Ayn Rand and Atheism

There is a political ad out there right now indicting Ayn Rand, author of, "Atlas Shrugged" and several other fiction and nonfiction books.  It indicts her for her atheism and assigns guilt by association to anyone who, like me, has endorsed her.

As to her Atheism, that is where I part ways with her.  Years ago, I entered into correspondence with one of the column writers at the Ayn Rand site, theobjectivestandard.com.  That is to say, I wrote a letter where I refuted the columnists atheistic claims point by point.  I'll be excerpting or summarizing that letter in the future, here on my blog.

Anyway, briefly, in reaction to the aforementioned political ad:  It is just another attempt to divide us.  They'd divide us "rich" from "poor," fiscal conservative from social conservative and now, religionist from atheist.  Well, let me restate that we all have much more in common with each other than not.  This all goes back to looking for the good in others rather than refusing to see past the bad.  It's illustrated out on the streets every day as we become enraged at someone who cuts us off with his car, and then, sometimes moments later, the same thing happens, but we don't even notice because this time, we're the cutter-off-er.

Even a brief study of Ayn Rand reveals that there is very little of her philosophy to disdain and much more to endorse.  What leads her to atheism is her perspective that all religions teach that the pursuit of happiness is selfish and evil; that the definition of sacrifice is that you give all and get nothing.  That is, you make yourself miserable while making others happy.  She somehow missed the fact that, in the scriptures, whenever a commandment is mentioned, the blessings of obedience to that commandment are also mentioned.  Sacrifice is giving up something good for something better, not giving up everything and getting nothing.

She logically jumps in her assumption from God to the government.  The government expects us to be as productive as possible even as it hampers our ability to produce and takes many of the fruits of our labors.  She fails to notice the distinction between God and government when it comes to force.  The government forces us to do what it says and give what it wants.  God does not.  His commandments  are grave suggestions rather than enforced edicts.