It’s neither good nor bad. The same goes for hatred. Love can make one person a victim of an abuser or commit suicide because it isn’t returned; hatred can drive one to destroy a fatal disease or an evil person or organization. Love can make people happy and hatred can cause great suffering, but that doesn’t mean that they will.
Love is too simple, too one-dimensional to make a good ideal. You might as well make hunger or being tall into an ideal.
Not really. It’s more like a lack of incentive for people to behave decently, because you’ll love them anyway. Some people don’t deserve to be liked, much less loved.
It’s OK to be an atheist and believe in Love. Don’t you think? You are right: God is simply Love, and everything else is man’s ego wanting to profit from it.
If you do some research you will find all major religions believe in Love, and it is the core value of all religions whether they call it love or something else. Yes, I realized that devotees of religion don’t always hold to the core belief. But that is not our worry or our job to correct them. If you really believe in love and practice it you will be able to quickly understand the why of it all.
I am going to add the Christian definition of love for those still struggling with what it is, while other religions use different words and concepts it all comes down to about the same thing.
“Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love doesn’t demand its own way. It’s not irritable or touchy. It doesn’t hold grudges and will not notice when others do it wrong. It’s never glad about injustice, but rejoices in truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends”. – Saint Paul.
Some will think this impractical, I was told once by a minister that it wouldn’t work. But, he never practiced it. You need to practice it to understand it. The proof is in the honest practice of the principles.
You, like many others, have cause and effect reversed. Having free will causes no harm, it is people that cause one another harm. Leaving everyone is a state of bliss was no what God wanted. He wanted co-creators and co-thinkers, that don’t happen with a bunch of smiling robots that do and think exactly alike. The gift of free will is a high priority and again you have reversed cause and effect. People cause each other pain, not God. God is not sorry about His decisions, God is Love. Love does not hurt anyone. Can’t hurt anyone, if it causes pain it is not Love.
We all know the story of Helen Keller. How Anne her teacher spelled out the word water in her hand, day after day, week after week, while pouring water over her hand, then it happened, Helen understood the connection between the water being poured over her hand and the word being spelt in her palm. It was a major breakthrough and from there it was easy for Helen to learn to read and write.
Hello everyone, I apologize for entering into this discussion and then not having time to follow it the last few days. I would also apologize for interjecting my own beliefs in detail when the OP was really just asking about what the “conventional theological wisdom” was; but I have noticed religious discussions on this board rarely stay on topic.
Anyway, Staggerlee, , you have admirably summed up my position. In answer to your question, we are all the moral arbiters and we all have to decide for ourselves what part of our particular religious texts are about love and which are not. In other words, I do not believe that any particular Scripture (including my own) has some intrinsic higher degree of Truth that all the others lack.
You are quite correct in stating that in would then be reasonable to reject the enitire concepts of Scriptures and Gods, and simply believe in and try to practice Love directly. I happen to believe that the mental organizing structures and the shared experiences of being in community that religious myths and rituals provide are helpful to most people in attaining a higher level of spiritual awareness (which I would define as a direct emotional experience of realizing on a gut level that Love is the basic organizing principle of the universe) than they would be able to attain on their own. However, the only way for any particular person to discover if this is true for him or her is through open-minded experimentation.
Uhm, you’re wrong. And I don’t mean just that I disagree with you, although I do. But your point is wrong in that my idea of cause and effect isn’t “reversed” from yours; we simply have different actors, and tenuously different ones at that.Certainly, people cause each other harm. But it is free will that allows us to do so.
Imagine this. I’m happily walking along, not a care in the world. When, suddenly, a man comes up to me and gives me a case. Inside is a detailed report detailing an affair my wife has been having, and a gun. I, distraught, go home and shoot her.
Now, clearly I am in the wrong. But without that mysterious man to give me the motive (through bad feelings) and method, I would not have comitted that crime. Surely he too bears part of the blame - especially if he knew that that would be what I would do with that information? Likewise, through free will, God has (if he exists) given us means and method of causing harm. He knows what we will do with it, yet he gives it anyway. He could create a system where there is no harm at all, yet he does not. I certainly think that God could be blamed for evil in the world.
Again, not I haven’t. But you make a good point; God has priorities. What do priorities entail? That some things are* less important *to him. In this case, God has “People have free will” prioritised above “People will be blissfully happy”. Now, in order to accomplish his highest priority, he must at times break his less important rule. And this, I am sure if he existed, he would be upset about. You are the first person I have heard to suggest that God is perfectly happy with all the suffering in the world; for someone who claims to worship a God of love, you seem quite happy for him to not care about pain. Oh, but God is love. Keep repeating it, please; it’ll stop you having to actually think about it.
My parents sent me to school. That caused me pain. Are you suggesting my parents didn’t love me? Nor that it was love that motivated their actions?
Free will allows us to be free. You seem to suggest that if we were forced to obey God that would make us happy. Sure don’t seem to work in dictatorships.
Free will does not allow us to harm one another. We allow ourselves to harm one another. In my opinion you want to blame something other for the problems in this world instead of blaming ourselves. We create the problems. We create our own reality. In order to change the mess we have made, we need to understand it is our mess, and then set about cleaning it up. You and I and everyone else has complete control of our thoughts, and subsequent actions. You can’t change anything until you understand this simple truth.
No, i’m suggesting that God could set us up in a situation where we would be blissfully happy. Dictators as a whole do not generally seem to have either the power or the inclination to make each of their subjects do their will and make them incredibly happy and pleased to do so. God, OTOH, could.
Gosh. You’re right. If only I had said something about us having the blame as well as God. That’d certainly be…
… oh wait. I did say that.
Of course we hold blame. Of course we can’t say “Whoops, killed someone today. Damn God is entirely to blame!”. As you say, free will means that our choices are our responsibility. All I am saying is this; God has free will, too. And thus, his choices are also his responsiblity. And when, as in this case, his choices have allowed evil and pain to exist - well, I think it’s only fair to say he shares some of that blame with us. I am in the wrong. Him too.
Considering that you’ve managed to misunderstand not only my arguments but your own ones, and in fact are doing both in that very sentence, I suggest you are not the best person to dictate what is truth or not. In this case, happily, you are correct. But I made that point already - in the post you’re quoting! I suggest you can’t change anything if you don’t read for comprehension.
While we’re at it, answer my question, please. My parents sent me to school, that caused me pain, do they secretly hate me? As you can understand, it’s something I’d really like to know, and while you’re doling out truth I might as well ask everything I can.
Honestly lekatt, talking to you is sometimes like banging your head against a big fluffy wall… . What I’m trying to ask, which I think is at least slightly related to the OP is this: If you reckon that the majority of religions are based on the belief in ‘Love’ - this is their foundation; and you believe that it is okay to be an atheist and believe in Love; and you believe that ‘God is Love’, why bring ‘God’ into the equation at all?
If the various scriptures are just cultural frills around the ‘Core of Love’ which religion supposedly professes, isn’t ‘God’ just a synonym for ‘Love’ and therefore basically redundant?
Also, if as you say above, God is ‘simply Love’ - where does that leave the creation of the universe? If you consider the vast emptiness of space to be a manifestation of ‘Love’ as well, then I must say you are stretching the definition so far as for it to be unrecognisable.
Not necessary to use the word God if you don’t want to. Now as for the creation of the Universe. I will quote from a spiritual being far brighter than I.
In the spirit world Love is a force, a power, the glue that holds everything together, without Love everything falls apart.
(quickly scrolling thru the thread to see if my point has been made, and using such speed as my excuse if it had)
I thought this referred to the obviously pan-theistic “Christianity” of those who separate The Father from The Son (both separate actors in the NT) and The Holy Spirit from the Jewish God. Add in the demigogic powers of Mary (and I am, three days a week, a Marianist), and you have a solid three, plus another, things with godlike powers in many people’s personal theology, which tells me that the concept of monotheism, effectively transmitted (eventually) to the Jews, was totally lost when Christianity came along. Not that there’s anything wrong with that–on another couple days I’m a polytheist.
I don’t know of a single Christain church that would not reject your label of pan-theistic. In the protestant group God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are seen as a Holy Trinity of one God. In Catholic churches Mary is not considered God. She is prayed to as an interceding person for Jesus. So Christians have only one God. Yes, I know there is no mention of the trinity in the Bible, but churches may determine their own doctrine and worship as they please. No one has proof either way and never will.
The beginning of most religions are the same. A Master teacher comes onto the scene preaching, healing, and performing miracles before the public. He teaches basically to love one another, love your enemies, be kind, compassionate and harm no one. He gathers a following, usually a very large following, because those that actually practice what he teaches quickly see the value and benefit of it. He dies or is killed, and his followers start a religion based on his teachings. The early church is wonderful, and one or more of his followers “spread” the word. There, more or less, we have the start of a religion, which as it gets older creates its own doctrine and after a few thousands years the religion is hardly a ghost of the original teachings of the Master. The Master did not come to start a religion, nor did he desire one to be started by his devotees. The message is Love. God is Love. So I believe God/Love has effectively disseminated His message to all. It is the lack of following the message that has created all the trouble in this world. In an earlier post I posted the Christian definition of Love.
Now the message of God is Love, unconditional love. Simple, clear, and effective. Those that honestly practice it understand it.
Interesting. One of these statements is wrong. Either we cannot hurt each other, in which case we are not love, or we are love, in which case that which is love can also cause pain.
Can’t answer satisfactorily for you. I believe you misread the post. If you practice unconditional love, and God is the only one that does it perfectly, you can not harm anyone. It is necessary to look beyond the illusion of dualism to understand perfect love. I can’t teach you how to do that, it comes with practicing love.
I read the posts literally. And your answer seems to indicate that you’re retracting your notion that we are love for one where we need to practice unconditional love; if that was the meaning behind your “we are God’s creations and so love” post, then I apologise for misreading you. Perhaps you could highlight when you’re speaking literally and when you’re speaking metaphorically? I’m finding it hard to do so.
Thank you for insulting me a second time, though; first with your suggestion that my parents do not love me, and now with the suggestion that, as you believe I do not understand perfect love, I cannot have loved myself.
I always have difficulty trying to explain my thoughts. We are created in love, by love, therefore we are love in spirit form. When we come into the physical and take on a body, this shell separates us from the love we felt in spiritual form. But within us all is love. We can make contact with this love or we can focus outward into the physical world and ignore the love within us. By turning our focus beyond the body and dualism we can again feel unconditional love.
Now, there was no intention to insult you or anyone. It is just that unconditional love is something we humans seldom ever come close to achieving. We believe we love, as I did, until I had my near death experience which showed me what love was all about. More caring, compassion, and understanding than I ever believed possible, so strong it is with me always.
I seldom post in literal thought, mostly in metaphor or conceptual.
I’m confused. It seems like what you are saying is that we, as love, can in fact still cause pain, but that we can choose not to. Is this correct?
I don’t believe you meant to insult me. Nevertheless, I am insulted. I suppose that’s why you may be being circumspect about your thoughts on this; essentially your beliefs mean that no-one who disagrees with you feels or practices true love. I for one though would feel much better (if indeed that is your point) if you admitted it frankly, rather than skirting the issue. As it is it seems like you’re trying to hide the more unpleasant issues of your ideas in order to sell them better.
Just so it’s clear; you are in fact saying that what we (as in me, others who disagree with you, and you before your experience) call “love” is in fact a pale imitation of true love. Is this correct?
Maybe your difficulty in explaining your thoughts to your satisfaction stems from that? After all, we all have different concepts, and so debating using them means we’d have to explain exactly what we mean by each term in advance - like you’ve been asked to for “love”.
Well, I have given the definition of love as through Christianity. But I will give it again. It is true, us humans do not practice love, or even know love very well unless we connect with the love within us.
This is a small snip from a near death experience, somewhat explaining the love.
This is pure feeling, very hard to put into words.
Thank you. I think my view was right, then. I’m not sure i’m a big fan of your kind of love, though. Unconditional love is all well and good, but there are some conditions that (IMHO) would be worthy of stopping love, especially when (in your view) you can’t love someone and hurt them at the same time.
Love is nothing more and nothing less then a description of how one feels. It is not an entity, force, power, glue or however you chose to vaguely misdescribe it as. To say that God is love makes as much sense as saying that God is Red-not that God is Red in color, but that God is the color Red. The word love has definite definitions, so it would help if you would find some other word to describe what you worship, instead of constantly misusing “Love”.
