Ayn Rand and Religion
by Dennis C. Hardin
During most of her adult life, Ayn Rand regarded religion as an unworthy opponent. She rarely addressed the issue of religion as such, preferring to invest her intellectual energy in fighting the philosophical influence of Immanuel Kant. I think it’s probable that she considered religion as such to be largely a dead issue, and chose not to attack its many remaining adherents in the hope that it would soon be obvious to them that she offered a much better set of guiding principles for their lives. She frequently attacked mysticism—but rarely set her sights on religion.
Her article, “Conservatism: An Obituary,” written in 1960, gave equal weight to “tradition” and “religion” as the sources for conservatives’ allegiance to altruism. “Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World,” written that same year, did not even mention the word religion. Again, it was primarily an attack on Kant.
In 1961, speaking to a group of women journalists, she went so far as to say the following:
“Religion rests on faith—on an acceptance of certain beliefs apart from reason, That is why it must be private. When it’s a private matter, it’s fine—it can even be a kind of inspiration to people…” (Robert Mayhew, Ayn Rand Answers, p. 63)
The only sense I can make out of that quote is to say that apparently even Ayn Rand had moments when PR was more important to her to than truth. It is hard to believe that Mayhew thought that such an anti-Objectivist remark was appropriate for inclusion in his book. What else can this be attributed to but total brain freeze? On the other hand, it is fascinating to know that Ayn Rand permitted herself such moments.
No doubt she was operating on the premise that the supernatural or “mystical” element in religion had largely died out. As the late George Walsh states:
“In the first half of the twentieth century, the leaders of many of the Protestant churches in America had basically lost their faith in supernatural Christianity. This loss of faith was intellectual. It was due to their knowledge of science and of the critical study of the Bible. They asked themselves what was left of Christianity. They answered: the values it teaches. The values of altruism and self-sacrifice…” In the aftermath of this trend, “there was little to distinguish Christianity from Judaism. It was at this time that the term ‘Judeo-Christian tradition’ became current…” (George Walsh, The Role of Religion in History, p. 163)
Ayn Rand’s opinion about the residual strength of supernatural religion may have started to change in 1976, about the time of Ronald Reagan’s initial run for the presidency and the New York senatorial campaign battle between James Buckley and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. In the Q & A period of Peikoff’s lectures at the time, she attacked both Reagan and Buckley as “religious conservatives,” and referred to them as “pure fascists.” She said the following:
“…Buckley’s philosophy has nothing to do with ‘the real world’ or practical life. It’s in another dimension, and more than any other mystical philosophy today, it’s on the rampage and anxious to take over the world…He is against abortion, and anyone who denies the right to abortion cannot be a defender of rights…Buckley is the Trojan horse out to destroy any hope this country ever had of a return to capitalism…So please, in the name of philosophy in the real world—not the philosophy of religion and the hereafter—vote Buckley out…” (Mayhew, pp. 66-68)
Her view of Reagan was identical to her view of Buckley. She literally pleaded with her readers not to vote for Reagan.
In 1976, following Carter’s victory, Rand denied that the “sense of life” of the country was changing:
“It would be wonderful if the mere sense of life of the country had saved us—for at least the next four years—but we had no right to expect it. Without philosophy, nothing can be done; evil wins by default, as it did this time.” (Mayhew, p. 71)
But I suspect she was beginning to see that perhaps she had overlooked something. Here is another of her comments about the religious conservatives, published in the final issue of the Ayn Rand Letter:
“To rush into politics on an intellectual shoestring, to posture as a champion of freedom, to get into power by cashing in on the people’s hope and despair, then to offer them, for inspiration and guidance, nothing better than the old religion-family-tradition stuff—the stuff that has lost the world to communism—is so dark a betrayal that those guilty of it deserve what they get…”
Although Ayn Rand claimed to the end that world events were unfolding exactly as she predicted, the truth is that she underestimated the power of religion to hypnotize believers into accepting what George Walsh describes as the “pay-off” of the Judeo-Christian tradition:
“the sacrifice of reason, independence and happiness is answered with a warm welcome to a life of security in the bosom of the tribe…” (Walsh, p. 185)
Some religious people may indeed give lip service to some tenets of Objectivism, as Rand claimed, but their allegiance to the ethics of altruism remains intact. In every fundamental area, as Walsh vividly demonstrates, religion is the antithesis of Objectivism. Unless the current generation of Objectivists succeed in helping people see that religion is the enemy of everything they value in this world, the consequences could well spell doom for capitalism and the world as we know it.
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