What is the greatest hatred?

Some would say it’s anti-Semitism. I myself have said that. But I think it’s arguable that a more intense hatred is that of the Randians for God, and, as a corollary, for people who believe in God. Remember that Ayn Rand equated religion with absolute evil, a view that has been liberated and empowered in recent years by the aggressive New Atheism of Dawkins and Hitchens. Here is the latest of the charming e-mails I receive regularly from the Randians, by reader Barry White (actually it’s not the best example of the genre, as it’s milder than most):

Since I know that you are obsessed with the way people think about you, I would like to bring to your attention an Objectivist that has critiqued your view of God and atheism. Read the rather extensive comments in this blog post that are dedicated to you:

I think Mr. Bethrick has your number. But he’s just an atheist after all and a Randian one at that! Get Kristor, Roebeck and gang, your sadistic goblin has been challenged.

As I said, the Randians’ primary hatred is of God, the “sadistic goblin.” But then consider the way White deals with me, a believer in God. If I don’t read the article he links, I am shown once again to be a coward who shies away from an intellectual challenge to my position (a charge the Randians make against me frequently); but if I do read it, I am proving White’s point that I am obsessed with the way people think about me. Either way, I am contemptible. The Randians demand that you engage in intellectual discussion with them, while they simultaneously express the crudest hostility toward you, not realizing that they can’t have both. And in this way, too, they are like the anti-Semites.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 19, 2010 09:41 AM | Send