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  • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 9 years, 10 months ago
    Good grief... the article speaks for itself in its tired old saw complaints. It is as if there was nothing more in the philosophy to offer than atheism... News Flash! Atheism and Objectivism are two different words for a reason...
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 9 years, 10 months ago
    Wow, that's laughable. The person writing it is probably pretty "anti-Christian" themselves, ironically. The left will stop at nothing for their cause - like Hitler. They are without shame.
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  • Posted by Robbie53024 9 years, 10 months ago
    It seems to me that Ms. Stoker either hasn't actually read the book and relies on summaries (likely from hard-core Objectivist sites) or she doesn't understand that one can accept the fundamental socio-economic truths (Producers, Looters, Moochers) without endorsing the underlying basis espoused by AR.

    I'm not sure what Ms. Stoker seems to think are antithetical to Christian ethics - Honesty, Hard Work, Value for Value?

    Atheism is not overt in AS, not even where a moral basis is discussed, and is certainly not thrown in the face of the reader, nor I take it, in the face of the movie audience.

    One reason that I am here, and am a fan of the book, is that I can arrive at the same philosophical conclusions about PLM's as did AR and how she characterized them in AS, otherwise I wouldn't be here. It seems that Ms. Stoker is unable to separate the woman from the literature and message contained. I, for one, can.
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    • Posted by Maphesdus 9 years, 10 months ago
      "Atheism is not overt in AS"
      ---
      John Galt's speech was pretty much an open attack on all organized religion.
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      • Posted by Solver 9 years, 10 months ago
        Seems to me that many religious people want no part of organized religion. So much so that they claim their belief in God is not even religious, but a personal belief, following his rules
        (if you see a contradiction, so do I)
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        • -1
          Posted by Hiraghm 9 years, 10 months ago
          Yeah, I'm guilty as charged.

          I can't help it. I just can't get myself to violate His rules... like the laws of physics. Believe me, there are times when I've wanted to violate His rules concerning gravity and thermodynamics, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

          One can believe in God and creation withOUT the ills Galt decries in his speech. I can forgive the "ghosts in heaven" crack in his speech, recognizing already that he's a vile hypocrite.

          As much as I like the other protagonists in Atlas Shrugged, I always loathed Galt. He would be the Bill O'Really of Objectivism, IMO.
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  • Posted by coaldigger 9 years, 10 months ago
    I do not think that religion has anything to do with God. I do not think that any organized religion exists for any purpose other than to control the ignorant masses. After repeating big lies for so long, even the people who should be the leaders have come to believe and are damning us all.
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  • Posted by LionelHutz 9 years, 10 months ago
    The article is an opinion piece - it's supposed to be one sided - her side. It doesn't look any different than her usual stuff. Check out her other work to see what I mean:
    http://theweek.com/author/elizabeth-stok...

    I find nothing terribly peculiar in what she's written. It amounts to the same thing as the "Jesus or Rand - pick one" poster that was floating around during the second movie release. Everyone was making exactly the same criticism then.

    And - I see the same thing going on the other direction. Some people here just can't abide the God topic and if you discuss it they figure you must have landed in the gulch by accident and hope you grow up and learn to think some day.
    Christian Egoist wrote on this a while back as well...
    https://thechristianegoist.wordpress.com...
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    • -1
      Posted by Hiraghm 9 years, 10 months ago
      "Jesus or Rand, pick one"...

      Well, lessee... Jesus died telling me I could throw off my guilt because God, in fact, loved me, and Rand died telling me I could throw off my guilt because God doesn't exist. Jesus preached that I was important to the creator of all things, Rand preached that I should be all important to myself.
      Jesus preached that my choices in life have consequences felt long after; Rand preached that this life is what I got, make the most of it.

      Hm. Tough choice...
      /sarc
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 10 months ago
    "One can imagine the collective shriek of indignation that would come from right-wing pundits like Hannity if a left-wing politician and pundits summarily elected to appear in a film with a dubious moral message."

    They really don't get it. I wonder if deep down the author herself even believes it. Being left-wing and right-wing are morally dubious IMHO. Most of AS isn't a moral or political message. It says we can observe the world and use observations to create models to build things to help other people. It says interjecting ourselves w/o permission into private arrangements of people helping one another in trade can have disastrous unintended consequences. These are facts.

    Religious beliefs and beliefs that I love my family are not scientifically falsifiable and therefore aren't part of this. If religion tries to manipulate us into sharing our lives and what we build with others or into accepting falsifiable claims on faith, AS is anti-religion. But not all religion does that.

    At least the author does wrongly thing that AS is for mindless picking bundle of conclusions on issues such as taxes and imaginary friends. She wants you to pick their bundle or someone else's b/c that what she gets paid to write, but AS says to think and live for yourself.
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  • Posted by Hiraghm 9 years, 10 months ago
    You know, he has a point...

    The first two movies *weren't* really made to suit modern audiences.

    What... one, maybe two explosions in both films? No car chases or crashes, just the plane chase/crash at the end of ASp2. No vulgarity spewing antagonist (or protagonist for that matter) squaring off to a mixed-martial arts bout, virtually no blood, the little bit of sex involved was more implied than explicit as necessary in modern films.

    Yes, Atlas Shrugged, being thoughtful and complex, and sans de rigueur mindless violence and pointless sex was pretty much designed to flop in a modern theater.
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  • Posted by Temlakos 9 years, 10 months ago
    This goes back to Whittaker Chambers' slanderous pan of the novel.

    Now perhaps we can debate why Rand was an atheist. I say it's because she accepted the statists' wrongful co-optation of the Christian message as the real thing, and rejected both.
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