....I find it so interesting that modern Conservatives start to clutch onto Rand like her two books are guides handed down from On High when she didn't even have a religion.
That is because far right conservatism has created a kind of unholy alliance between free market principles, capital punishment, a propensity to make war and a strange sort of perverted Christianity.
The massive contradictions between all those things and genuine Christianity is so obvious that it should be clear to everyone that extreme right wing conservatism is a culture wrapped in a false cloak of religion.
By some insane logic, greed, inequitable distribution of wealth, unfettered capitalism that rewards greed and unethical behavior, and legislated denial of basic human needs have somehow been painted with cheap Christian colored whitewash and defended as if somehow Jesus himself would identify with it.
Jesus said that people like this are like "whited sepulchres" (ya gotta love the KJV for its lyrical style if nothing else), meaning already painted with the white mask of death.
Therefore, it makes as little difference to right wing conservatives that Barack Obama has been a lifelong church goer as it does that Ayn Rand was an atheist. What matters is the cultural and political ideology they represent.
Of course Ayn Rand was an atheist because until Christianity was hijacked and redefined by fundamentalists, anyone espousing a philosophy of formalized greed and self-centered morality would be seen as an anathema to any Christian.
These days this is not only acceptable, but somehow encouraged by Christian fundamentalism.
