Well and clearly put. I would actually disagree with your interpretation at one point, though.
Love, not faith, is the greatest virtue, gift, blessing, what have you. And what did Jesus have to say about love? In the Gospel of Luke he says very clearly that the greatest commandment is to 1) love God with all your heart, mind, and spirit and 2) love your neighbor as yourself. You see, all you fundamentalists, evangelicals, etc., you're so caught up in #1 that you forget all about #2.
They do forget about #2, but I don't think they manage #1 either. They revere God. They are afraid of God. They follow God. They pray to God. (For the preceding sentences, "God" is a shorthand for "their own conception of God.") I am not at all sure that they love God.
It's a complicated question, starting with "What does it mean to love an omniscient omnipresent being anyway?" Love, to me, implies having feelings for $ENTITY that doesn't involve anything along the lines of "will go to hell if I don't do what $ENTITY says" or "$ENTITY will reward me if I do what it says" or even---this is a delicate line, I'm not quite sure where it lies---maybe even not "I like $ENTITY because $ENTITY made me/gave me shinies." Or maybe it includes that last; as I said, I can't quite make up my mind where the line falls; maybe it doesn't include that but instead includes "I like $ENTITY because $ENTITY made shinies [that weren't necessarily for me, but shiny nonetheless]."
At any rate, to my mind, loving God requires a level of spirituality that absolutely means going beyond whining about whether a gay couple could adopt a child or not. So such a whiner automatically fails #2, but I think s/he is disqualified from #1 as well.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2005-05-05 04:51 pm (UTC)Love, not faith, is the greatest virtue, gift, blessing, what have you. And what did Jesus have to say about love? In the Gospel of Luke he says very clearly that the greatest commandment is to 1) love God with all your heart, mind, and spirit and 2) love your neighbor as yourself. You see, all you fundamentalists, evangelicals, etc., you're so caught up in #1 that you forget all about #2.
They do forget about #2, but I don't think they manage #1 either. They revere God. They are afraid of God. They follow God. They pray to God. (For the preceding sentences, "God" is a shorthand for "their own conception of God.") I am not at all sure that they love God.
It's a complicated question, starting with "What does it mean to love an omniscient omnipresent being anyway?" Love, to me, implies having feelings for $ENTITY that doesn't involve anything along the lines of "will go to hell if I don't do what $ENTITY says" or "$ENTITY will reward me if I do what it says" or even---this is a delicate line, I'm not quite sure where it lies---maybe even not "I like $ENTITY because $ENTITY made me/gave me shinies." Or maybe it includes that last; as I said, I can't quite make up my mind where the line falls; maybe it doesn't include that but instead includes "I like $ENTITY because $ENTITY made shinies [that weren't necessarily for me, but shiny nonetheless]."
At any rate, to my mind, loving God requires a level of spirituality that absolutely means going beyond whining about whether a gay couple could adopt a child or not. So such a whiner automatically fails #2, but I think s/he is disqualified from #1 as well.
You sparked lots of thoughts here, Lady Nox.