One of the recurring themes of the visitors from the “Christian” Left Facebook page was their obsession with Ayn Rand.  Their basic guilt-by-association fallacy goes like this:

• You agree with Ayn Rand
• Ayn Rand was a super-evil atheist
• Therefore, you worship money and are anti-Jesus

A sample:

Your theology is based on “The law of the jungle,” “every man for himself,” “survival of the strongest,” “survival of the fittest,” “kill or be killed,” “dog eat dog,” and “eat or be eaten.” It’s as old as the hills and it comes from the pit of Hell. Actually it’s Satanism pure and simple. Maybe you and your buddy Paul Ryan, who is a big fan of Ayn Rand, can start a Satanic Sunday School class together. Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, had this to say about Rand: “I give people Ayn Rand with trappings.” Ryan says he’s not a fan of Objectivism, but he loves Rand’s books and he formed his views of economics from reading them. Never mind that her blasphemous books drip with Objectivism on every page. You and your flock have been deluded by Satan himself! 1 Timothy 4:1-2 describes you well, but you are so delusional and blind you can’t see it. Let that one through for your readers.

The counter to that is pretty simple.  Just note how Rand was pro-abortion, like them, so using their logic they are equivalent to her.  You can also point out that they are the ones pushing the Darwinist philosophy, not us.

In their zeal to demonize their ideological foes (i.e., real Christians), they use any fallacious memes they can.  They repeat them a lot in their echo chambers, then go into full freak-out mode when their sound bites are so easily refuted.

To state the obvious, agreeing with someone about one thing doesn’t mean you agree with them on everything.  Did I really have to spell that out?  Apparently so, because that is the premise of their argument.

Rand was eerily accurate about the motives, behavior and results of Leftists.  As the joke goes, Atlas Shrugged was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.

But  just because she diagnosed the problem doesn’t mean she had the right solution.  As an atheist, she misunderstood key parts of human nature.  And of course, her pro-abortion views were anti-Christian.

Unfortunately, the Leftists I explained this to just ran away.  Hopefully it planted a seed with them, but in my experience they’ll use the same bad arguments again if they think no one is looking.

Prove me wrong, “Christian” Left!

Update: Captain Obvious forgot to point out another example: Ask the Leftists what they think of Karl Marx’ philosophies.  Because he was a devout Christian, right?