until that happens, the few practice lawful plunder upon the many, a common practice where the right to participate in the making of law is limited to a few persons. But then, participation in the making of law becomes universal. And then, men seek to balance their conflicting interests by universal plunder. Instead of rooting out the injustices found in society, they make these injustices general. As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they establish a system of reprisals against other classes. They do not abolish legal plunder. (This objective would demand more enlightenment than they possess.) Instead, they emulate their evil predecessors by participating in this legal plunder, even though it is against their own interests.
It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears, for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution — some for their evilness, and some for their lack of understanding.
It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.
You say: "Here are persons who are lacking in morality or religion," and you turn to the law. But law is force. And need I point out what a violent and futile effort it is to use force in the matters of morality and religion?
It would seem that socialists, however self-complacent, could not avoid seeing this monstrous legal plunder that results from such systems and such efforts. But what do the socialists do? They cleverly disguise this legal plunder from others — and even from themselves — under the seductive names of fraternity, unity, organization, and association. Because we ask so little from the law — only justice — the socialists thereby assume that we reject fraternity, unity, organization, and association. The socialists brand us with the name individualist.
But we assure the socialists that we repudiate only forced organization, not natural organization. We repudiate the forms of association that are forced upon us, not free association. We repudiate forced fraternity, not true fraternity. We repudiate the artificial unity that does nothing more than deprive persons of individual responsibility. We do not repudiate the natural unity of mankind under Providence.
Frederic Bastiat 1801-1850
What is the purpose of this collective, AVN?
Defund socialist collectives, foreign and domestic.
It most certainly is assigning motive when you say it in response to a question about how you know I'm not interested. To point out your obvious use of the tactic of assigning motive to others is not a knee-jerk reaction. Assigning motive is the knee-jerk reaction.
Especially after I responded to your claim that thinking those verses 'have nothing to do with copies on earth' is any kind of 'profound Truth'. Assigning motive is all you have done. From claiming that I am 'not interested' to your claim that you know I'm 'not interested' because 'Thoughtful people aren't "knee-jerkers', you have offered no response to support your assumption. Only the knee-jerk reaction of assigning motive. You can't see that?
"Knee-jerk this:"
That's what I'm talking about. Still assigning motive. Even when it is explicitly pointed out, you continue to use the tactic. You haven't responded to any of my objections. All you have done is assign motive to my words while ignoring the issues in your posts.
"To avoid the impasse that results from religion becoming a mechanical system. The point is not to replace religion, but merely to help prevent it from becoming saturated with a fixed and mechanical meaning."
Never said it was. That's your claim. Perhaps because you are so familiar with the error?
"This is something that human beings habitually do, that is, attempt to contain reality within their own little manmade container, when that is strictly impossible. The moment God becomes contained and saturated, then you're no longer dealing with God, but with your own container, or graven image."
The only person claiming that humans put God into a container is you. Talk about knee-jerk. And the little container your claim leads to is that you can make god whatever you want him to be. You haven't avoided the impasse at all. You're just putting God into a different container. One to your own liking. Your own container. Your own graven image. How are you any different?
"It all comes down to the error of seeing the world atomistically instead of holistically."
You are, at least, consistent in implying that your opponent makes the very error that you yourself commit. But you apparently can't see that you make that very same error. You simply imply that you don't 'a priori'. There's your knee-jerk.
This is why you make exactly the errors you imply that your opponent is making. You have fallen into your own trap. Wake up.
:)
Reason.
"Do we say that every man will see the same rational answer to a moral questiion? I say no, as there will be arguable differences of perception".
No, however regardless of what you consider to be your moral authority it's inevitable that conflicts will arise. In a conflict between rational answers the only method to determine accuracy is reason. This is true even in theological discussions. When two people can read the same bible passage and arrive at two different meanings does that invalidate the moral authority of the bible? No, one uses reason to determine which opinion is correct.
Nice, but still no responses to the key questions.
:)
Altruism gets right to the fallacy of salvation by works.
Rand’s concept of a personal relationship to the Truth is not too far away from the Way and the Life..except perhaps unfortunately in her own mind!!
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