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Interview with Ayn Rand on Religion in Playboy

(Playboy Magazine March 1964)

Playboy: say that you have made the following comment, "The cross is the symbol of torture, the sacrifice of the ideal to the nonideal. I prefer the dollar sign." Do you really think that two thousand years of Christianity can be summarized with the word "torture"?

RAND: To begin, I never said that. It is not my style. Neither literarily nor intellectually. I do not say that I prefer the dollar sign - that is cheap nonsense, and please leave this text. I do not know the origin of that quote in particular, but the meaning of the dollar sign is evident in Atlas Shrugged. It is the symbol clearly explained in the history of free trade and, therefore, of a free mind. A free mind and a free economy are corollaries. One can not exist without the other. The dollar sign as a symbol of the currency of a free country, is the symbol of the free mind. More than that, regarding the historical origin of the dollar sign, but has never been proved, a very likely scenario that represents the initials of the United States. So much for the dollar sign. Now he wants to talk about the cross. What is correct is that I consider the cross as the symbol of the sacrifice of the ideal to the nonideal. Is not that what it means? Christ, in terms of Christian philosophy, is the human ideal. Personifies what men should strive to emulate. However, according to Christian mythology, did not die on the cross for their sins, but for the sins of people non-ideal. In other words, a man of perfect virtue was sacrificed for men who are vicious and who are supposed to expect or accept that sacrifice. If I were a Christian, nothing could be more indignant than that: the notion of sacrificing the ideal to non-ideal, virtue vice. It is in the name of that symbol that men asked to sacrifice themselves for their inferiors. This is precisely how to use symbolism. That is torture.

Playboy: not there is any religion that in its opinion, has ever offered any constructive value to human life?

RAND Religion as such does not - in the sense of blind belief, belief without basis and contrary to the facts of reality and the conclusions of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely harmful to human life: is the negation of reason. But remember that religion is a primitive form of philosophy, that the first attempts to explain the universe, to give a coherent framework of human life and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men grow and develop enough to have philosophy. And, as philosophies, some religions have very valuable moral points. They can have a good influence or proper principles to inculcate, but in a very contradictory context and, with a - what I can say this? with a dangerous and malevolent base: a base of faith.

Playboy: Then you would say that if I had to choose between the cross symbol and the symbol of the dollar, the dollar would you choose?

RAND I do not accept that option. Put another way: If I had to choose between faith and reason, I would not even consider the option conceivable. As a human being, one chooses the right.

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