You had to mention Ayn Rand. When she's mentioned, I'm obliged to repeat that Ayn Rand is to philosophy what L. Ron Hubbard is to religion.

Self-love is a fault. When it comes to self-love, Ayn Rand is a kind of archetype; nay, a totem, brandished by the selfish to ward off the monster of selflessness.

But I see no connection between atheism and solipsism. Atheists know quite well there are others in the universe; they simply think there's no God there as well.

"Atheism" : only nature :: "solipsism" : only me.
Nothing to do with one another.

Atheism" : only nature : — 180 Proof

Atheism can take many forms. Nature is just one of them.

And that's love. Giving away everything your inner rational egotist has acquired. — ucarr

But this view is controverted by experience. The love amongst family and friends is not a zero-sum game. My child will not benefit from demonstrations of sacrifice. The freely given benefits me as well as him.

Edited: removed needless taunt.

I should perhaps accept resounding defeat and keep silent, but I'm too self-important to shut up just now.

God has a weakness. God doesn't want to be alone. On the flip side, the atheist wants to be alone, revels in cosmic solitude. This is the upshot of knowing, which God is in retreat from, with God's project for the grand mess of humanity.

We're blighting sinners we humans, destined for hellfire by our own merits, but God wants company, so there's an escape clause that lets us stick around for eternity. Now, on that score, we're busily a day working to shred and defy the contract, but this has always been known.

The above is, of course, a feeble narrative attempting to explain why God created human and, while being a feel-good story, doesn't fool many for long. Just so, some of us like to read John Milton, one of the most God-defiant men of the past millennium.

Back to essentials. The trick of my argument is thus: While it's true that the proof of God's existence is forever beyond reach, it's equally true that the not-existence of God is also forever beyond reach, unless one claims to know.

Claiming to know God entails claiming to know the all-powerful, a stretch for human. By the same coin, claiming to know God-not entails claiming to know what is not-all powerful, which entails claiming to know the all-powerful. It's an easy argument to claim both sides are full-of-themselves with their claims.

The trick of execution of theism is knowing, at some level of awareness, that social engagement means throwing oneself into the incomprehensibilities of societies and cultures. The mystery of otherness is a looming presence to the socially engaged. We're on our knees hoping the presence won't erupt into the neighborhood, disrupting norms and making demands. We know it's bound to happen eventually as these eruptions are the big turns of history.

Enter the atheist. This human has a bulwark against the disruptions of God's near approach, with its bush-burning, halo-endowing difficulties: knowledge. Science, with its accurate predictions of things to come, wards off the nasty surprises of creation.

There's a problem. Knowledge is a looking glass by another name. I generate knowledge by asking questions. Well, the source of a given knowledge is a given question, and the source of that question is human. This leads me to asserting that in my quest to know the all powerful, and thus to qualify for denying existence of the all-powerful being, God, I must become the source of all questions.

The upshot of becoming the source of all-questions and thus qualified to deconstruct God, with questions understood to be the looking glass of the mind, says I land myself within the universe of my (solitary) self. And that's no fun.

Living within a binary universe, with a sometimes loving, sometimes menacing God, that's fun.

You had to mention Ayn Rand. When she's mentioned, I'm obliged to repeat that Ayn Rand is to philosophy what L. Ron Hubbard is to religion. — Ciceronianus

:clap:

In self-help groups I've frequented, there's common talk about learning to love oneself as a remedy to paralyzing insecurities, debilitating anxiety and self-destructive behavior. — ucarr

Sounds like Californian New Age pop psychology. And yes there are people who find this 'love' frame helpful. I think a better way of putting this is 'do not hate yourself'. It seems pretty clear to me that many people marinate in their own self-loathing. For me the solution is not to see the problem as a simple bifurcation that can be switched upwards to 'love' (which is unhelpful dualistic thinking) but to simply give yourself a break, as a fallible, fucked up person - like most of us. Try to do better. Almost everyone already knows what they need to do to improve their life. The hard part is taking the steps.

And now something for the pessimists and antinatalists:


This Be The Verse
BY PHILIP LARKIN

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

So, what's a handy crux of outrageous otherness? God. God puts a face on our unimaginably strange universe, which is to say, our God consciousness boils down the unmanageable universe to something digestible. — ucarr

There's not much to say about gods since they are entirely silent and absent themselves. Gods are holding statements for the unknown. We've always understood this.

And that's love. Giving away everything your inner rational egotist has acquired. — ucarr

But this view is controverted by experience. The love amongst family and friends is not a zero-sum game. My child will not benefit from demonstrations of sacrifice. The freely given benefits me as well as him. — Paine

Family doesn't appear to me as a zero-sum game. My speculation is that parents don't break even in the bargain, especially not mothers.

A woman marries, agrees to birth a child, gets pregnant and brings forth. (Modern anesthesia obscures the precarious adventure birthing a child formerly entailed across millennia.) She nurtures the child, ultimately releasing it into adulthood. If this isn't self-sacrifice, then I scarcely know the meaning of the word.

My child will not benefit from demonstrations of sacrifice. — Paine

What's the look of parenting without self-sacrifice?

Consider Citizen Kane. Charles Foster Kane, a happy boy playing outside in the snow with Rosebud, his sled, learns that his completely insane mother, trading him in for money, has packed him off to New York under proprietorship of Walter Parks Thatcher, a banker.

This is "parenting" without self-sacrifice.

The central purpose of the story is arguably an examination of what happens to a good, innocent lad when the warmth of nurturing is overthrown by the money concern.

Kane's relatability to other humans, if not his humanity, is destroyed.

Mary Kane is no-sacrifice parenting writ large.

I have serious doubts about our ability to love ourselves. In our particular universe — ucarr

I think the problem here starts with that love label. It's such an umbrella term. I don't know when aspects of love are present enough to be able to aggregate some combination of them into a declaration of the term. When do aspects like 'respect', 'familiarity', 'lust', 'need for companionship', 'natural compulsion to reproduce', 'sense of wonderment', 'humour', 'friendship', 'purpose' etc, etc have enough variety and intensity to combine into the label love and how long is such a construction likely to hold, within an entropic time frame.
Can any 'quantums of love' combine into a 'love of self?' I think it must be possible for some people.

When the sentient being inhabits the universe of self, don't we call this solipsism? — ucarr

Well, I think it's probably more accurate to call such narcissism rather than solipsism.
You move in this direction yourself with:

Otherwise, self-love is a nasty trek through delusional narcisscism. — ucarr

Solipsism is described as the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist and anything outside of your own mind is unsure. I think it's a posit about the nature of what reality is from the standpoint of self which does seem to fit with your quote above but I think you are trying to suggest solipsism has an emotional flavour to it, perhaps it does. But Like Atheism, I take solipsism in cold logical terms with no emotional connotations.

So then, the crux of adventure is flinging oneself into the gaping maw of the unknown, which is to say, the embrace of otherness. Well, as we've seen in Sigourney Weaver's sci-fi adventure Alien, the leap of faith sometimes ends badly. — ucarr

From this, it seems that you yourself see the difference between 'healthy requited love' and unhealthy, dangerous, often self-destructive love/obsession/addiction. Is love of alcohol/drugs etc a true love form? even in the 'addiction.' sense? Love 'addiction' towards others can be truly pernicious.

I don't relate to the idea of loving another human being (as pleasant as that can be) as 'the greatest adventure in the Universe' but if you are including love of pursuing knowledge in your words

Falling in love with the other, — ucarr

then I am more inclined to agree.
Only creatures who live short lives can think that human love is eternal. I think such belief has been described as 'a magnificent illusion.'

Overall, I think Atheism has very little relationship with solipsism.

Are they first cousins, or even siblings? — ucarr

They are mother and child. Solipsism is the belief that all perceived reality is a perception without an actual content. That all we can be sure of are our perceptions. Believing this means believing other people and God are not real. Not believing in god doesn't mean that you believe other people are not real.

So solipsism can be seen as a mother or father of atheism. Atheism, consequently, is then the child. The child though can revolt though. The mother can be solipsist, giving life to non-belief in God. The atheist son can always claim God to be real, rebelling against his pagan mother, who even thinks her son's newly found belief is utterly unreal, making making love a chimera, it seems.

Only by killing the pagan father and the solipsist brother the theist son can, happily undisturbed, rape his pagan solipsist mother to make her truly realize he and God actually exist.

The mother can still stubbornly maintain that both her son and God are mere illusions. Then she's seriously fucked...

Consider Citizen Kane. Charles Foster Kane, a happy boy playing outside in the snow with Rosebud, his sled, learns that his completely insane mother, trading him in for money, has packed him off to New York under proprietorship of Walter Parks Thatcher, a banker.

This is "parenting" without self-sacrifice. — ucarr

There's no indication the mother is insane in the film. Also, she already had money, and clearly wasn't trading him in to obtain more. Thatcher was a hired man. I thought the scene made it apparent that Charles was being sent away because the mother feared what the father (or step-father, perhaps) would do to him.

I think you must find a different example to support your theory. There must be one out there, somewhere. Maybe something from Dickens. He had the requisite sentimentality.

think the problem here starts with that love label. It's such an umbrella term. — universeness

One of my incidental goals is the honing down of our emotive umbrella word. Love, love, love. What is this immersive experience that's pulling me out of my normal self with such force?

Does it have some basic, universal properties? Part of our job here is tackling such an imposing totem as love and making it concrete and universal in balance.

My efforts in this goal, so far, tell me that a crux of the experience is rooted in the self/other dynamic.

I've been thinking in terms of a dynamic relationship between two sentient beings. I've been overlooking a relationship between a sentient being and knowledge. I don't know if the latter can erode personal boundaries in the same manner as sentience to sentience.

For example, I can read a book over time and evolve my perception and understanding of what I read. This can be gratifying, but the book doesn't change; only I change.

In the case of sentience-to-sentience, the situation is much more dynamical and knarly. Furthermore, my gut tells me knowledge is a bulwark against the transformations of love; such usage is a selfism favored by intellectuals. We laugh at Georg von Trapp in The Sound of Music as his fortress of knowledge crumbles before the onslaughts of love.

In parallel to the above, the solipsistic narcissist blockades the transformations of love with self-knowledge deified.

How about this formulation:

So solipsism can be seen as a mother or father of atheism. Atheism, consequently, is then the child. — Raymond

Solipsism is the existential framework, the universe that houses the narcissist.

Only by killing the pagan father and the solipsist brother the theist son can, happily undisturbed, rape his pagan solipsist mother to make her truly realize he and God actually exist. — Raymond

You have enlightened me with your reference to Sophocles' Oedipus. Love is our inner savage writ large and insuperable. It's the thing that makes God consciousness necessary for someone like me.

I like to think the God of the Pentateuch forgave King David his murders for being a lusty, loving man, husband and father.

There's no indication the mother is insane in the film. Also, she already had money, and clearly wasn't trading him in to obtain more. Thatcher was a hired man. I thought the scene made it apparent that Charles was being sent away because the mother feared what the father (or step-father, perhaps) would do to him. — Ciceronianus

What do we actually see in the movie?

The boy is happy in childhood. In my view, his frolics in the snow don't bespeak the onslaughts of a pedophillic father, if that's what you're implying.

Suddenly, his mother sends him away, apparently forever, without visitation rights. Such cold mother's milk doesn't put me in mind of mental fitness on the part of Mary Kane.

I see nothing from the father to indicate future trouble for the boy, save the father's anemic defense of the boy's right to remain where he is, comfortably situated within a happy home. It's clear to me this is what the father wants, even as he trembles before the dictatorial mother.

The young man wants to be happy, so he starts spending his large fund of money.

For the rest of the journey, it's just one failure after another to connect humanly, lastingly. Kane's last hope for the warmth of love breaks with the defections of Jedediah and then, finally, Susan Alexander.

The domineering mother is the catalyst and abiding force driving this devastating transformation.

Possessing a handsome sum of money does not imply total lack of greed and lust for more.

Charlie pushes Thatcher into the snow, using Rosebud. Father takes a swing at Charlie, but misses. Then--
Father: "Sorry, Mr. Thatcher. What that kid needs is a good thrashing!"
Mother: "Is that what you think, Jim?"
Father: "Yes"
Mother: "That's why he's going to be brought up where you can't get at him."

Charlie pushes Thatcher into the snow, using Rosebud. Father takes a swing at Charlie, but misses. Then--
Father: "Sorry, Mr. Thatcher. What that kid needs is a good thrashing!"
Mother: "Is that what you think, Jim?"
Father: "Yes"
Mother: "That's why he's going to be brought up where you can't get at him."

When the sentient being inhabits the universe of self, don't we call this solipsism? — ucarr

The link I see between solipsism and atheism is this:

In theism, knowledge of "how things really are" is received from others, and, presumably, originates with God. It's a top-down process. Someone else tells you "how things really are", you don't figure it out by yourself.

In atheism, no such higher authority is envisioned or made room for, man is left alone with his senses and his mind and whatever he can achieve with those. He believes it's up to him and him alone to figure things out. This way, atheism implies at least epistemic solipsism.

In self-help groups I've frequented, there's common talk about learning to love oneself as a remedy to paralyzing insecurities, debilitating anxiety and self-destructive behavior.

I have serious doubts about our ability to love ourselves. In our particular universe, I suspect we're disbarred from expressing and experiencing love as a reflexive action. As reflexive actions, we can care, trust and esteem ourselves, but no, we can't love ourselves. — ucarr

There's an old word for this "self-love": pride. But it's out of favor by now, it's not politically correct (although things seem to be looking up for it lately.)

Charlie pushes Thatcher into the snow, using Rosebud. Father takes a swing at Charlie, but misses. Then--
Father: "Sorry, Mr. Thatcher. What that kid needs is a good thrashing!"
Mother: "Is that what you think, Jim?"
Father: "Yes"
Mother: "That's why he's going to be brought up where you can't get at him." — Ciceronianus

You have shown me how my exam of Mary Kane is flawed, perhaps seriously. I do, however, maintain doubt as to the soundness of her judgment in handing over Charlie to a total stranger whose interest in the affair is that of a banker, not a father.

We don't get the whole story on dad's poke at Charlie. Could be the kid is an insufferable brat who, indeed, needs a thrashing.

Charlie doesn't seem to fear dad; nor does he seem eager to leave his home. Maybe Mank wants to show that before she abandoned him, she spoiled Charlie, whereas dad would have brought him right if not for mother's protection.

I can't preclude the possibility Mary Kane is internally pressurized to relinquish custody of Charlie due to a greedy desire for great wealth.

She towers over dad in power, so that raises a question about him being able to abuse Charlie.

If we deem dad a serious abuser, then I do recognize the dilemma she faces in trying to choose between the two options.

The link I see between solipsism and atheism is this:

In theism, knowledge of "how things really are" is received from others, and, presumably, originates with God. It's a top-down process. Someone else tells you "how things really are", you don't figure it out by yourself.

In atheism, no such higher authority is envisioned or made room for, man is left alone with his senses and his mind and whatever he can achieve with those. He believes it's up to him and him alone to figure things out. This way, atheism implies at least epistemic solipsism. — baker

Excellent exam! Shrewd and instructive explanation. Members of both camps can make good use of this.

With your statement about theism, you make it clear how we little humans are always connected to the world around us. Joni Mitchell informed us about being stardust.

With regards to loving oneself, I've heard it said a newborn dies if another person doesn't pick it up and rock and cuddle and coo away its fear and pain and sudden shock of consciousness. I don't think this hard-wired human interdependence diminishes with age.

It's up to human and human alone to figure things out? I have a theory that says after just a short time in a sensory deprivation tank, human loses all identity, including knowledge of being human. It's the looking glass of other people in society that keeps me on track about who I am and what I'm about.

Didn't Sartre say human is condemned to freedom, thereby suggesting that outside
the social matrix, human is practically nothing at all, thus free. Well, the bold existentialist might reject local norms as inauthentic, declaring the self free to choose otherwise, but that tome he wrote detailing the experience wasn't intended for use as a paperweight.

There's an old word for this "self-love": pride. But it's out of favor by now, it's not politically correct (although things seem to be looking up for it lately.) — baker

I'm inclined to think self-esteem is the foundation out of which pride arises. Individuals afflicted with low self-esteem are not often perceived as being proud.

While pride is a natural and good thing, it's reflective. Love, on the other hand, is transformative. I say it's the jump start of mother's love that seeds the germ of self-esteem that sprouts pride.

If we have robust self-esteem (meaning someone loved us), then we deem ourselves worthy of being loved, by someone else.

I don't think we can get beyond ourselves by means of an internal, reflexive action. Make no mistake about it, love tears you beyond yourself big time.

It's the seminal element of otherness that makes love transformative, but only if the self surrenders to the beyond-self. Theism is surrender to the beyond-self, writ large.

This Be The Verse
BY PHILIP LARKIN — Tom Storm

Great poem. Big chunk of my life in a nutshell. My parents made some colossal goofs raising me, but I love 'em anyway.

I can't preclude the possibility Mary Kane is internally pressurized to relinquish custody of Charlie due to a greedy desire for great wealth. — ucarr

There's a real ambiguity in the scene, (which I think is a powerful one--Agnes Moorhead was superb in that brief role). The mother seems stern and cold, except in those moments when she's protecting Charlie, and holding him. Note that it's the father who becomes less insistent that Charlie stay when he learns that they (or rather the mother) would be receiving $50,000 a year, though the bulk of the funds were held in trust for Charlie. He also complains that if Charlie leaves people will think it's because he's a bad father.

So, I think there's a suggestion that the father has been a poor one, possibly due to drink, and inclined to abuse when angered. It's only my interpretation, but I think that the mother has steeled herself to give up her child to thinking to protect him and give him opportunities he wouldn't have at home, and this makes her appear emotionless. But in fact the unfortunate result is that he comes to hate his guardian/trustee/father-figure, and grows to maturity without parental love, seeking love through money and power. Just my guess at the thought underlying a great work of art.

The atheism-solipsism paradox.

Atheism $\rightarrow$ Solipsism $\rightarrow$ Theism

Atheism →→ Solipsism →→ Theism — Agent Smith

So your logic goes something like:

I do not believe in the existence of any god(s)............> I have no evidence that anything outside of me, exists..............> I do believe in the existence of god(s)

Where is the paradox? This is merely a 'belief' challenged by solipsism that you posit is strong enough evidence for flipping 'belief in god' from no to yes. That is not a description of a paradox.

Solipsism is nothing more than a possible consequence of 'I think therefore I am.' Nothing more. It can be used to suggest that 'self' IS god as only self is real and the universe is a construct/projection of self! But that's not true either as it implies that we are all individual gods, in which case we are just as well all being human.
What is solipsism to a dolphin? Does it suggest that based on solipsism, A dolphin has no evidence that humans exist, including the humans that are in the process of killing it?

Bravo, Ciceronianus! When it comes to interpretation of this scene, your arguments are top flight. I now see it's the dilemma that foils Mary Kane's attempt to give Charlie the best life possible. My choice is to risk the threat posed to Charlie by dad, who Mary dominates. I think navigating the hazards of an ill-tempered dad is a better bet than packing a young child off to an utterly foreign world of material wealth without love. Mary thought otherwise and I think in doing so, she undervalued her abilities as a mother (I want to say loving mother, but I don't see it in her.)

Atheism →→ Solipsism →→ Theism — Agent Smith

Hello fellow traveler, Agent Smith. Looks like we're on the same page re: the atheism_solipsism connection.

Atheism →→ Solipsism →→ Theism — Agent Smith

universeness re: Agent Smith's above quote,

So your logic goes something like:

I do not believe in the existence of any god(s)............> I have no evidence that anything outside of me, exists..............> I do believe in the existence of god(s) — universeness

Where is the paradox? This is merely a 'belief' challenged by solipsism that you posit is strong enough evidence for flipping 'belief in god' from no to yes. That is not a description of a paradox. — universeness

I will post, just below this post, my (lengthy) conclusion derived from the points I've posted here so far.

So, universeness, it being your job to demolish my conclusion, proceed. - ucarr

01-25-22

Atheism & Solipsism – Final

My work entails establishing a connection between atheism & solipsism, plus their two modes: monism & idealism.

My core arguments are simple and familiar.

Here’s the connection between atheism & solipsism

Simple counter-argument to knowing, authoritatively, with certain knowledge, God doesn’t exist.

If I say I am a swimmer, then I can prove what I am, by taking a dip in the pool.

Grammatically speaking, I am a swimmer is a verbal equation. I (subject) + (linking verb) am + (subject complement) a swimmer condenses down to I = a swimmer.

God, by definition, comprehends all existence. This is a well-defined property of God.

According to the unrestricted comprehension principle of set theory, for any sufficiently well-defined property, there is a set of all and only the objects that have that property.

If I say, God is not, then I can prove what I know by revealing to you all existence.

This is the unrestricted comprehension principle in application.

Grammatically speaking, God is not is a verbal equation. God (subject) + (linking verb) is + (subject complement) extant not condenses down to God = extant not or
God ≠ extant.

If I know all existence, a power unique to God, then knowing there is no God means I am God.

If two things comprehend all existence, how can they be different?

Atheistic Idealism – Conceptualization of God as a being who can be denied & refuted.

This is a deep dive into Logos, which is ancient Idealism.

It shouldn’t be surprising to discover that attempts to mark boundaries of the absolute land you in paradox.

Denial of God is marking a boundary of the absolute.

{If you deny God, you become God>Monist}
{If you don’t deny God, you coexist with God>Binary}

Either way, comprehensive God exists & subsumes.

This resembles Russell’s Paradox (a cornerstone of set theory).

Let R = {x | X ∉ X }, then R ∈ R <> R ∉ R

{If it doesn’t belong to the set, then it belongs to the set}
{If it does belong to the set, then it doesn’t belong to the set}

Either way, comprehensive Set exists & subsumes

The switch is between monist/binary.

The switch tells us human cannot catch God in the act of being God. Considering this, of the three positions: theism/atheism/agnosticism, agnosticism becomes previleged.

Not simple are some ramifications of the atheism_solipsism connection.

The upshot of my conclusion is a profile of a distinctly human Deity manifesting as the logical, transcendent sentience of a dynamical world of time_motion, which entails an erratic, sometimes paradoxical morality, always subject to debate & revision.

The existence of God as undecidable*, neither provable nor refutable, continues as a long established stalemate accepted by many on both sides.

*Like infinity, undecidablility covers a spectrum of degrees. I believe atheism is more undecidable than theism.

Strict atheism, however, expresses an extreme position within epistemology.

My simple counter-argument against this position raises few hackles.

My argument has no conflict with atheism as an article of faith.

Even strict atheism is not really my target. Instead, I’m focused on how the counter-argument to strict atheism leads to some useful modifications to establishmentarian theism.

Does atheism belong to a set of ideologies that can be labeled monism?

If so, does the monism of atheism presuppose cosmic solitude, as enforced by its exclusion of a transcendent, teleological sentience i.e., deity?

These two questions follow from an assumption that deity is fundamental otherness, and that otherness is essential to a universe of time & motion.

The exclusion of deity as an article of faith may belong to agnosticism.

The exclusion of deity as a logical conclusion assumes perfected knowledge sufficient to pass judgment on transcendent power.

Perfection is static. It leaves no room for evolution because the highest attainment is accomplished. It leaves nor room for decline because that would negate perfection.

The absolute self, all-knowing & perfected in knowledge eternal suggests a universe without time or motion. Any dynamic process would negate the absolutism of perfection because nothing in a state of change is perfected.

Can such a static universe, the universe of atheism, exist?

If so, then perfection, being static and indivisible, rubs shoulders with Neoplatonism.

If atheism dovetails with Neoplatonism, then we see that atheism replaces The One with The Database (of Perfect Knowledge).

This leads us to surmising that the corrupted world of everyday human experience, our universe of degradation, a devolution down from Plato’s realm of Eternal Things, proliferating with imperfect copies of Eternal Things, harbors a villain.

This villain of the everyday world of human experience is time and its concomitant, motion.

Both Neoplatonism and atheism ask us to assume as fact a static and peerless universe of knowledge that causes our everyday world of phenomena while yet standing apart from its vicissitudes.

The big question raised by The One and also by The Database is point of contact. How do these perfected realms, these ultimate causes, reach humanity within the physical universe of the senses?

The answer is that the conduit connecting the two states of being, static and ultimate causality vis-à-vis the physical universe, is time_motion.

Now we come right up to a pair of germinal concepts: a) the physicalization of morality; b) the moral turpitude of God.

Motion is the limit of epistemology. In a physical universe, motion is essential.

Any static universe of incorruptible causation, such as The One and The Database, by excluding time_motion, forestalls germination of the living.

Dynamical physics and its chief epiphenomenon, sentient life, operate within the womb of time_motion.

These assumptions necessitate the characterization of The One and The Database as extreme versions of both Monism and Idealism. They are paradigmatic constructs of causation, always mirrored imperfectly by the dynamical physics of the world of the living. Within the topsy-turvy world of time_motion and the living, the theist is imperfectly divine, and the atheist is imperfectly secular. Wrong is sometimes, conditionally, good.

If incorruptible causation, an idealism, and time_motion, a realism, always stand apart, then the physicalization of morality and the moral turpitude of God are necessary compromises for the living.

These compromises are the two pillars supporting God-Consciousness, as distinguished from Divine God.

The two spiritual pillars of a universe of time_motion, such as our own physical universe, are Otherness and Transcendence, with the latter being the channel through which the self and the other make contact and communicate.

The One and The Database, in their idealism of incorruptible causation, exclude Otherness and Transcendence, and thus, by the transitive property, also exclude time_motion.

Otherness and Transcendence, innate attributes of the design of a time_motion universe, make time_motion possible.
Motion is the physical manifestation of morality. In a time_motion universe, things can move out of place and become wrong. On the other hand, they can move upward, out of an accustomed place to a higher and better place.

To know there is no focused, teleological, transcendent sentience is to evolve The Database to perfection, wherein motion and morality cease, replaced by the stillness of eternal solitude.

The higher attainment, above eternal solitude, is temporal, evolving sentience that, being animate, can become transcendent.

Yes. Perfection can be topped by imperfection since the former is static whereas the latter is animate.

The Deity of a dynamical, time_motion universe is good because it allows time, motion and evolution to flourish, albeit rife with the imperfections to which Otherness is caretaker.

The universe that bears Deity is thus a topsy-turvy realm wherein being wrong is sometimes, conditionally, good.

Being imperfect, and thus sometimes wrong, allows the presence of love, which, in its essence, means not being alone.

Theism has atheism to thank for pointing the way to perfection of knowledge, an absolute solitude that highlights the value of a morally unstable universe wherein the fellowship of self-and-other i.e., love, thrives upon the morass of its gravitational tendency toward moral failure, all the way down to evil.

Now we have an approach to addressing theism’s hard problem of the presence of evil.

Deity allows the presence of evil because the cosmic richness of the dialogue of self-and-other, love, sometimes gives rise to evil and Deity, looking upon the wealth of sentient beings inhabiting a time_motion universe, allows it as an act of divine love.

Monist excludes Love. Binary includes Love.

God presents a binary contract to human, for the sake of Love.

God-As-Human, binary, seeks Love.

God-As-God, monist, distances Love.

Thank you.

I think love of another person can become cold when subordinated to an ideal.

No, Rand is not to philosophy what L. Ron Hubbard is to religion. We study Rand in ethics class right next to Kant, Hume, and Descartes. Furthermore, there is no possible way anyone can read even the first 3 chapters of Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, which is the greatest epistemological work of the past century, and conclude what you did about her. That kind of statement only comes from a place of irritation induced by the discovery that someone (Rand) established a coherent ethical epistemology around selfishness. Mainly becuase Christianity has informed almost the entire corpus of post Roman philosophy and Objectivism definitively challenges the intellectual impedimenta attendant upon Christianity informed philosophy. However, I agree with you about the atheism bit.

I wonder what Scientologists think about L. Ron Hubbard. I suspect they feel about him much like you feel about Rand.