Discussion
It's me
I was raised Protestant salvationist, went Objectivist atheist, now realist-pantheist, but all the while retained cultural sympathy for salvationists (pro-just-laws, anti-infanticide, pro-objective-truth, pro-family, etc)
I think there are a few things happening
One is salvationists vs universalists
Salvationists believe the individual needs to attune himself to God (or Nature), universalists thinks everyone is saved and the individual has license to attune the world to himself
Universalists are nominally Christian but almost culturally unrecognizable, while salvationist Protestants, traditional Catholics, Orthodox and even Mormons seem to have a great degree of shared culture.
Another possibility is conversion prior to conversion. The individual joins the leftist cult (either Marxist in particular or the broader category of Hegelian). Eventually they see that Christianity is not compatible with their new faith and leave it.
Finally I think there is deconversion prior to conversion. The individual is convinced by "secular" forces (largely post-theist Universalists like the New Atheists) to abandon their religion, and having done so seeks some other worldview to make sense of things. The dominant options in our society are Christian traditionalism and the leftist cult. Having quit one, they try the other.
I was fortunate in that I joined the stridently pro-individual-reason Randian cult, and like many adherents (though sadly not all) deprogrammed myself of the Randian components that are most cultish (eg worship of Rand & uncritical acceptance of her ideas). I think this is one of the better cults to fall into. While those who remain in the most orthodox sect tend to be virulently anti-religion there seems to be quite a castoff of people who either remained religious while embracing elements of Randianism or who partially deconverted and are culturally sympathetic to traditional social structures. Of course, there are also Randians who by virtue of Rand's focus on self-pleasure become very libertine and essentially leftist.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Can you tell me what you mean by saying that you are a realist-pantheist?
As for the cult of leftism, I think that is a worship of government/force. As G.K. Chesterston said: "Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God." Perhaps the choices boil down to either: Jesus is Lord or Caesar is Lord.
As for Ayn Rand, I've never really gotten into her writings or ideas, though we may have a lot in common. I tried to start reading "The Virtue of Selfishness" once but even the title is so off-putting to me!
I agree with Spinoza - if God is real, all-powerful and omnipresent, then God is reality itself
I agree about worship of State but I think it's Platonism vs Aristotelianism, which is slightly broader.
God is the State/self/society (etc) vs God is Nature (or nature's Creator)
God of Mind vs a God of Matter
Leading to: power is control over people ('s minds) vs power is ability to thrive within/control nature
-wnich may seem paradoxical but (Bacon): "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed"
Which to me is the essence of daoism - effortless action - striving not against reality but accepting it
I view Rand (because Aristotelian) as compatible with the best of Christianity (because Thomistic and thus Aristotelian). For a good nonfiction exposition I recommend Peikoff's Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. I think Anthem is the best fiction of hers to get a sense of her philosophy. Anthem can be found free online.
Rand's philosophy, roughly:
1) Metaphysics: only the ordinary world is real
2) Epistemology: we can learn about the ordinary world via observation and reason
3) Ethics: Each individual faces the dilemma of individual survival, and the whole point of ethics is to aid him in doing so; reason is his primary tool so rational self-interest is the essence of ethics
4) Politics: Because rational self-interest is the essence of ethics, men must be left uncoerced and classical liberalism is the correct politics
I agree with her metaphysics and somewhat with her epistemology (I think she is missing action, see "Senses as Perceptual Systems", scientific method, OODA loops).
I think Rand's ethics is just wrong which I've written about at some length, I'll post a reply with that but briefly, survival is impossible - all men must die - so instead we should focus on genetic survival, which provides a basis for pro-family & pro-social "selfishness". Also note selfishness in the Randian sense doesn't have to mean being a prick, the core idea is that my life is for me, that my effort should focus on my own betterment. I recommend Dawkins' The Selfish Gene but ignoring his pleas for post-theist Christian/leftist ethics.
Finally I don't think any sort of God's-eye-view version of politics is coherent. I think political philosophy should be advice for the human individual, not some idealistic notion of shaping society out of clay. So my notion of philsophically correct politics is an extension of Nietzsche's master/slave dichotomy which resolves the tension by introducing "trader" as the synthesis and correct role to play. (Something Rand also does but with much less focus). The key question becomes not so much what is the best society, but how to disentangle myself from a would-be master.