Do Ayn Rand's ideas of no God and no aftelife offer no hope for us humans?

Question

How would she answer this question? How would she answer this concept of no hope in a godless universe?

Answer 1

What a person "hopes" for is a matter of their metaphysics. Rand had no need to hope for an afterlife because she had no belief that God exists.

If you go into a restaurant and hotdogs are not on their menu, you cannot hope their hotdogs taste good.

Why do you need an "afterlife"? Why can't you make the best of this life? Aristotle defined Rand's need to make this life the best (and only) life with his concept of "qua."

"Qua" essentially means that whatever is the proper means of preserving and advancing a species is the standard of value for that species. Thus, the standard for Man, or "Man qua Man," is rationality, because we are 'sapient' beings--it is in our name--Homo sapiens sapiens.

If you have no belief that a heaven exists, you don't need hope of getting there. And you don't fear death because you know your consciousness is a manifestation of your central nervous system, not a gift from god.

"Existence is a self-sufficient primary. It is not a product of a supernatural dimension, or of anything else. There is nothing antecedent to existence, nothing apart from it—and no alternative to it. Existence exists—and only existence exists. Its existence and its nature are irreducible and unalterable."

Leonard Peikoff “The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy,” from

Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology; Ayn Rand

Answer 2

In the absence of belief in God or afterlife, hope comes from self belief and aims revolve around self esteem and satisfaction. Hope and fear will always be there so long as we want something and the future remains uncertain.

Answer 3

I don't think it's really hope in the afterlife we'd be looking for if Ayn Rand's ideals were totally factual. We'd live for life. We wouldn't hope for the best in an afterlife that isn't there.

Answer 4

It offers the only hope for true felicity, for joy based upon illusion is bound to disappoint whereas happiness found in the universe as it is will be real.

Answer 5

You mean after we are dead?

As long as you are alive there is always hope, but it must be sought, you can not simply expect it to be there.

And there is still hope even after you are die, for humanity to find the path of reason and leave behind the childish superstitions and mysticism's of its youth.

Answer 6

Only if you define hope as the existence of God and an afterlife.

Answer 7

For goodness sake, if you're going to read philosophy, read a REAL philosopher.

-John

Answer 8

We experience afterlife in reproduction.  Anyone that does not believe me find a family that remains intact throughout a child's development to the age of 18 and tell me that he does not possess the attributes, qualities, and share the souls of his parents.  

For those that break away from family, usually they pick up from friends, enemies, or even gangs how to act and who to be and through this life carries on for those types of individuals.  

We forever change but we will always live.  So, without God is not correct, all the things we were granted to have by God enable us to carry us to the next level and get better over time.  

In sum, the end for you is not the end.  It is the beginning of what you left behind.

Answer 9

To answer your question - no.

She would answer something like this – “Objectivism advocates reason as man’s sole means of knowledge, and therefore, for the reasons I have already given, it is atheist. It denies any supernatural dimension presented as a contradiction of nature, of existence. This applies not only to God, but also to every variant of the supernatural ever advocated or to be advocated. In other words, we accept reality, and that’s all.”