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KDoubleC's avatar

But he did move on, Mary! Remember he said during 2012 that he had moved away from her ideological ramblings. Not because of elevation of narcissism and brutality towards the poor, but because he found out she didn’t believe in god. A deeply and profoundly empathy void encapsulation of a man.

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Maggie's avatar

He didn't realize Ayn Rand was an atheist until 2012? He didn't pick that up from the whole "me is the highest power" undercurrent? If you can even call it an undercurrent, it's more like a firehouse of morally-unmoored egotism!

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Mark W. Bantz's avatar

Hey, nothing wrong with being an atheist!

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Ben Gruder's avatar

A special challenge for atheists is making sure they don't start worshipping themselves. I think Bob Dylan was on to something when he said "you gotta serve SOMEbody". (yes, I know it's also true that too many theists think they are worshipping God, but that somehow, pure coincidence, I am sure, their God wants exactly what *they* want).

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Mark W. Bantz's avatar

What a broad generalization.

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Ben Gruder's avatar

No not broad. I said it can be a challenge, not that most, many etc atheists do this. But Rand did.

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Craig Butcher's avatar

Somehow this comment duplicated duplicated itself

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Sko Hayes's avatar

When you're a fan of Ayn Rand, it's always good to ignore stuff like her atheism or collecting social security.

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Mar 3, 2023Edited
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Craig Butcher's avatar

Ayn Rand was brilliant and far ahead of her time. She came here as an immigrant and discovered a land peopled with marks ripe for plundering, and in the best American tradition invented a religion in which she was both prophet and divinity. Its particular genius was that it recast the religion-like appeal of Communism in a guise that looked like opposition to communist totalitarianism but was actually just a copycat authoritarianism focused on worship of its leader.

Much of its appeal was to insecure adolescent males (young and old); it taught that the condition of being a morally immature, selfish, petulant seventh grade male, far from being a regrettable phase that one was supposed to pass through and grow out of, was in fact the highest stage of human development. This naturally found a ready audience with morally immature, selfish, petulant males of all ages who resented being expected to grow up.

Few cons are so successful or durable; it ran swimmingly for the whole of her excessively long life and survives its raison d'etre; even though it was invented solely as a gravy train for Ayn Rand personally, and her passing has folded up the carnival tent, like shingles, which evades our immune defenses by infecting the nervous system, the shill has become an endemic mind virus.

So let us not omit to give her her due.

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