As Ayn Rand asserts,
“I hold, if man wants to live on earth, and to live as a human being, he has to hold reason as an absolute. Which, I mean that he has to hold reason as his only guide to action and that he must lead by the independence of his own mind, that his highest moral purpose is the achievement of his own happiness, and that he must not force other people, nor accept their right to force him, that each man must live as an end in himself, and follow his own self interest.”
“I say that man is entitled to his own happiness and that he must achieve it himself, but he cannot demand others give up their lives to make him happy, nor should he wish to sacrifice himself for the happiness of others. I hold that man should have self esteem.”
Does this mean she chose to ignore the fact that we, as human beings are created and contingent, unable to create ourselves from nothing, are dependent on other human beings and our environment to come into and sustain existence? It seems, if she read and accepted St. Thomas Aquinas, as a respected philosopher, she would have had to understand at least on some level his, “Five Proofs of the Existence of God” and simply chose to ignore them; as she remarked that in the history of philosophy she could only recommend "three A's"—Aristotle, Aquinas, and Ayn Rand.[18] ^ a b Sciabarra 1995, p. 12 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand
As human beings exist as created and contingent, I pose the question, why do I exist now and not two-hundred years ago or two-hundred years in the future. We exist but at some point in time, we did not exist and will cease to exist as we do now. Hence, if we exist why do we exist and why do we exist now because we do not have to exist at all? Does that mean that everything that we know to exist, has to exist necessarily, and did it have to come into existence at all? Philosophically speaking, if it were possible, start with today and count backward on a timeline as the example, the year 2009 had to exist first before 2010 and 2008 before 2009 and so on backward. Would it not seem reasonable that there would be, if we were able to go back far enough and long enough, at some point exist, the first moment in time? Would it not seem reasonable to accept that something had to cause the first moment in time to happen or come into existence? Hence St. Thomas Aquinas’, the first cause of all causes which is God. Which would stand to reason as we cannot create ourselves, nor choose to will ourselves into existence, how can we be the end of, to and in our means and existence, as Rand asserts, “Man’s, achievement of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose.”
As Rand chose her subjective logic and reason to assert, God does not exist because she cannot see, hear or touch Him, did she choose to ignore Aquinas’ “Five Proofs?” Did Rand simply not understand or see that it is impossible to exist completely independent from all other human beings, as she used them merely to obtain her own happiness? If Rand would have asserted that she simply did not care whether God existed and chose to live her life accordingly, would make some philosophical sense. However, because human beings are contingent and created, finite and unable to will ourselves into existence from nothing, it would seem the individual cannot be the end to, and of himself and as Rand states, “the highest moral purpose” is to create one’s own happiness. As she grew up under a communist dictatorship in Russia
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