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Satanism and Objectivism

doppelganger

doppelganger

Through the Looking Glass
What similarities and differences are there?

Here's an interesting article with one person's perspective:

Satanism and Objectivism

[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]Let me conclude this brief overview by adding that Satanism has far more in common with Objectivism than with any other religion or philosophy. Objectivists endorse reason, selfishness, greed and atheism. Objectivism sees Christianity, Islam and Judaism as anti-human and evil. The writings of Ayn Rand are inspiring and powerful. If the reader has not yet experienced her power, try her novelette Anthem for a taste. You will almost certainly come back for more.[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif][/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]At the same time, Satanism is a “brutal” as well as a selfish philosophy. We do not hold, as do the Objectivists that the universe is “benevolent.” Satanists view the world as neutral, beyond the concepts of benevolent or treacherous, good or evil. Satanism enables the Satanist to codify his life beyond the ethical and metaphysical straightjacket which Objectivism unfortunately offers. This is not written to attack Objectivism but merely to clarify the areas of difference.[/FONT]
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Francine

Francine

Well-Known Member
doppelgänger;1062604 said:
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]"The writings of Ayn Rand are inspiring and powerful. If the reader has not yet experienced her power, try her novelette Anthem for a taste. You will almost certainly come back for more."[/FONT]
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The prose of Ayn Rand is overwrought. Anthem deliberately omits the use of the first-person singular pronoun until the very last page, the effect is anticlimactic and the reader feels like he or she has been used in some wacky experiment. The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are an endless series of economic sermons framed by the most improbable plots you can imagine, peppered by stark characters right out of George Bush's ideology, where the creative people are pure good, like Shane, and the collectivists are as evil as that Gestapo torture guy from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
 
E

eudaimonia

Fellowship of Reason
Okay, that's the final straw. The OP is fine, but Francine's post is just gratuitous Ayn Rand-bashing.

I'm sick of this, and since this is tolerated here, I'm off this site for good. Goodbye, everyone.


eudaimonia,

Mark
 
Darkness

Darkness

Psychoanalyst/Marxist
I would have thought Satanism would be more in line with Subjectivism/Relativism. :confused:

I guess this is why I am a Luciferian and not a Satanist. I need to catch up on my reading. In my opinion, the Satanism laid down in the Satanic Bible was more enlightened than the "brutal force" held by Modern Satanists.
 
doppelganger

doppelganger

Through the Looking Glass
Darkness said:
I would have thought Satanism would be more in line with Subjectivism/Relativism. :confused:
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That's a problem with Objectivism. Its epistemology is not entirely compatible with its "ethics." This article likens the two based on the "ethical" aspects of Objectivism rather than the epistemological aspects.

I'm not any sort of expert on Satanism, but are there teachings on the nature of human knowledge, language and meaning of "truth" in Satanism?
 
Izdaari

Izdaari

Emergent Anglo-Catholic
Darkness said:
I would have thought Satanism would be more in line with Subjectivism/Relativism. :confused:
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Indeed, at least LaVey's version, the only kind I'm very familiar with. LaVey admitted to having cribbed parts of the Satanic Bible from Rand, but he also used Nietzsche and other German subjective egoists. Rand would've called him a whim worshipper.

Full disclosure: Former Objectivist here. I'm not one anymore, having concluded that God does exist, and having chosen to follow Jesus, but I still have a great deal of respect for Rand's thinking, if not her personal attitudes.
 
Izdaari

Izdaari

Emergent Anglo-Catholic
doppelgänger;1080796 said:
That's a problem with Objectivism. It's epistemology is incompatible with its "ethics." This article likens the two based on the "ethical" aspects of Objectivism rather than the epistemological aspects.

I'm not any sort of expert on Satanism, but are there teachings on the nature of human knowledge, language and meaning of "truth" in Satanism?
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I think we may have said pretty much the same thing in different terms. LaVey largely agreed with Rand on ethics, not so much on epistemology. But to Rand, epistemology was all-important.
 
Francine

Francine

Well-Known Member
Izdaari said:
I think we may have said pretty much the same thing in different terms. LaVey largely agreed with Rand on ethics, not so much on epistemology. But to Rand, epistemology was all-important.
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Rand's error was to narrow her concept of man as rational which has roughly the same intellectual rigor as Hitler defining man as white. It leads her followers to consciously or subconsciously view the majority of mankind, who embrace the full spectrum of life, including emotions and the will to believe in supernatural things, as subhuman. If Objectivists had sole access to the resources of a major industrial power, we would see death camps and thousand-year Reichs.
 
Francine

Francine

Well-Known Member
Izdaari said:
Indeed, at least LaVey's version, the only kind I'm very familiar with. LaVey admitted to having cribbed parts of the Satanic Bible from Rand, but he also used Nietzsche and other German subjective egoists. Rand would've called him a whim worshipper.
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Which is ironic, given that Rand rationalized her preference for smoking, which is objectively harmful, and she rationalized her sexual relations with certain married men. She discovered that her Britneyesque sense of entitlement could be actualized with a little bit of word salad tossed out there to dazzle the uninitiated.
 
Izdaari

Izdaari

Emergent Anglo-Catholic
Francine said:
Rand's error was to narrow her concept of man as rational which has roughly the same intellectual rigor as Hitler defining man as white. It leads her followers to consciously or subconsciously view the majority of mankind, who embrace the full spectrum of life, including emotions and the will to believe in supernatural things, as subhuman. If Objectivists had sole access to the resources of a major industrial power, we would see death camps and thousand-year Reichs.
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Agreed, except for the last bit. Objectivists are strongly committed to libertarian politics, even though Rand didn't like the word. Totalitarian means are considered "muscle mysticism" and thus "irrational and anti-life."

Francine said:
Which is ironic, given that Rand rationalized her preference for smoking, which is objectively harmful, and she rationalized her sexual relations with certain married men. She discovered that her Britneyesque sense of entitlement could be actualized with a little bit of word salad tossed out there to dazzle the uninitiated.
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That's pretty much what I meant when I said I exempted her personal attitudes from the parts of Rand's thinking I had great respect for.
 
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