Hey, here's a Norseman (sorry, "Vikings" grates on my brain... blame Story City) poem you should appreciate (Rand might have, if she ever deigned to read Kipling....)

(did I already link this one?)
http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/ki...

Song of the Red War-Boat

(A.D. 683 )
"The Conversion of St. Wilfrid"--Rewards and Fairies

Shove off from the wharf-edge! Steady!
Watch for a smooth! Give way!
If she feels the lop already
She'll stand on her head in the bay.
It's ebb--it's dusk--it's blowing--
The shoals are a mile of white,
But ( snatch her along! ) we're going
To find our master to-night.

For we hold that in all disaster
Of shipwreck, storm, or sword,
A Man must stand by his Master
When once he has pledged his word.

Raging seas have we rowed in
But we seldom saw them thus,
Our master is angry with Odin--
Odin is angry with us!
Heavy odds have we taken,
But never before such odds.
The Gods know they are forsaken.
We must risk the wrath of the Gods!

Over the crest she flies from,
Into its hollow she drops,
Cringes and clears her eyes from
The wind-torn breaker-tops,
Ere out on the shrieking shoulder
Of a hill-high surge she drives.
Meet her! Meet her and hold her!
Pull for your scoundrel lives!

The thunder below and clamor
The harm that they mean to do!
There goes Thor's own Hammer
Cracking the dark in two!
Close! But the blow has missed her,
Here comes the wind of the blow!
Row or the squall'Il twist her
Broadside on to it!--Row!

Heark'ee, Thor of the Thunder!
We are not here for a jest--
For wager, warfare, or plunder,
Or to put your power to test.
This work is none of our wishing--
We would house at home if we might--
But our master is wrecked out fishing.
We go to find him to-night.

For we hold that in all disaster--
As the Gods Themselves have said--
A Man must stand by his Master
Till one of the two is dead.

That is our way of thinking,
Now you can do as you will,
While we try to save her from sinking
And hold her head to it still.
Bale her and keep her moving,
Or she'll break her back in the trough. . . .
Who said the weather's improving,
Or the swells are taking off?

Sodden, and chafed and aching,
Gone in the loins and knees--
No matter--the day is breaking,
And there's far less weight to the seas!
Up mast, and finish baling--
In oar, and out with mead--
The rest will be two-reef sailing. . . .
That was a night indeed!

But we hold it in all disaster
(And faith, we have found it true!)
If only you stand by your Master,
The Gods will stand by you!

I liked the speeches; the Money speech, the trial of Hank Rearden... but only part of the Galt speech. While I focused on the part of that speech regarding the value of individual aspiration, most here, apparently, only focused on the "Christians are evil bastards" part of the speech. (did he even invoke the word "Christian" in that speech?...)

"Christian mystic" is an oxymoron. There's no point in discussing the matter with you if you're just going to spew insults.

Yes, let's examine that bit of history... the knowledge preserved by the Catholics to be used by those reasonable men in the Enlightenment and the Renaissance as they used the preserved knowledge to murder and enslave one another.
Pope Julius attempted to have the Church act as a check on the lust for power of the kings and petty warlords of western europe, and nearly lost the Church and his life in the endeavor.

Meanwhile, the eastern... the *Christian* eastern Roman empire never fell...

My feelings aren't all that delicate. After LetsGet bemoans the influence of Christians in her objective zen garden, here we go with yet another attack launched on Christianity.

Let me just straighten it out from a Christian point of view: the important difference from John Galt as a libertarian from Jesus...

Outside his own mind, John Galt is not God.

yeah... uhm... tell me which Roman generals he defeated?

Oh! I have one for you... Name the founder of the only empire never to be defeated? Ruler of a land far more vast than the Roman Empire?

The quintessential looter... Genghis Khan. Did he study Aristotle, too?

And no, it doesn't work that way. db made an assertion, the burden is on him to back it up.
He didn't say Christianity was aligned with playdough, he said it was based on playdough.

Change it to 'rednecks'.

Thanks for sharing... Please stop.... now.

Kindly leave your sex life out of the discussion.

Proof that Christianity is based on Plato's metaphysics? Funny, I don't see him mentioned in the New Testament.

Q: What did Plato have in common with Aristotle?

A: They were both from a nation of navel gazers. And while they were gazing at their navels, a bunch of rowdy Roman farmers took their empire away from them.

Quality is no longer an issue.

The infinitely malleable American mind was conditioned in the 70s to no longer seek quality.

government = "you".
In the 19th century the government short-circuited the law of supply and demand with relation to labor at the behest of and for the benefit of business. You don't really think crony capitalists, looters and moochers were invented in the latter half of the 20th century, do you?

You make the mistake of equating mystics with Christians.
Check your premises.

Care to make a historic comparison of the contribution of the Christian "mystics" to the advancement of man's mind with the contribution of atheist "realists"?

John Galt's not the ideal man, either. Except maybe in Rand's wet dreams.

Why would it be surprising if there were parallels between Galt and Christ? I believe it's called a plot device.

Hm... you just reminded me of something.

Found it!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quest_...

And you have provided me with my new nickname for dbhalling...

"Robass".

"“To believe in God. Bah.” (It was the first time Thomas had ever heard that word pronounced just as it is written.) “I have a perfectly constructed logical mind that cannot commit such errors.” " - The Quest for Saint Aquin

Evangelicals are people too, after all. Why act surprised when they act like everybody else?

If I'm not mistaken, the people making the movies and participating in this website... are trying to spread their faith and beliefs... even to the point of comparing Galt to historic and religious figures such as Jesus.