Aristophanes

[rant]
So, I found this new testement quote, which says:
"LOVE ONE ANOTHER!"
-John 15:12

let me ask you this; wtf. you can't just tell someone to love someone, and there it is. you can't ask someone to love. you can't command someone to love. what difference will it make if you tell people "love one another"? that won't make people love eachother. you can't make people love one another.

in my subjective and possibly offensive opinion, one must choose between blasphemy against "gawd", or blasphemy against love and the human condition. i would rather denounce a god which may and or may not exist, rather than my own humanity.

trying to love someone won't make a fat fart of a difference. why not teach tolerance, rather than love? tolerance is a rational decision. love isn't effected by whether or not you want to love. so to all those who command it, i say f*** you.
[/rant]

Zeichman

If one loves someone, wouldn't they be tolerant?

Splarnst

The commandment is not to actually have feelings of affection for everyone. That is impossible. It's to treat everyone as though you loved them and to cultivate feelings of caring for others. It's the most beautiful, and least followed, teaching of many religions.

David B

That's not what it said.

I'll say it again, with emphasis.

THAT'S NOT WHAT IT SAID!!!!

What you are claiming is your interpretation of what it said. But it ain't what it said.

What you say may well be more realistic than the commandment. I think so. Though what you said is not without its flaws -see below.

But it ain't what it said.

David B (is somewhat reluctant to treat priests who abuse their position to assfuck choirboys as if he loves them, or to cultivate feelings of caring for them, and is unimpressed with any religion that tells him so to do)

Splarnst

WTF? This is your first post in this thread. I didn't quote you.

I'll say it again, with emphasis.

WTF?!?

David B

The commandment, as said ith the thread, was 'love one another'.

You come up with some interpretation of that which is diffeent to 'love one another.

WTF??

David B

Splarnst

Different from your interpretation? Apparently. But when did your interpretation become authoritative?

David B

My interpretation is that 'love one another' means 'love one another'.

What is hard about that?

David B

diana

I agree it's impossible.

I agree that this is a more reasonable commandment. However, the commandment was to "love one another"--not "treat others as though you loved them/cultivate feelings of caring for others."

The "love the Lore your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, etc" commandment has the same problem, incidentally. It commands me to love--not to attempt to love God or behave as though I love God. The same problem rears its fugly head with "he who believes and is baptized shall be saved, etc." I can't make me believe, and the command doesn't say "he who tries to believe," or "he who behaves as though he believes" or "he who says he believes."

You can't dictate love or belief, but the bible orders us to do it and condemns us if we do not. It's all there in black and white.

d

JaredM

This is the problem with the naive, literalist interpretation that Fundamentalists use. They treat the commandment as if it means exactly what it says, despite the fact that it was written thousands of years ago in a dead and/or archaic language, and within the context of a society which would be considered very ignorant by our modern standards.

The problem is that it is often difficult enough to interpret man-made laws in such a "plain-meaning" manner, without any other sources of study or aids of construction. Interepreting allegedly "divine" commandments found in scripture is even more difficult--how do you make an interpretation consistent with an inherently inconsistent source, which allegedly came from a being so much more complex then we pathetic mortals?

And here of course we have another absurdity of divine law--the issue of regulating subjective state of mind and personal attitudes. Human authorities can regulate virtually everything, except a person's innermost thoughts. In totalitarian societies, this is precisely the case. Leaders regulate all aspects of personal expression and conduct, but people will still think as they wish. (Propaganda fills in the gaps with respect to "winning hearts & minds".) But the subjective opinions of the citizens are their own.

If God would condemn a person to eternal torment on the basis of purely subjective states of mind, then he is not omnibenevolent. If God is truly as omniscient as the fundies say he is, then he is worse than any dictator who ever lived. If he does not know the thoughts of his alleged creations, then he is not omniscient. If he is unable to read the minds of his creations, then he is not omnipotent.

Think of this as a variation on the Problem of Hell. :devil2:

--Jared