'Amir Alzzalam
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Religion of love?
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Aupmanyav
Be your own guru.
IMHO, there has never been a God himself. It is a product of human imagination and that of people who benefited/benefit by the idea. Yeah, I am an atheist.
The only position we humans are aware of owning no human condition as conditional...is unconditional love.
Mother father left it.
Animals before them had left it.
Garden nature body had left it.
Why small cells of the grounded spirit body pushed into the ground by upper pressures. Still float in the atmosphere.
We know we are mutually loving bodies.
We know we live only by living conditions many of which do not love us.
Why we knew we left unconditional to own conditions.
So we taught we left the eternal creator and came into cooled eternal hell. Conditional to its strata it evolved as a God body.
Yet not as a baby. Our first parents had. As humans are all living within eternal hell's conditions just as told. Why many conditions don't love us.
When we die our body returns back to mineral skeletal dusts.
And the one highest presence that never left unconditional love is then freed to not be restrained by conditions it caused.
Mother father left it.
Animals before them had left it.
Garden nature body had left it.
Why small cells of the grounded spirit body pushed into the ground by upper pressures. Still float in the atmosphere.
We know we are mutually loving bodies.
We know we live only by living conditions many of which do not love us.
Why we knew we left unconditional to own conditions.
So we taught we left the eternal creator and came into cooled eternal hell. Conditional to its strata it evolved as a God body.
Yet not as a baby. Our first parents had. As humans are all living within eternal hell's conditions just as told. Why many conditions don't love us.
When we die our body returns back to mineral skeletal dusts.
And the one highest presence that never left unconditional love is then freed to not be restrained by conditions it caused.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru.
Well, I am not a votary of unconditional love. I do not believe in God or soul too, strong atheist.
TheLightWithin
...through a glass, darkly
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I'm late to this party, but isn't there something in Luke (Luke 14) about how one must "hate one's father and mother" in order to follow Jesus?
Like most passages anywhere in the bible, esp difficult ones, this one is interpreted variously and almost certainly has more to it than meets the eye.
Right? I'd be interested in how others read the passage, esp in light of this discussion.
Like most passages anywhere in the bible, esp difficult ones, this one is interpreted variously and almost certainly has more to it than meets the eye.
Right? I'd be interested in how others read the passage, esp in light of this discussion.
moralorel
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I have always seen it as a comparative scripture. Jesus is trying to demonstrate how much you should love God. He isn't telling people to hate their parents. That would be a violation of the Law. He is saying that your love for your parents shouldn't even come close to how much love you should have for God. But that is my opinion.
Luke 14:25 "Many people were traveling with Jesus. He said to them, 26 “If you come to me but will not leave your family, you cannot be my follower. You must love me more than your father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters—even more than your own life! 27 Whoever will not carry the cross that is given to them when they follow me cannot be my follower."
Luke 9:59-62 "To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 60 And Jesus[ a] said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead."
TheLightWithin
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Perhaps hyperbole then, as the alternative to literal or surface reading.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru.
TheLightWithin
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Statements of love being actually deceit.
Interesting.
Can you say more?
What it is about references to love that clue you in to deceit?
JustGeorge
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I don't have a lot of boundaries(well, I think I'll pass on sharing the Kama Sutra with my neighbors), I guess. I like most people, am willing to share love in a friendly sense.
However, there are a few that I simply cannot share this with... and the most loving thing to do, for both them and myself, is to stay away, keeping in mind the logic of the attitude and not letting it carry over into thoughts of revenge.
Welcome to the interfaith dialogue forums, @JustGeorge ! Good to have you here.
As part of the friendly forum culture we are cultivating here, I'd like to invite you to read our code of conduct, and if you're so inclined, to write an intro post to the Introductions forum.
(Background: Since we discuss matters close to our hearts where we may be in fundamental disagreement with each other, we give our Code of Conduct some emphasis. And an intro post is just nice to have, to get to know each other a little).
All right, that was it for the on-boarding formalities.
- Cino in his admin capacity, eager to get out of this itchy gown.
As part of the friendly forum culture we are cultivating here, I'd like to invite you to read our code of conduct, and if you're so inclined, to write an intro post to the Introductions forum.
(Background: Since we discuss matters close to our hearts where we may be in fundamental disagreement with each other, we give our Code of Conduct some emphasis. And an intro post is just nice to have, to get to know each other a little).
All right, that was it for the on-boarding formalities.
- Cino in his admin capacity, eager to get out of this itchy gown.
Hey, lady - Welcome to this forum.
JustGeorge
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Believe it or not, I actually read the Code of Conduct before posting!
(Though maybe I oughta read it again, I have a short memory.) And I will get right on the intro post after my brain wakes up. Nice to meet you, and thanks for the tips!
Nice to see you, @RabbiO !
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru.
It is very common in evengelist talk. Not just Christians, but Islam, Buddhism, Bahai and Ahmadiyya as well (Religions of peace and brotherhood).
talib-al-kalim
Well-Known Member
Where are the boundaries?
The universal commandment
"Love your neighbour as yourself."
written in the Torah (Lev 19:18) but not only there, implies a boundary: He didn't say, "... more than yourself."
Jesus (p.b.u.h) confirmed the rule, as one of the two bases.
According to Hadith (not the Quran), Muhammad (p.b.u.h) confirmed this message, too.
The focus in the Quran is on faith in God, good deeds, solidarity/community and justice.
Without that frame, love is hard to keep.
Solidarity is good because your efforts are not running into exhaust, but you will also receive if in need.
Justice is good because injustice creates hatred, and where hatred is, there is no love.
Good will is good, but good deeds (Jesus said "fruit") are necessary to live solidarity, that everyone need not starve or live in misery, or in isolation.
God will support us in this, and through our faith we get the guidance and the power to do so.
If you look on this (basically Islamic) concept, you may observe that it follows the Prayer of Jesus (p.b.u.h) from down to top.
If recited in the original top-down sense, we start from God, the desire to anticipate and build His Kingdom on earth and inject His Seed before completion of Jannah.
The believer may be enabled to love more from the Love of God and his love to God, and work further in the direction of Jannah, douse the present and make His Kingdom grow.
But if there is no solidarity and no justice, the seed will fall on barren ground, and - as what perhaps @Aupmanyav wanted to express - feel deceived.
Where are my limits? Just there where I feel love to fall on barren ground.
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talib-al-kalim
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“If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”
With a good reason, we are surprised to read that his followers should hate his own father and mother, as we are commanded to respect and to love them.
The Greek of Luke uses the word μισεῖ. The Discovery Bible's comment to this is:
The author of the "Gospel of Thomas" reports this tradition twice. Th 55 runs parallel to Luke. Th 101 seems to be a less reliable variant. On the one hand, Jesus also "hates" his family, but on the other hand, the supplementary clause “And whoever does not love his father and mother as I do cannot become my disciple” is added.
The author of Mt reformulates the parallel passage, which is certainly based on the same source, in the way it was most probably meant: Someone who wants to become his personal disciple should give this full priority over everything else, even if it is as important as his family.
The latter section of Luke 14 is a commentary on the need for renunciation 'of the world' if one is to become a true disciple of God.
The 'inflammatory' text is Luke 14:26, as cited above, but it's worth reading that in relation to a prior element, verses 16, 18-20:
"... A certain man made a great supper, and invited many... And they began all at once to make excuse. The first said to him: I have bought a farm, and I must needs go out and see it: I pray thee, hold me excused. And another said: I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to try them: I pray thee, hold me excused. And another said: I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come."
The invitation thus declined, the man says:
"... Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the feeble, and the blind, and the lame." (v21) and furthermore, when there is still room at the table: "Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. But I say unto you, that none of those men that were invited, shall taste of my supper." (v21, 23-24).
This sets up the ground for the infamous v26.
We open to find the invited declining the invitation for material and worldly reasons. So the invitation is opened to the poor and needy – the dispossessed of the world, the abandoned, and evidently there is room for many.
Christ then makes the point. If we consider the symbolism of the cross, then the way of the disciple is the vertical axis, the 'one thing necessary' (Luke 10:42) and the way of the world, maya or samsara, with all its attendant distractions, is the horizontal plane. Jesus is saying one needs to practice detachment (Eckhart considered this 'the prince of virtues') if one is going to be a disciple. as He says in Matthew 6:24, "No man can serve two masters" and indeed says later on in Luke: "So likewise every one of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth, cannot be my disciple." (v33)
It's notable also that Jesus also makes it clear that if one is going to be a disciple, one has to take into account what that will demand – the analogy of the tower, or a king going to war, is about making preparations, and coming to terms with the world.
Bhagavad Gita 7:13-14
"Deluded by the three modes of Maya, people in this world are unable to know Me, the imperishable and eternal.
My divine energy Maya, consisting of the three modes of nature, is very difficult to overcome. But those who surrender unto Me cross over it easily."
Curiously, a commentary adds that the three modes of nature are ignorance, passion and goodness. It's not too much of a stretch to liken those those to the three guests who refused the invitation in Luke's parable. The first because of his farm (ignorance, the transience of the material goods); the second because of his oxen (passion, he wants to see how well they perform) and goodness (the love of a man for his wife).
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru.
What if there is no seed but just talk? Just talk will not raise a crop even in the most fertile ground.
Tomas, since I am an atheist, I take this and similar theist verses as interpolations in BhagawadGita.
I have crossed over without surrendering to any one.
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talib-al-kalim
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In the image I used, seed stands for love. If there's no love but only talk it is vain. Paul, a wise early Christan Scholar whose epistles figure in the Christian New Testament, wrote thereon (1 Corinthians 13):
| 1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body,a but have not love, I gain nothing. 4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs. 6Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be restrained; where there is knowledge, it will be dismissed. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when the perfect comes, the partial passes away. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways. 12Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love. |
You are right that there were and are pretenders who only talk nicely. But you should discern them from those who seriously try to love, from faith, from conviction, mood or attitude. If you mistrust everybody, you yourself become barren ground and no seed will germ, be it vain talk or honest love.
