I was an Ayn Rand rah rah back in the 60’s and greedily devoured everything she wrote. Nathanial Brandon came to speak on our campus and his presentation totally turned me against Objectivism. First of all, and please it’s been many years... he said in essence, to take everything they have to say to the letter, it’s all or none. Secondly, any form of religion is not Objectivist and to love one another as Christ teaches, is absurd, love of self comes first.
He made it very clear that you cannot pick and choose what they offered... you must swallow it whole. Isn’t that kinda like religion? Would one be an objectivist if they took 100% of what someone else said? It just seemed to be contradictory and certainly against who Jesus is in my life.
I guess I wish I could have debated these folks. Belief in G-d is very objective to me. But that's a long story.
Love of self does come first in the Bible. We are commanded to "Love your neighbor as yourself." So if one doesn't love himself first, there won't be much love for the neighbor.
ML/NJ