From other sources I knew Russia was having a Christian revival after kicking communism to the curb, but wasn't aware of its true nature. Rebuilding a cathedral in Moscow is certainly a statement!

My pastor spoke on this, Sunday. True Christianity is not God telling you not to have fun. It's God reminding us not to hurt ourselves. It seems to me that AR had a bit of a bone to pick with organized religions, and I can surmise a lot of the reasons, which is why I'm not a Catholic, Mormon, or one of many others. Being "charitable", on the surface, goes against her warnings against altruism, but I think there's a line between giving of yourself to others who will return nothing, or worse, are actively working against you, and doing for family, friends, and community in which you have a vested interest.
I suspect AR would say, "Kick your kids (if you bothered to have any) out of the house when they turn 18, and let them fend for themselves", but remember that when you're old and feeble, you might want someone there to help you. I've heard it said, "Take care of your children. They're the ones who will choose your nursing home."
Efforts toward making life easier for others in your community may well result in less strife and turmoil for the community, and perhaps a better life for you.
"Power" is ultimately the ability to reshape the world to your liking, and that's part of it all. It's not all about, as AR would probably say, your personal well-being and wealth.
Douglas Adams was a well-known atheist, but in his "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", there's a nice homage to "one man (who) had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change".

Looking at religions today... is there an honestly traditional one left?

I'm old enough to remember when a church (at least the Baptist church I attended) was true to the gospel.

I guess I brought it up after seeing an interview with Dr Joseph P. Farrell (author) last night where he described himself as an "old curmudgeon" when it came to the state of large religious institutions.
He feels they are all corrupt at this point.

After hearing his direct experience as a practicing theologian, it's hard to argue his logic and evidence on the matter.

The major religions have lost their way.
Satan has gained the upper hand.

One last observation:
Farrell said the (Greek and Russian) Orthodox churches are kind of the last hold-outs.
His final comment was that after the fall of the Soviet Union, the common folk of Russia were spiritually revived by their return to the Russian Orthodox Church.
A major cathedral in Moscow that Stalin had torn down (replaced with some Soviet iconology) was rebuilt to it's original design.
That speaks volumes to the change happening in Russia today.

Holy smokes! I got down voted to zero for admitting I'm not perfect! Tragedy, LOL!

Most of what Catholicism teaches is not of Christian teaching actually. The Bible was never used in teaching from the age of 7 days till I realized the truth needed to be learned for my mind and was born again. Catholics approve of abortion just come to church and drop your $$$ in the basket, live and let live no matter what your choices are certainly proven by the recent "Popes"

"...Rand was an atheist, if memory serves me correctly" You are correct TT, but looking at many religions and their histories one could hardly blame her. I don't share her disbelief, but I can understand it for her circumstances.

Same. The Gulch - gotta like the neighborhood because of the neighbors!

Any Rand was an atheist, if memory serves me correctly.
Being a Christian, I can only pray she had a come to Jesus moment before her passing.

That said, I read Atlas Shrugged as the idealist fiction it was written as.
Yes, lots of parallelisms to the then current political situation and extrapolation of where it could ultimately lead.
In this regard she did prove very prophetic.

However, capitalism, like everything else in this life, does not exist in a vacuum.

We (not just the US) have a bad case of crony capitalism, market manipulation, currency manipulation, insider trading (particularly among our political so-called representatives with dual-citizenship no less!), slave-labor wages... she could not have possibly anticipated how AI and robotics could/would fundamentally transform manufacturing, eliminating whole classes of the labor force.

There can never be the ideal perfect capitalism Ayn Rand envisioned as long as humans are involved in that process.

Like our 250 year experiment in a Representational Constitutional Republic government, while it may not be perfect, capitalism is the best mechanism man has come up with so far.

Thank you. Having access to The Gulch is very important to me.

Glad you stayed on, dino! All civil discussion should be allowed here.

"I am charitable because I want to be..." Yes and being charitable is a good thing if you can be, but it must be personally decided, not by force.

Numerous "Christian" religions that brought the inquisition or witch burning or other means to assert their power to get people to grovel and sacrifice themselves on an altar they provide is far from where Christianity began. I don't think Jesus would approve. With that said, it looks like Christianity may be slowly rediscovering its roots as you point out in your last paragraph.

I must admit I haven't read ALL of it cover to cover, but I've certainly read a good deal of it along with other related works.

That's different than sacrificing your happiness. I am charitable because I want to be, which is different - I think. I've gotten into arguments with Catholics on this - compulsory giving being how I see their prescribed altruism. But, maybe we're splitting hairs. All you need to get to heaven, according to the Bible, is to believe. "...whosoever believeth in him...". Faith. Nothing else.

Speaking of religion...I heard just recently that only one woman is mentioned in the entire Quran. Mary. I found that interesting.

Rational self interest could be construed as: Rational Celf interest: Every cell in the body is responsible for it's own survival (and happiness relating to this question); so once those conditions are satisfied, the Value is always (automatically) passed on.

Passing on Value is done unconsciously by one that has taken care of self first. But what many have done Consciously probably was at the risk of sacrifice or aggrandizement . . . sometimes both!

Me dino came in late due to having company over today.
I was a Christian before I read Atlas Shrugged, all the while I read it and remained so after I added it to my book collection. Why did I read it? Have a brother, an ex-Catholic Protestant just like me, who Christmas gifted me with all 3 Atlas Shrugged DVDs which I also added to my DVD collection. I view Ayn Rand as someone special to both study and listen to. Save for one thing.
When I landed a month over 12 years ago, Christians were spoken of like idiots here. It inspired me to select Allosaurus for a moniker which means "different lizard." Thought it best to keep my mouth shut at first. There was a lot to learn that did not pertain to religion. Then someone started a discussion entitled "What Is Easter?" or something close to that. A brand new female member mentioned going to church. She was quite harshly insulted. I lost my temper and threw a hissy fit at the insulter. Powers that be deleted everything I wrote and I expected to be tossed off this board. Just about all of 12 years ago. Oh, well . . .

While not exactly stated, I just assumed you could do a simple pigeon holing process between:
A) Rational Self-Interest
B) Irrational Self-Interest

The latter exemplifying the destruction of others, or other peoples properties, in seeking your own "self-interest". Profiting on a VAXX that you knew would increase mortality, decrease birth rates, and lead to more cancers and Excess deaths for years to come...

While you could argue it's all in your self-interest, I believe it is irrational to do so. Because eventually, if EVERYONE acted that way, your family/friends and even yourself may end up being a victim...

And if it doesn't work globally for others because what it does to you, then I believe that is where it becomes Irrational.

It seemed obvious to me, so I never thought about. Now that I have. I had to play with it a bit... To end up where I just stated.

Interesting.

The Cardinal virtues of Catholicism are Faith, Hope, and Charity. I don't think Protestestants can deny that these are key to Christianity. Faith is belief without evidence. Hope is hope of everlasting life in Heaven, for which there is no evidence. And Charity is loving God and your fellow man above all else, which is outright altruism in the sense Ayn Rand meant.

Can you deny that this is the core of Christian teaching?

But I get it, there are many churches in America, and a beautiful thing that has happened in America is that many church leaders think that they need to emphasize living the good life now. That's very positive, although only Christian in the way my Mama wanted Christianity to be.

"It wants you to sacrifice yourself and your happiness on Earth..." I never got that from it. Appreciate your comment.

Agree with you assessment. Basically as I see it also. To WRT's point, stating that we do not buy into the sacrificing and grovelling that the current religions "believe or practice" does put somewhat at odds with parts of the Bible. But agreeing with his Mama, do not believe in a God that would not want us happy - with the caveat of "as long as it does not infringe on someone else's happiness".

Appreciate that...

I guess as Christian you should read the Bible more.

But, hey, my Mama used to say she couldn't believe in a God who wouldn't want her to be happy. So she made that an axiom of her religious views, though she considered herself a Christian.

I'm going to go way out on a limb here, but I consider myself a Christian and I don't think Jesus Christ would buy into all this sacrificing and grovelling virtually all the current "Christian" religions would have us believe and practice. But that's just me.

Coveting is a strong word, but failing to recognize beauty is just silly as well as self-defeating. I do tell them, and their husbands. Everyone is happy, because they all trust me implicitly. I use adjectives like "beautiful", gorgeous", and "striking", and avoid one's like "hot". Although I do call one Mexican buddies Greek wife, the "Hot Greek" because she is beautiful and quite a handful (very active in Republican politics ... and everything). We are co celebrating our birthdays this Saturday (not the day but close for both).

It is easy to foresee the limits of self-interest if one's perspective is narrow. For example, killing another is fine for self-interest, until one realizes one will be at minimum ostracized, and one needs and values the contributions and value of others. Ayn directly addresses this (but I don't recall the reference. Maybe that twerp, EWE, can quote it from his idiot homework assignments).

In my "reasonable libertarian" mind (as opposed to radical hard on Libertarians), there is a similar place for government's role. A capitalist system WILL find a monotonic optimum, proven over and over. However, it is limited by local minima. If there is a massive investment required, the investors may not be able to recover their investments within their risk tolerance (or even their lifetimes). In this case, it will converge to a local minima, not a global minima. I argue the interstate highway system overcame such local minima. And yes, I recognize others don't agree, including Milton Friedman, but being in business, no one was going to make that investment, or overcome the local obstructions and build such a system. Maybe Elon would do it now, but we have already benefited from it for 70 years.
Of course there is the issue of shutting down a successful program when it is done, but that is another issue.

To me that is the government inverse, book ending self-interest.