Jesus and John Galt fistfight in Hell

The religious right is starting to catch onto fact that they are being suckered for political gain, and the ensuing slap fight is amusing:

GOP leaders and conservative pundits have brought upon themselves a crisis of values. Many who for years have been the loudest voices invoking the language of faith and moral values are now praising the atheist philosopher Ayn Rand whose teachings stand in direct contradiction to the Bible. Rand advocates a law of selfishness over love and commands her followers to think only of themselves, not others. She said her followers had to choose between Jesus and her teachings.

GOP leaders want to argue that they are defending Christian principles. But, at the same time, Rep. Paul Ryan (author of the GOP budget) is posting facebook videos praising Rand's morality and saying hers is the "kind of thinking that is sorely needed right now." Simply put, Paul Ryan can't have it both ways, and neither can Christians. As conservative evangelical icon Chuck Colson recently stated, Christians can not support Rand's philosophy and Christ's teachings. The choice is simple: Ayn Rand or Jesus Christ. We must choose one and forsake the other.

I was wondering when Rand's militant atheism would become a public relations problem with the social conservatives. Not that this whole "Jesus is love" vs "Fuck you, I got mine" divide wasn't glaringly obvious to anyone that wasn't a hardcore tribal partisan to begin with, but this recent group humping of Ayn Rand's dead corpse is really exaggerating it lately.

Of course, the boilerplate response to this by right wingers is that it's unfair to point out that their purported moral values and their ideology completely contradict each other, because while Jesus was totally about the whole caring for the less fortunate thing and not so much on the protecting massive amounts of wealth that is being hoarded by the few thing, he would never advocate for "forced charity" via taxation for things like social safety nets. We know this because he dined with tax collectors and prostitutes, and while one would assume that he was doing so to save them, he was really only interested in saving the prostitutes and just like to hang out and talk commodity futures with the tax collecters, because shut up, that's why. Bottom line - Jesus never attempted to coerce or force people to be charitable like the government does.

Aside from that whole "accept my teachings or burn in eternal hellfire" thing, I suppose.

Personally, I think being presented with the threat of never-ending fiery-pitchfork torture could coerce a motherfucker into coughing up some quarters for the needy once in a while - for the true believers, it really comes down to a question of eternal hellfire or being "forced" to pay for food for poor kids, right? I mean, sure, you can whine about societal leeches or theft by government, but when compared to damnation? God isn't fucking around, and I just feel like getting on his bad side would pretty much trump any other concerns one would have.

Unless of course, you don't actually believe in that nonsense and are merely using it keep the rubes at the polls to vote you into office, so you can continue giving out handsome payouts to your wealthy business buddies at the expense of everyone else.

In that case, yes, the IRS is probably worse.

(via)