[babble-on]

stopped reading when Atlas Shrugged was claimed to be the second most influential book in modern society

[Larry Lucido]

Nothing replaces the Bible. That said, I still admire Rand for her defense of capitalism and enlightened self-interest, despite her own personal failings and shortcomings.

[Responsibility2nd]

I swear. More and more articles coming from The Christian Post are pure CRAP.

This one is crappier than usual.

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

:: Mark David Henderson’s book, The Soul of Atlas, begins by asking the question, “Do the two most influential books in modern culture, the Bible and Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged ::

Really? Really? Dude, you need to step back and stop drinking from The Fountainhead.

[newheart]

"She believed that the individual is the highest possible occupation of any one person. She believed that one should always occupy their minds, will, and emotions with the highest possible occupation and she believed that would be the self,"

I guess I might have to read the book, but it is really difficult to reconcile that statement with , "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

That said, there is a pretty solid argument for the best basis for solid economic systems being found in "enlightened self-interest." I don't think that is the ideal situation, but I do believe it is the best that humans can devise this side of heaven. At the very least, it provides the best environment for individual freedom and models, however imperfectly, the gift of free will that God granted his creation.

Unfortunately what exists today is far from a free market system. The Left seeks central planning, ignoring the individual and succumbs to crony capitalism. The Right pretends to desire a free market but just as quickly succumbs to the temptation of crony capitalism.

So Rand was close to the mark on economics, but built upon an insufficient — and ultimatley doomed to fail—foundation. There is no real connection between her approach and the Bible, other than the fact that, in my opinion, the dynamic of the free market system is really just one of God's accommodations to fallen humanity.

[Publius]

Atlas ping. Possible food for thought and discussion.

[HangnJudge]

Ayn Rand's Rational Objectivism is like Physics
Viewed from one direction the Universe is a Physics Engine
and is quite Deterministic.

Physics makes No Comment on Why it is like this,
only that it is.

Atrheism makes an empty statement that the Universe just is
and has no Reason for it.

C.S. Lewis had a Field Day on this Fallacy

[Mr. Jeeves]

People who want to use the tenets of Christianity to control other people are going to loathe Atlas Shrugged.

People who do not want to use the tenets of Christianity to control other people will probably be indifferent to Atlas Shrugged.

Either way, Christians who hate Rand's accurate depiction of the world as a place where volitional consciousness (rather than faith) is required to survive are going to have to ask themselves why God deposited them into such a world in the first place. :)

[Sergio]

bkmk

[Rameumptom]

both contain lurid accounts of adultery... of course one glorifies it and the other doesn’t

[Redmen4ever]

It is good to grapple with such questions.

For a Christian the greatest commandments are these: (1) Love the Lord with your whole being; and (2) Love your neighbor as yourself. Of course, in Jesus’ day, these two commandments were well know to every Jew. Jesus expounded on “neighbor.” He said your neighbor is he who acts as your neighbor, not somebody of your ethnic or religious group.

Let’s turn to Rand. Supposedly her greatest commandment is to love yourself. BUT ... coming in number two is to love others who share your values. Now, what about the God thing? Rand would say there is no God. But, if you follow her novels, you find that objective truth is her God, and the objective truth is that we are made to be free. This is such an enormously important thing, that it is rational to give one’s life in witness of it.

So, in my book, here’s the difference: First, as Christians, we have a personal relation with a loving God and assurance of salvation. This speaks to our emotional needs. Atheists have an anonymous relation with nature and no assurance of anything. Atheists must have very strong characters. I don’t know how they do it. Having been in the military, I’ll just say that without God I don’t think I could handle it.

Second, as Christians, we love others as ourselves. For followers of Rand, they love others as instrumentalities of their own happiness, not as ends in themselves, not because they share with us in the same dignity that comes from being a child of God. I think I exaggerate this difference. I really sense from her writings that Rand’s characters come to truly love others. So, maybe there really is only one difference and his name is Jesus.

BTW I think the movie “Life of Pi” did a good job in contrasting belief in God and belief in reason. The rational self and the emotional self are both valid and both good. And, it is important to tie one’s emotions to reality.

[x]

To the degree that the Bible and Ayn Rand's books both try to establish laws, proscribe attitudes, and lay down a basis for social life, there are similarities, but from that point of departure they go to very different places.

If you're a Christian, you're bound to think of Rand as (at best) rudimentary and incomplete. If you're a Randian, you'll probably think of Christianity as wrong-headed.

[higgmeister]

bump

[mjp]

Do the two most influential books in modern culture, the Bible and Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, share common ground?"

The metaphysics and epistemology of Objectivism and Christianity are irreconcilable, but they are allies in the war against statism and socialism.

[Clinging Bitterly]

btr