| | Statistics hide facts. As Steve notes, some of it comes from one cause, some of it from another, and so on. I credit Ayn Rand's works, but also Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, and Douglas Adams who allowed atheism to be popular and made it acceptable. They came out of the closet, basically. It is not something I admit to, at least not in public.
Also, I have to equivocate. I mentioned this here before. Bryan Caplan of Yale blogs at Econlog, at the Online Library of Economics and Liberty. He cited one of our least favorite people, Paul Krugman, who claimed that Keynesians can make the free market case more honestly than libertarians can put forward the reasons for central banking, fiscal and monetary management of the economy. Caplan called for an Intellectual Turing Test. Get a dozen or so from each side, let them be anonymous, then post essays in reply to questions, taking both sides of the issue. Can you spot the fakers?
His challenge was taken up by one of his students, Leah Librisco, who is an atheist engaged to be married to a Catholic. Her blog is called "Unequally Yoked" from a Biblical passage: Paul warned against marrying a disbeliever because you would be like an ox and an ass unequally yoked to the plow. Anyway, I signed up. And I failed. Both sides. Both atheists and Christians claimed that I was an imposter. So, if you need a label, I have none: I don't know what I am. I always thought that I was an atheist. But I also think the Earth might be have been created and humans might be the work of superior beings. And, ontologically, a supreme being(s) probably exist(s). I hold that the universe was not created. Of course, I reject the claims that immortal prophets revealed eternal truths.
Anyway... We like to note the continued popularity of Ayn Rand's works, but too often seem to focus only on the libertarian politics which speak against government regulation of the market. If that is all, then Objectivists and Libertarians would be equivalent. Paul Ryan's furious backpedaling brought scorn, mostly from the left, while conservatives here and on other Objectivist sites touted his "objective virtues." To me, as a politician, he lied. He lied to the Objectivists when he spoke to the Atlas Society. Certainly, he did not say, "Oh, well, yes, I am still a believing and devout Catholic who rejects your atheist philosophy." Politicians lie. They tell you whatever they think you want to hear. We just excuse it when it is, indeed, what we want to hear. Be that as it may...
In Night of January 16th for sure and perhaps also in The Fountainhead, when the heroine is required to take the witness stand at trial, she declares that she is an atheist and the judge overrules. Until 1993, in eleven states atheists could not testify in court, serve on juries, or be elected to public office. Herb Silverman, a mathematics professor at the College of Charleston, was denied a notary commission because he is an atheist. He appealed won; and all the state laws fell. (Read about Herb Silverman 1993 here. Read about him 2012 here. ) Realize that after the Civil War, the Southern states re-entered the Union with new constitutions, modeled on Massachusetts and Pennsylvania both of which required profession of faith in a Supreme Being, as a condition of public office. (That ties to another discussion here about "states rights" versus "federalism" and Ron Paul.)
(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 10/10, 6:27am)
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