Play­boy’s 1964 Ayn Rand inter­view in full; a deep and prophetic discussion.

PLAYBOY: Has no reli­gion, in your esti­ma­tion, ever offered any­thing of con­struc­tive value to human life?

RAND: Qua reli­gion, no — in the sense of blind belief, belief unsup­ported by, or con­trary to, the facts of real­ity and the con­clu­sions of rea­son. Faith, as such, is extremely detri­men­tal to human life: it is the nega­tion of rea­son. But you must remem­ber that reli­gion is an early form of phi­los­o­phy, that the first attempts to explain the uni­verse, to give a coher­ent frame of ref­er­ence to man’s life and a code of moral val­ues, were made by reli­gion, before men grad­u­ated or devel­oped enough to have phi­los­o­phy. And, as philoso­phies, some reli­gions have very valu­able moral points. They may have a good influ­ence or proper prin­ci­ples to incul­cate, but in a very con­tra­dic­tory con­text and, on a very — how should I say it? — dan­ger­ous or malev­o­lent base: on the ground of faith.

via Kot­tke