Posted on 06/08/2011 9:34:29 PM PDT by Shalmaneser
Over the past few years, Anton LaVey and his book The Satanic Bible has grown increasingly popular, selling thousands of new copies. His impact has been especially pronounced in our nation’s capital. One U.S. senator has publicly confessed to being a fan of the The Satanic Bible while another calls it his “foundation book.” On the other side of Congress, a representative speaks highly of LaVey and recommends that his staffers read the book.
A leading radio host called LaVey “brilliant” and quotations from the The Satanic Bible can be glimpsed on placards at political rallies. More recently, a respected theologian dared to criticize the founder of the Church of Satan in the pages of a religious and cultural journal and was roundly criticized by dozens of fellow Christians.
Surprisingly little concern, much less outrage, has erupted over this phenomenon. Shouldn’t we be appalled by the ascendancy of this evangelist of anti-Christian philosophy? Shouldn’t we all—especially we Christians—be mobilizing to counter the malevolent force of this man on our culture and politics?
As you’ve probably guessed by this point, I’m not really talking about LaVey but about his mentor, Ayn Rand. The ascendency of LaVey and his embrace by “conservative” leaders would indeed cause paroxysms of indignation. Yet, while the two figures’ philosophies are nearly identical, Rand appears to have received a pass. Why is that?
Perhaps most are unaware of the connection, though LaVey wasn’t shy about admitting his debt to his inspiration. “I give people Ayn Rand with trappings,” he once told the Washington Post. On another occasion he acknowledged that his brand of Satanism was “just Ayn Rand’s philosophy with ceremony and ritual added.” Indeed, the influence is so apparent that LaVey has been accused of plagiarizing part of his “Nine Satanic Statements” from the John Galt speech in Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.
Devotees of Rand may object to my outlining the association between the two. They will say I am proposing “guilt by association,” a form of the ad hominem fallacy. But I am not attacking Rand for the overlap of her views with LaVey’s; I am saying that, at their core, they are the same philosophy. LeVey was able to recognize what many conservatives fail to see: Rand’s doctrines are satanic.
I realize that even to invoke that infernal word conjures images of black masses, human sacrifices, and record needles broken trying to play “Stairway to Heaven” backwards. But satanism is more banal and more attractive than the parody created by LeVay. Real satanism has been around since the beginning of history, selling an appealing message: Your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God.
You can replace the pentagrams of LeVayian Satanism with the dollar sign of the Objectivists without changing much of the substance separating the two. The ideas are largely the same, though the movements’ aesthetics are different. One appeals to, we might say, the Young Libertarians, and the other attracts the Future Wiccans of America.
What is harder to understand is why both ideologies appeal to Christians and conservatives. My guess is that these groups are committing what I’d call the fallacy of personal compatibility. This fallacy occurs when a person thinks that because one subscribes to both “Belief X” and “Belief Y,” the two beliefs must therefore be compatible. For example, a person may claim that “life has meaning” and that “everything that exists is made of matter” even though the two claims are not compatible (unless “meaning” is made of matter). This take on the fallacy has long been committed by atheists. Now it appears to be growing in popularity among conservatives and Christians as well.
But to be a follower of both Rand and Christ is not possible. The original Objectivist was a type of self-professed anti-Christ who hated Christianity and the self-sacrificial love of its founder. She recognized that those Christians who claimed to share her views didn’t seem to understand what she was saying.
Many conservatives admire Rand because she was anti-collectivist. But that is like admiring Stalin because he opposed Nazism. Stalin was against the Nazis because he wanted to make the world safe for Communism. Likewise, Rand stands against collectivism because she wants the freedom to abolish Judeo-Christian morality. Conservative Christians who embrace her as the “enemy-of-my-enemy” seem to forget that she considered us the enemy.
Even if this were not the case, though, what would warrant the current influence of her thought within the conservative movement? Rand was a third-rate writer who was too arrogant to recognize her own ignorance (she believed she was the third greatest philosopher in history, behind only Aristotle and Aquinas). She misunderstood almost every concept she engaged with—from capitalism to freedom—and wrote nothing that had not been treated before by better thinkers. We don’t need her any more than we need LeVay.
Few conservatives will fall completely under Rand’s diabolic sway. But we are sustaining a climate in which not a few gullible souls believe she is worth taking seriously. Are we willing to be held responsible for pushing them to adopt an anti-Christian worldview? If so, perhaps instead of recommending Atlas Shrugged, we should simply hand out copies of The Satanic Bible. If they’re going to align with a satanic cult, they might as well join the one that has the better holidays.
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” Jay-Z, a rapper calls himself J-Hova, and has a song called Lucifer. He basically sings praises to the “god of the morning star.”
Not that Jay-Z along with other artists, aren’t guilty of using the imagery, I have to correct you on this song. The song Lucifer is about Suge Knight, blaming him for Tupac’s death, and likening him to a devil.
The sample by Max Romeo goes”Lucifer son of the morning, I’m going to chase you off this earth”...so the singer is challenging the devil, not championing the devil.
And if I were a judgmental "Randroid," I'd make the claim that the author was using Rand as a scapegoat because he lacked the cojones to go after Nietzsche. That kind of claim is indicative of Rand's kind of moralism.
Incidentally: there's a neat political criticism of Rand that's not often seen, in large part because too many Rand critics take the easy way out by repeating japes that amount to "Don't read her!!!" They make little sense to anyone who had read and understood her work, and thus make Randians more loyal to Rand. We tend to stick with someone longer than we otherwise would if that someone is maligned.
Here's the criticism, which is really one against all forms of individual-centric libertarianism: concentrating upon the individual leaves individuals vulnerable to Big Government of the liberal sort. A nation of individualists fits the liberal-statists' model of a big government overseeing isolated individuals, where governemnt replaces voluntaryist mutual help with the coercive kind. Thus, individualism (in and of itself) offers no bulwark against liberalism.
If you like this argument, you should check out the works of Alexis de Tocqueville and Robert Nisbet.
I take it that guy isn't a big fan of the Texas Longhorns.
i’ll concede that Rand is wrong on some things also.
and i’ll admit my ignorance of Rand’s specific philosophy.
but, i know my Bible fairly well. and i’d like to hear the author give specifics where it’s Satanic. instead of generalized statements slamming her, like that Government lawyer did today when he defended Obamacare.
and i know Rand was an atheist. so was Oriana Fallaci. and i certainly wouldn’t call her Satanic !!!
socialism and capitalism are basically opposite.
and yes, i know about early Christian communities.
but, i also know the Bible has many statements about the workman being worthy of his hire, and statements supporting that if you don’t work, you don’t eat.
in history, looking at results, i think there is no question, that socialism is much more “satanic” than Capitalism.
and, i have seen the progressives, liberals, and communists, try to “USE” our religion against us.
(like all the left wing churches promoting the global warming hoax... while NASA says the UHI effect alone is worth 8.0 degrees average, and the world has been COOLING overall, since 2003...)
and those same people who try to use quote our religion when it serves their purposes, are the SAME people, that CLOSE adoption centers, and fire medical workers, for following words from that exact same Bible...
The article relies upon conflating anti-Christianity with Satanism.
thanks
The fairies in what nation soever they converse have but one universal king, which some poets of ours call King Oberon; but the Scripture calls Beelzebub, prince of demons. The ecclesiastics likewise, in whose dominions soever they be found, acknowledge but one universal king, the Pope.”
...The fairies in what nation soever they converse have but one universal king, which some poets of ours call King Oberon; but the Scripture calls Beelzebub, prince of demons. The ecclesiastics likewise, in whose dominions soever they be found, acknowledge but one universal king, the Pope...
...When the fairies are displeased with anybody, they are said to send their elves to pinch them. The ecclesiastics, when they are displeased with any civil state, make also their elves, that is, superstitious, enchanted subjects, to pinch their princes, by preaching sedition; or one prince, enchanted with promises, to pinch another."
I would say you are wrong...
Thomas Hobbes is better than all of them combined...
In fact, Rand, Nietzsche, Locke, the whole synod of presbyters and conclaves of papists cannot make a scratch on Thomas Hobbes.
I like Ayn Rand, but I'm no devotee...
Hobbes nailed these religious fakes to the wall in 1651.
Yes, you are pretty accurate on that point...
If anything is “satanic,” it is the establishment of ecclesiastic authority, a praeterpolitical body that passes the collection plate at gunpoint for the gods of communism...
That is exactly what the author of the article advocates.
The use of dead people... is a sort of necromancy...
The whole point of this posting, and this person posting it, is to promote communism and dissent among the ranks of this loose coalition of true libertarian thinking on Free Republic...
It is yet another ploy by the minions of the Left... beware...
I disagree with Hobbes's political points - his elevation of the state to "mortal godhood" gives moral reasoning to kleptocracies
My own views are libertarian. Hobbes disregards the morals of the free market
When individuals are in charge of their own destiny rather than subject to the “mortal god” state, I believe they have reasons for co-operating with each other. The wars of the state or the Hobbesian ideal of the centralised state created Sparta, the early Islamic Empire, Prussia, Nazi Germany and led to WWI and II
You did fine, some are ‘touchy’. Welcome to FR.
Morality and any associated ideal is rooted entirely in a presupposition some higher power defines what is correct for human behavior...
Free market = so long as someone is willing to pay, there is always someone willing to collect...
Nature is pure war with every man against another. Fear of death is the only way to keep the peace, so man is civilized by the threat of violence against him for transgressions upon his neighbor.
It doesn't always work...
Yes -- and Hobbes defined this as the centralized state. Some of the most law-abiding folks I know in Germany and Eastern Europe are atheists -- they have put their faith in the state
In the US many people around in DE and NY believed in their god, the TV and went to worship each Sunday at the mall..
Sorry.....
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