Teabaggers like Bachmann and Ryan only pretend to be Christian; they have "objectivist sympathies"

[pnwmom]

(Ayn Randian sympathies) -- which are completely at odds with Christian morality.

The highest value for Christian morality is charity, or love. Ayn Rand's objectivist morality says that charity -- doing for others -- is evil. Her morality makes selfishness the only good.

How can Christians reconcile this? They can't. But fake Christians can. In the pursuit of their own goals, they have no problem with lying. Pretending to espouse Christian beliefs? No problem, if it gets them what they want.

[gratuitous]

1. Because dressing up their selfishness as Christianity plays so much better

And it gives a patina of respectability to people's own selfishness.

[hifiguy]

2. I am reading Richard Dawkins' brilliant

"The God Delusion" right now. Makes me glad to be an atheist, this crap does.

And the cognitive dissonance/lack of rationality is so great in modern Repukes like BS Bachmann and Ratshit Ryan that they see no contradictions whatsoever between their equally false prophets.

[RKP5637]

5. And the 7x24 cognitive dissonance/lack of rationality no doubt gives

Bachmann her migraines.

[hifiguy]

8. Cog diss on that level makes the

brain vibrate, I think. Furious brain oscillations generate heat and headaches.

[RKP5637]

30. Yeah, kinda like a speaker cranked up at full volume rattling in ones head 7x24! n/t

[pnwmom]

9. Ayn Rand was proud to be an atheist, too.

Her atheism provided the foundation for her self-centered morality.

I don't think you should lump all Christians together any more than you would want to lump all atheists together.

[hifiguy]

13. Dawkins points out at considerable length that

there are perfectly valid reasons, explicable by Darwinism, why human beings can and do act altruistically. Dawkins is an intellectual giant; Rand was a sick and twisted loser who worshiped a serial killer. Hardly comparable. At some level all Christians, whether benign or malign, have to believe in something that is not logically or rationally tenable. I for one cannot live that way and live with myself.

[pnwmom]

14. Rand may not be an intellectual "giant" but her philosophy's impact

has been far greater than that of Dawkins. Her "objectivism" forms the philosophical basis of Libertarianism and the teabagger party. Dawkins hasn't anywhere near the following that she has, decades after her death.

[hifiguy]

16. That says much about the intellectual "quality" of her

followers.

McDonald's sells a lot more food than Ming Tsai and Mario Batali. That doesn't mean it's better, only that it appeals to the lowest possible common denominator and is readily available.

[pnwmom]

22. All those people are voters. Her influence has been enormous, unfortunately.

Dawkins, not so much.

[PassingFair]

19. Most teabaggers wouldn't know Ayn Rand if she bit them on the ass.

Maybe a few of them saw "The Fountain Head"
when they were youngsters...

[pnwmom]

21. Doesn't matter. Her philosophy underpins the whole movement.

What matters is that people like Ron Paul and Paul Ryan have absorbed her philosophy (Ryan makes all his staff members read Rand), and worked successfully to promote it.

[PassingFair]

27. Those buttholes didn't need Ayn Rand to teach them about selfishness.

They're naturals!

[white_wolf]

25. On Libertarianism Rand said the following in an interview.

Q: Why don’t you approve of the Libertarians, thousands of whom are loyal readers of your works?

AR: Because Libertarians are a monstrous, disgusting bunch of people: they plagiarize my ideas when that fits their purpose, and they denounce me in a more vicious manner than any communist publication, when that fits their purpose. They are lower than any pragmatists, and what they hold against Objectivism is morality. They’d like to have an amoral political program.

The full interview can be read here, though trust me her hateful attitude is grating: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=education_campus_libertarians

[pnwmom]

26. It sounds like she's describing the same ones I'm talking about.

Those millions of her followers who pretend that Christian morality -- which she despised -- is compatible with her objectivist morality.

"Now here is a party that plagiarizes some of my ideas, mixes it with the exact opposite—with religionists, anarchists, and just about every intellectual misfit and scum they can find—and they call themselves Libertarians, and run for office. I dislike Reagan and Carter; I’m not too enthusiastic about the other candidates. But the worst of them are giants compared to anybody who would attempt something as un-philosophical, low, and pragmatic as the Libertarian Party. It is the last insult to ideas and philosophical consistency."

[Sarah Ibarruri]

3. Churches in the U.S. are also Randian. Repukes taught me to hate churches nt

[RKP5637]

6. Same here!!! n/t

[pnwmom]

10. Any "Church" that preaches Randian philosophy isn't preaching

Christian morality -- no matter what label they give themselves.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

11. These days I don't know of any Christian church that isn't preaching Randian philosophy

I wish I did.

[pnwmom]

12. None of the "mainline" denominations do. For example:

http://www.ncronline.org/news/justice/debt-debate-brings-calls-preserving-safety-net

A July 13 letter to Obama and members of Congress from Catholic leaders said they are deeply concerned that a budget compromise will be struck "that sacrifices the poor and most vulnerable on the altar of deficit reduction. Such a solution would be flawed public policy and a moral failure."

The letter was signed by Catholic religious and lay leaders, including Sister Simone Campbell, a Sister of Social Service and executive director of Network, a social justice lobby; Jesuit Father T. Michael McNulty, justice and peace director for the Conference of Major Superiors of Men; Franciscan Sister Marie Lucey, associate director for social mission at the Leadership Conference of Women Religious; the five-woman leadership team of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas; and Jesuit Father James Hug, president of the Center of Concern.

Other signers were theologians and professors from across the country in fields such as policy research, Christian ethics and social service.

"We must address our nation's fiscal crisis," they wrote. "The crisis is the result of unsustainable tax cuts, deficit funding of two wars, and the financial crisis. In this context it is gravely immoral to balance the budget on the backs of the middle class and poor by slashing Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and other bedrock safety-net programs that support pregnant mothers and infants."

[Sarah Ibarruri]

15. A lot of Catholics seem somewhat more compassionate. Tho many have become...

imitators of Bible-banging fascists.

As far as Protestant, whether traditional or one of those Bible-banging nutjobs, I wouldn't trust one as far as I could throw him.

[MedicalAdmin]

17. Um - you live in FL, right?

I'm just saying that your "representative" sample might be a WEEEEEEEE bit skewed.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

18. You think? I mean, I know FL is a retarded fascist's paradise, but still....

Are there churches around that aren't mere meeting houses for the GOP?

[pnwmom]

23. How about the Quakers? Any of them in Florida?

They have meeting houses, but not for the GOP.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

24. Yes. Those people are wonderful. There are too few to consider tho. nt

[Hubert Flottz]

4. If they go to "Heaven" the place won't be fit for a mad dog.

[Fuzz]

7. American Jesus don't need no charity.

[white_wolf]

20. As Al Franken points in his book Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them

the right doesn't worship Jesus Christ, but rather Supply-Side Jesus.

[B Calm]

28. Vote for me or you'll go to HELL campaigns. . . So many choices

[Warren DeMontague]

29. Verily, they're not true Scotsmen.

Good. By that yardstick, I'm far more "Christian" than the majority of the Republican Party, nevermind the fact that I consider the idea of a giant invisible man in the sky who worries about your sex life to be beyond inane, childish, and fucking ridiculous.

[pnwmom]

31. You very well could be,

by my definition.

But no thoughtful ADULT Christian that I know of thinks of God as "a giant invisible man in the sky who worries about your sex life."

[Warren DeMontague]

32. Really? The Space Being who runs the 14 Billion LY Wide Universe isn't intimately interested

in whether or not the hairless apes on Planet Earth are lawfully wed to a member of the opposite gender before they screw?

Coulda fooled me. It's pretty much the main focal obsession of the 3 major Western Monotheisms.

[pnwmom]

33. That's what some kids might be taught in Sunday School.

But many adult Christians develop an adult theology -- even among the western monotheisms.

[Warren DeMontague]

34. Seeing as I don't believe in any of it, it's really not my problem

I mean, as long as the fundamentalist yahoos don't succeed in passing laws affecting my body, my personal choices, or my kids' public school science curriculum.

Still, the part about No True Scotsman is valid. And while there may be 'adults' in the Western Monotheisms, they certainly don't seem to be driving the agenda at, say, the Vatican.