Ayn Rand-Hating Christian Is Unsuccessful Getting a Bible Into Paul Ryan's Hands
The easily-winded young fella is from an outfit called Faithful America, whose purposes from what I can quickly gather is to to attack Republicans and support Barack Obama using the language of Christ (sample spirituality: "Challenge Boehner's Budget Priorities"). Quite like the American Values Network, which has been mixing its Rand-baiting with stimulus-supporting for some time now. Amen, and pass the Pelosi!
Unlike Andrew Sullivan, who seems to think the above video highlights an intriguing split within the Republican coalition, I think the main takeaway here is that Democrats have once again succeeded in creating mirror institutions of rightist political institutions they've long despised. The right, after all, has been hating on Rand's atheism from the git-go. What's new is that the anti-Jesusland party is now attacking people for their lack of faith (or correct interpretation of the Gospels), period. It's really just a matter of time before the left starts attacking Ayn Rand for being pro-choice and anti-Vietnam War, too.
Reason's Rand page here. Re-read Peter Suderman's great profile "Paul Ryan: Radical or Sellout?"
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That JesusLand thing smacks of elitism and denigration of things Southern. The tractor pull devotees will be here soon to properly chasten you.
Dude, if you’re gonna troll, try not to do it so obviously.
My fav right-winger hating on Rand’s atheism is Whitaker Chamber’s famous paleo-Godwinning.
From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: ‘To a gas chamber ? go!’
MNG found the crack pipe again
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/imag…..rguson.jpg
NTTAWWT, xcept for the multitude of contradictions.
…Democrats have once again succeeded in creating mirror institutions of rightist political institutions they’ve long despised.
I’ve seen this have an effect on young Christians. I know of staunch anti-abortion Christians voting for the very pro-abortion Obama based on some well-crafted usurpation of dogma. It works just as well for the Left as it does for the Right.
Hmmm…will this increase or decrease the influence of the RR in the GOP and national politics? I fear an increase.
I remember young Christian voters turning to Obama for his support of faith based initiatives too.
Goddman, I’m fucking tired of -ists, all of them.
Next On The Complainist…
ah, chr-ist. I’m one of them, somehow, someway, cannot escape.
I am the Fistist! Beware my Fist!
SugarFree, hand me that Astroglide there…
Du.
Du hast.
Du hast ists.
IST – Idiots Simulating Theology
HEY!!!
If you have a God, may he go with you.
I don’t care where. Just go and take him with you.
Here’s a toast to God’s favorite children: May He call them home soon.
If Jesus were a socialist he would’ve preached that Caesar should take care of the people, he did not. Jesus preached to individuals to take care of their neighbor of their own free will and not by coercion and force of government. If Jesus were to fit any political description it would most likely be a free market libertarian not some collective Union collective government coercion Obama thug -see “The Workers in the Vineyard” parable.
Jesus must’ve been a libertarian. Just like with libertarianism, people rhetorically agree with Jesus, but they behave in almost the opposite manner.
#winning
Caesar gave the people bread and circuses. The Caesars were populist demagogues of their time. More honest than today’s version, the bribes to masses were more explicit, less “wink, wink, nudge, nudge”.
“The easily-winded young fella is from an outfit called Faithful America, whose purposes from what I can quickly gather is to to attack Republicans and support Barack Obama using the language of Christ (sample spirituality: “Challenge Boehner’s Budget Priorities”).”
Ok
“Unlike Andrew Sullivan, who seems to think the above video highlights an intriguing split within the Republican coalition”
How is Andrew Sullivan not hospitalized and getting the psychiatric care he so desparately needs instead of writing for a major magazine?
Reason No. 5327 why religion and politics do not mix.
It’s interesting that Jesus always has the politics of his believers.
Funny how that works. Odd too that Jesus himself never started a political movement or spoke a single word about politics beyond “render unto Ceasar”. But somehow Jesus backs just about any good idea you can think of.
Funny how that works. Odd too that Jesus himself never started a political movement or spoke a single word about politics beyond “render unto Ceasar” existed.
FTFY
The Jesus never existed meme is pretty much the most ignorant and debunked meme in the history of scholarship. Thanks for revealing yourself as an unserious person.
Not just the politics, either. It’s the first rule of religion.
I don’t want to get trapped into defending Sullivan, but he wrote:
emailpermalink
5 Jun 2011 10:01 PM Heightening The Republican Contradictions
The doctrines of Ayn Rand and the core values of Christianity are explicitly opposed – as Rand herself insisted. And this poses a philosophical problem for contemporary Republicanism which insists on both Randian capitalism and evangelical Christianity.
Isn’t that essentially true?
And if it’s NOT true, isn’t it only because the GOP has abandoned capitalism?
Which would mean that the only reason you think there’s no split in the coalition is because you are too slow on the uptake to realize that the GOP abandoned you long ago? And that the conflict was resolved by declaring you the loser?
There is no split because they have no where else to go. It is not like the Dems are going to take the Randians in. If you are a serious Randian, about 99% of the population is going to hate your guts and think you are kook. So it is a question of who hates you less not who likes you.
It’s not only a matter of personalities, or separating the goats and the lambs (“You Randians go over there, and us Christians will go over here.”)
The problem also exists in the characters of individual politicians, who attempt to simultaneously employ the rhetoric of the religious right and the rhetoric of capitalism. Because like it or not, a lot of the latter sort of rhetoric comes from Rand’s popularizations of the work of 20th century capitalist minarchists. GOP politicians are forced to spend part of their time reciting hymns to individualism and liberty, which they then are forced to betray every time they want to cater to the Huckabee vote. There’s a tension there that cannot ultimately be relieved.
We managed to have a pretty damned free capitalist country in the 19th century while being about a hundred times more religous than we are now. I don’t see how Christianity is incompatable with free market capitalism. Free market capalism arose in societies where atheism was extremely rare.
Randians want the world to believe you can’t have capitalism with religion because they love capitalism and hate religion and want to believe what they hate can’t coexist with what they love. But it is really bunk as history shows.
We managed to have a pretty damned free capitalist country in the 19th century while being about a hundred times more religous than we are now.
Right. Because people didn’t take their own Christianity seriously.
The problem is that you can’t really continue to do that once people start aggressively pointing it out.
That kind of mass institutional hypocrisy is only possible in a fit of absence of mind.
We can’t duplicate it any more, because the left is out there continually screeching that altruism and capitalism aren’t compatible.
I have to go all Doctor Zaius on you here, and say, “If your hybrid capitalist and Christian society was so great, why didn’t it survive?” I happen to think that the evidence is pretty stong that it didn’t survive because the Christian section of the hybrid harbored cancers that were set to metastasize at the first sign of crisis, and that’s exactly what they did.
“Right. Because people didn’t take their own Christianity seriously.”
That is just not true and counter to all evidence. People took their Christianity very seriously in the 19th century. And you assume that Christianity must be some kind of socialist philosophy when it is not.
“I happen to think that the evidence is pretty stong that it didn’t survive because the Christian section of the hybrid harbored cancers that were set to metastasize”
It stopped being Christian and then the capitalism went away. You forget about the important atheists in the world, the socialists and the late 19th century progressives like Dewey. If things went off the rails because of some Christian movement you might have a point. But that is not what happened. The forces against capitalism were primarily atheist.
You act like Randians were the only atheists when in reality Randians are probably the least important atheists who have ever lived. The vast majority of atheists in the last 100 years and indeed all of history have been anti-capitalist Marxists and western socialists and progressive.
To blame the decline of free market capitalsim in the 20th Century on Christianity is just fucking laughable and about as credible as blaming it on an international Jewish conspiracy.
And you assume that Christianity must be some kind of socialist philosophy when it is not.
Sure it is.
It may not necessarily support state socialism (although an awful lot has been hung on pretty thin scriptural support here) but the ethics of Christianity, taken literally, are ultimately incompatible with anything other than primitive communism.
We are protected from Christianity only by the fact that followers of the doctrine don’t actually live it.
It stopped being Christian and then the capitalism went away.
I think the problem here is that you consider “being Christian” to mean that you declare yourself a Christian and go to church once a week, well I consider “being Christian” to mean that you renounce the things of this world, give away all your worldly possessions to the poor, and live in silent contemplation of the greatness of the Almighty.
To me, the respectable burghers of the 19th century who lived in somewhat-capitalist societies were able to do so because they moved dramatically in the direction of a Christianity of merely formal church attendance and lip service. The progressives who demanded radical social change and succor for the poor were closer to the gospels than the nominal Christians around them.
And the problem is that as long as the gospels continue to be respected, no matter how capitalist we get there’s always going to be someone out there preaching that the rich are evil and the poor must inherit the earth.
Shorter fluffy, whe Christians do things I like, they are not being real Christians. When they do things I hate and confirm my prjudices, they are being real Christians.
“And the problem is that as long as the gospels continue to be respected, no matter how capitalist we get there’s always going to be someone out there preaching that the rich are evil and the poor must inherit the earth.”
Sometimes you can be so reasonable I forget how crazy and bigoted you really are. You honestly think that that one line and Christianity is responsible for all of the politics of envy in the world? That is so rediculous I don’t even know how to begin. Human nature is to envy other people and take what the other person has. To blame that instinct on Christianity shows both a profound ignorance of Christianity, which has oversaw the creation of the greatest wealth the world has ever seen, and of history in general.
To put it bluntly, all of the societies who have lived by envy and created government forced equality have been atheistic societies based on atheistic utopian ideas. You cannot deny that. And pretending that those societies were really Christian or that Christianity is really responsible for the sins of the atheistic socieitis is just an exercise in your own hatred and bigotry. You are just so profoundly bigoted that you can’t think straight on these issues. For you belief in God is the root of all evil, including that evil that comes from the overt nonbelief in God. It is astoundingly crazy and hateful, but in its own wierd way fascinating.
ramblings:
some of the accounts I read of Waterloo (at least for the British) has the soldiers fairly agnostic – or at least not too religious. Seems the Victorian age ushered in a more religious Britain.
On the other hand, America (until recently) has been quite religious. As a life-long atheist, it’s been interesting to watch the swing away from religion. Not that it’s going away any day soon, but there are some cracks in the edifice.
John and Lord H., there is ample evidence that the religiousness of America in the 19th has been vastly overblown. Even the so called Great Revivals were often characterized by short lived movements that strayed far from religious norms. The rise of set scientific method (aided immensely by Darwin and others) changed the mindset of many and brought about a reevaluation of man’s place in the Universe. Even Abraham Lincoln (whose religiousness is oft well overstated) wrote anti-religous pamphlets in his youth and was deemed a freethinker by many who knew him well.
More so one of the most libertarian men in America’s history. Lysander Spooner, was alive and well during the 19th century. He was extremely supportive of capitalism and the free market. Once again it is very difficult to generalize America in any one group…many suffragists were very religious while others were strongly anti-religous; the same could be said within the abolitionist movement. Just as Christianity can be used to support capitalism or communism so can atheism.
Actually, history is showing that capitalism can’t survive without it’s proper philosophical support (the ethics of individualism).
+1
the ethics of individualism
Christianity is fundamentally an individualist religion.
Jesus did not talk about how to run a state he talked about how a person should run themselves and how they as individuals should respect and treat others the same way they would want to be treated.
At least part of libertarian philosophy mirrors this almost completely.
Demonstrated in this flash video:
http://www.isil.org/resources/introduction.swf
If anything the rise of atheism in the 20th century has corrisponded to the decline of free market capitalism. No that doesn’t necessarily equal causation. But there is another larger and much more important group of atheists out there, Marxists and socialist. I think their existence puts lie to any idea that atheism is in any way necessarily associated with freedom or capitalism.
That question boils down to: “Who is Hegel more like: Ayn Rand, or the Pope?”
I don’t think there’s really any doubt about the answer to that question.
So it is your position that the avowed atheists of Marxism, Socialism and 20th Century Progressivism were really Christians? That is going to come as one hell of a surprise to them.
Actually, it is my position that the post-Enlightenment thinkers of the left have generally been engaged in a more or less conscious effort to undermine reason and individualism, and that in order to do so they’ve created a series of ideologies that attempted to duplicate the social and psychological functions of what appeared in their eyes to be a dying religious structure.
From Rousseau on down, they’ve really made no bones about it.
I certainly don’t think they were Christians. But they were the cancers I spoke of. Basically they were people who simply couldn’t bear the thought of living without either mysticism or altruism, and kept devising novel philosophical critiques of the cultural trend away from both.
A society and culture that retains a Judeo-Christian base will produce Lenins in every generation.
“A society and culture that retains a Judeo-Christian base will produce Lenins in every generation.”
That is one of the crazier things I have ever read. All of mankind cannot live without “either mysticism or altruism,”. That is the nature of man. Every cilivization that has ever been created as been based on mysticism. Atheism is no exception. Every atheist who ever lived just traded the mysticism of organized religion for other more crazy and even more dangerous mysticisms of socialism and marxism.
And the Randians are no different. If you don’t think all that crap about the individual and art isn’t a form of mysticism and Rand’s theories of astetics and the individual are not just warmed over romanticism of the kind you claim to hate, you are living in some serious denial.
Rand is nothing but a fair to mindland 18th Century romantic who just happens to appeal to your romantic nature fuffy. At heart every atheist has some kind of irrational mysticism that they have convinced themselves is really reason and something other than what it is, I guess we have found yours.
Basically they were people who simply couldn’t bear the thought of living without either mysticism or altruism
As an Atheist Fluffy how do you account for the presence of religion? You obviously think religion is innate in human nature.
Why would religion exist if it is as destructive as you claim it to be? Shouldn’t it have some advantage?
John, if you check socialist and social democratic movements in pretty much any other country in the world you will find that far and away the major justification used for their beliefs and their policies is their interpretation of the teachings of Jesus Christ. Hell, even in this country most supporters of the welfare state use the language of the bible to sell it. Why do you think it’s so hard to end any of these programs.
The single digit percentage of this country’s population that are atheists sure as hell didn’t vote that shit in all by themselves.
Your notion that socialism is an atheistic movement is nonsense.
Your notion that socialism is an atheistic movement is nonsense.
Just because its founder, Marx, was atheist and the whole think is based upon radical materialism doesn’t mean it is atheist. Whatever.
Where did I say anything about thinking there’s no split in the coalition? (One which, I might add, I don’t belong to.)
Unlike Andrew Sullivan, who seems to think the above video highlights an intriguing split within the Republican coalition, I think the main takeaway here is that Democrats have once again succeeded in creating mirror institutions of rightist political institutions they’ve long despised.
Sorry, I read this as a statement that there’s no split.
I suppose, though, you might have been saying that there is a split, but that’s minor news and not as important as the creation of these mirror institutions.
but that’s minor news and not as important as the creation of these mirror institutions.
Yes the creation of leftist Christians is very important to Fluffy.
He needs the perfect enemy that he can demonize otherwise his world comes crushing down on him.
If Christian leftists did not exist Fluffy would have to invent them.
Shouldn’t Jesusland include SW Canada? Alberta always votes for the right and Saskatchewan and BC usually do. You’d have to figure that in such a radical reordering of the continent those people wouldn’t consent to unending dominance by their ideological opponents simply out of distaste for their allies’ religiosity.
Also, Jesusland definitely requires a Pacific port contiguous to their heartland, and I assume they’d have the wherewithal to achieve it.
Most of the central valley would join Jesusland in an insurection against Pelosi land and disinfect San Fransisco for liberals giving Jesusland its warm water Pacific port.
Hell, if the Republicans would give up their idiotic hatred of gays they could get pretty much all the gay vote, as they tend to be affluent and very tax/market savvy.
If LA wants water they’ll need to cooperate with Jesusland, which I’m sure would annex most of inland CA. Also, San Diego might be an ideal port with all the ex-Navy.
Also, Jesusland definitely requires a Pacific port contiguous to their heartland, and I assume they’d have the wherewithal to achieve it.
And that port is absolutely necessary given their affinity for cheap Chinese Walmart merch.
Jesus who?
Some doomsday cult leader who died a long time ago.
Astroturf from the left. They tried the same thing on gun control, setting up some bogus group of hunters and sportsmen that supported AWB and other associated crap. It assumes the people who are truly committed to whatever issue are dumb enough to fall for astroturf.
It also sounds good to the fellow travelers in the media. The media can interview a member of a group who supports whatever socialist law of the moment without having to admit the vast majority of groups are against it.
Of course, a dominant theme of modern liberalism is the whole “people are stupid and must be told what to do for their own good”. Sheeple wasn’t coined by the right…
Pogressives pushed their agenda through the American political system during the Pogressive Era with the help of much Bible thumping. Once they gained political power, Mainline Protestants ditched their attachment to the Bible. Members of Historically Blacked Churches kept the devotion to the Gospell and still site it to justify the violation of economic liberties. I’m not surprised to see a resurgence of Bible thumping among Mainline Protestant Liberals now that their power is slipping away.
Shouldn’t Jesusland include Mexico?
Case in point:
http://tucsoncitizen.com/usa-t…..0c25b4d1,0
Given the nature of the debate it might be worthwhile to check out this book on Rand and Christianity.
http://www.fr33minds.com/produ…..cts_id=492
I am guessing “Faithful America” is an Obamabot front that will disintegrate the second Obama is thrown out of office.
Remember, progressives used Christianity to argue for prohibition.
Is it so unreasonable to suggest capitalism might be more efficient with a different system of morality than Judeo-Christian? Obviously the video was made by liberals but conservatives such as Whitaker Chambers have criticized Rand solely on her atheism and hostility to Christianity. Do we really NEED Christianity for free market capitalism? As a Stirner fan, I despise the Christian ideals of selflessness and submission, but I would never oppose people’s rights to worship in whatever way they like. However, when conservative and even libertarians say that you can’t be free without Judeo-Christian morals, or that capitalism and Christianity are best friends, I can’t help but let out a sigh.
I’ll leave you with this: It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
Is this really what we want American society to be based on?
Can you guys imagine a New York City of the future where you can carry weaponry freely, taxes don’t butt-fuck you at every turn, business are unburdened by abusive state intervention, and taxis don’t all look the fucking same?
Oooh, did they announce Fallout 4 at E3?
It looks now as if Rand created an alternative secular humanism for irreligious people on the right who love capitalism. After developing under the radar for a couple of generations, Randian humanism has recently emerged strong enough to compete with the left-liberal variety of humanism. And this has happened totally unplanned, through the success of Rand’s novels in the market, and without the institutional advantages left-liberal humanism enjoys in government and academia. I can understand why left-liberal humanists have that WTF? reaction to this turn of events.
The Bible, on copsucking:
Romans 13 (NIV)
1 Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4 For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience.
So if a Christian acknowledges the economic/political wisdom in “Atlas,” he must agree with all of Rand? This is the of the strangest interpretive constructs in recent memory. Is the same treatment accorded to Jews who love and recommend Tolstoy? Or atheist leftists who might recommend “Les Miserables” for its depictions of the poor?
Very well, let’s apply the critics’ own premise to themselves. Since Rand herself agreed that her philosophy formed an integrated whole, the critics in agreeing with that premise of hers commit themselves to agreeing to the totality of her thought.
Waiting to be able to pull out, Paul Ryan awkwardly averts his view from the young man, the way normal people look away when homeless people ask for money at a stoplight.
Don’t confuse ethics with metaphysics. When the claim is made that Marxists base their political philosophy on the ethical philosophy of Christianity / Jesus, some people counter, “But how can that be? Marxists are atheists!” Sure, some Marxists will reject religion, belief in God, etc. But that’s metaphysics. Many atheists would still say they consider Jesus to have been a moral man, and it’s the ethics (not metaphysics) of Christianity that Marxism is based on. I do agree with Rand that the ethics of Jesus, taken seriously, leads to a politics hostile to personal freedom (some variation of communism, socialism, Marxism).