A Question of Sanction

One of the most excruciating experiences I endured as a teenager was catechesis, a long period of strictly supervised instruction in the teachings of the Bible consisting of mind-numbing rote memorization, done in preparation for receiving the sacrament of confirmation. Catholic (or, in my case, Episcopal) confirmation is supposed to bring an increase and deepening of “baptismal grace.” The purpose of all that tedious, agonizing study is to root the young person more deeply in the divine, uniting him more firmly to Christ, rendering his bond with the Church more perfect and giving the youth a special strength of the Holy Spirit to spread and defend the faith by word and action as a true witness of Christ. [What utter horsecrap!]

Catechesis is customarily conferred only on those old enough to “understand” it, typically around the age of 13. I vividly remember being asked to swallow some of the most arbitrary, irrational garbage imaginable, and I do not recall ever feeling more utterly bewildered by what I was being asked to believe. At a time when I was desperately struggling to understand the world around me, I felt as though I were forcibly cast into a living nightmare.

Well, apparently the official “leader” of the Objectivist movement, Leonard Peikoff, thinks that Catholic confirmations are just ducky. He thinks an Objectivist can attend a Catholic confirmation ceremony without sanctioning religion because, like marriage, it is a rite that “can have a secular base.” Despite all of the viciously irrational religious indoctrination involved, he does not see it as fundamentally different from a secular “coming of age” ceremony, a rite of passage intended to help prepare a young person for the life ahead….

Oh really? Helping him how? By teaching him that he lives in a nightmare universe? By destroying his capacity to think?

In his podcast of March 3, 2009, Peikoff openly declares that he has no problem with attending such ceremonies in a church setting. “I have attended a couple of Catholic weddings and a confirmation,” he says.

By attending such a ceremony--and encouraging others to do so--Peikoff is cavalierly giving his sanction to the barbarous cruelty and incalculable destructiveness--the unconscionable evil--of religious indoctrination.

Unbelievable.

The 'Horror File'

Ayn Rand’s monthly Objectivist magazine used to include the “Horror File,” which was reserved for the worst examples of mystical-collectivist evil offered by our current culture. If The Objectivist were still being published today, a recently published book would certainly deserve top billing in that category. There is no need to comment on it. The authors’ naked evil is far too transparent and despicable to be dignified by serious analysis.

Unjust Deserts—How the Rich are Taking Our Common Inheritance, and Why We Should Take It Back

By Gar Alperovitz and Lew Daly

C-Span summarizes the book’s theme as follows: “The authors argue that the majority of the wealth created in the United States is the result of inherited social knowledge, and is far less attributable to ingenuity, an increase in effort or smart investment decisions on the part of individuals. They argue that society as a whole should benefit from this wealth creation far more than it currently does.”

Mr. Alperovitz and Mr. Daly recently appeared on C-Span’s Book TV. Ugh. If either of them is at all interested in a second career in the movies, they should audition for the role of Wesley Mouch or the other villains in the upcoming film version of Atlas Shrugged. They would be perfect.