Pattio wrote:Sooo, I really never plan to read any of her work. You guys who have : where is she with religion?
I ask because certain parties around here are so aggressive about sharing their atheist beliefs, up to and including derisive mockery of any and all individuals who even admit to tolerating theistic thought. Is that pretty much rands take on religion, or do her characters practice some known faiths in addition to their intellectualized and incentivized self-interest?
Explicit to the utmc atheist chorus: I'm asking a question about literature that can be answered with facts. If you have nothing to say except that you are an atheist and think I'm stupid, or perhaps even a novelty gif that you think says it for you, please don't, unless you consider it your goal to quash any and all discussion of religion in this forum.
I guess as a member of the chorus then, not stupid, no, a bit passive aggressive though... Anyway on to the facts.
In terms of the literature in Atlas Shrugged specifically the book takes a strong position opposed to religion, on more than a few occasions within individual characters' dialogue.
In The Fountainhead as I recall the message was a bit less overt, but it does include a line about the New York skyline being man's will made visible and needing no other religion.
I was feeling a bit curious as it has been some years since I read any Rand, so I dug up a quote or two:
Atlas Shrugged: "The good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive- a definition that invalidates man's consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence. Man's mind, say the mystics of spirit, must be subordinated to the will of God. Man's standard of value, say the mystics of spirit, is the pleasure of God, whose standards are beyond man's power of comprehension and must be accepted on faith. The purpose of man's life is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question."
"For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors - between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it."
That one from The Fountainhead: "I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline. Particularly when one can't see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pesthole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window - no, I don't feel how small I am - but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body."
This one too: "It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master."
/RM
/Speed is our religion.
"If requests are an option, I'd like to be hit by a beautiful and highly trained nurse, driving a marshmallow. Naked. And then she would buy me an ice cream." - Rev
