Why We Could Love Everyone

Discussion in 'Not Sure Where it Goes' started by Terry Page, Feb 11, 2017.

  1. Babs Hunt

    Babs Hunt Supreme Member
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    I agree with the others @Terry Page that we need some communication along with a video. My problem is that many of the videos I can't even watch because out here in our rural area the only internet services we have a choice of is way to slow or way to high priced. I took the way to slow connection because I'd rather go slower than pay a price I think is ridiculous! But in going with the slower I cannot see many of the videos people put up, so I would appreciate a post with info along with the videos so I can discuss things too.:)
     
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  2. Terry Page

    Terry Page Supreme Member
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    My typing skills don't run to transcribing the whole content of the video [​IMG] , but here is a short part of it, the points made I broadly agree with what are your ideas concerning it?



    Why, Once You Understand Love, You Could Love Anyone

    Irrespective of whether you consider Jesus a popular itinerant preacher or the Son of God, there’s a very odd thing about his views on love. He not only spoke a great deal about love: he went on to advocate that we love some highly surprising people.

    At one point – described in chapter 7 of Luke’s Gospel – he goes to a dinner party and a local prostitute turns up – much to the disgust of the hosts. But Jesus is friendly and sweet and defends her against everyone else’s criticism. In a way that shocks the other guests, he insists that, at heart, she is a very good person.

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    There’s another story (in Matthew, chapter 8) where Jesus is approached by a man with leprosy. He’s in a disgusting state. But Jesus isn’t shocked, reaches out his hand and touches the man. Despite the horrendous appearance, here is someone (in Jesus’s eyes) entirely deserving of closeness and kindness. In a similar vein, at other times, Jesus conspicuously argues that tax collectors, thieves and adulterers are never to be thought of as outside the circle of love.

    Many centuries after his death, the foremost medieval thinker Thomas Aquinas defined what Jesus was getting at in this way of talking about love: the person who truly understands love could love anyone. In other words: true love isn’t specific in its target; it doesn’t fixate on particular qualities, it is open to all of humanity, even (and in a way especially) its less appealing examples.

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    Today, this can sound like a deeply strange notion of what love is, for our background ideas about love tend to be closely tied to a dramatic experience: that of falling in love, that is, finding one, very specific person immensely attractive, exciting and free of any failings or drawbacks. Love is, we feel, a response to an overt perfection of another person.

    Yet – via some admittedly extreme examples – a very important aspect of love is being pushed to the fore in Jesus’ vision. And we don’t have to be Christian – that is, we don’t have to believe there’s an afterlife or that Jesus was born to a virgin – to benefit from it.

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    At the heart of this kind of love is an effort to see beyond the outwardly unappealing surface of another human – in search of the tender, interesting, scared and vulnerable person inside.

    What we know as the ‘work’ of love is the emotional, imaginative labour that’s required to peer behind an off-putting facade. Our minds tend fiercely to resist such a move. They follow well worn grooves that feel at once familiar and justified. For instance: if someone has hurt us we naturally see them as horrible. The thought they might themselves be hurting inside feels very weird. If a person looks odd, we find it extremely difficult to recognise there might well be many touching things about them deep down.

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    If unpleasant events happen in someone’s life – if they keep on losing their job or acquire a habit of drinking too much or even develop cancer – we’re somehow tempted to hold them responsible for their misfortunes.

    It takes quite a deliberate, taxing effort of the mind to move ourselves off these deeply established responses. To do so might mean taking an unappealing-looking person and trying to imagine them as young a child, unselfconsciously playing on their bedroom floor. We might try to picture their mother, not long after their birth, holding them in her arms, overcome by passionate love for this new little life. Or perhaps, drunk and passed out, ignoring their desperate cries.

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    We might see a furious person in a restaurant violently complaining that the tomato sauce is on the wrong place on their plate – but rather than condemn and feel superior, we might try to construct a story of how this individual had come to be so impossible, and how powerless they must feel in a world where something (and not what they are ostensibly complaining about) has frustrated them to the core.

    The more energy we expend in thinking like this, the more we stand to discover a very surprising truth: that we could potentially see the loveable sides of pretty much anyone.

    [​IMG]

    That doesn’t mean we should give up all criteria when searching for a partner. It’s a way of saying that the nicest person will eventually require us to look at them with imagination as we try to negotiate around some of their gravely dispiriting sides.

    And, of course, the traffic won’t ever be all one way. We too are deeply challenging to be around and therefore stand in need of a constantly imaginative, tender gaze to rescue us from being dismissed as merely another everyday monster – or leper.


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  3. Patsy Faye

    Patsy Faye Supreme Member
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    So worth the post Terry - enjoyed reading it
    I have 'become' the person above in many ways - I want to understand why a person is what they are, rather than turn my back
    In 'one' respect, I can't though - ignorance in people and being racist for the sheer hell of being so
    In other words those that don't give enough thought to circumstance and 'immediately' judge
     
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  4. Babs Hunt

    Babs Hunt Supreme Member
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    In New Testament times, there were at least four different Greek words that translate as the English word ‘love’. Each of the four different Greek words carries a slightly different definition from the other three.

    These words were:

    EROS:
    this Greek word was not used in the New Testament. It refers to sexual love (lust is considered by many to be eros love) and probably derived its name from the mythical god of love.

    STORGE:
    This is the type of love signifying the natural affection between kinfolk. This word appears only occasionally in the New Testament and only in compound form.

    PHILEO
    : This Greek word for love signifies, “…spontaneous natural affection, with more feeling than reason”. Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance defines phileo as, “to be a friend to…fond of an individual or object; having affection for (as denoting attachment); a matter of sentiment or feeling”.

    AGAPE:
    This Greek word for love is by far the one that appears most frequently in the New Testament. It is generally assumed to mean moral goodwill which proceeds from esteem, principle, or duty, rather than attraction or charm… [it] means to love the undeserving, despite disappointment and rejection...agape love has more to do with moral principle than with inclination or liking.

    When most people think of love they are defining it as Eros, Storge, or Phileo love but when God has commanded us to love everyone He is talking about agape love. Jesus loved everyone with agape love, and we can love everyone with agape love too.
     
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  5. Terry Page

    Terry Page Supreme Member
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    I agree Patsy, I have become much more thoughtful and less likely to judge people on the spur of the moment, I have never felt any racial prejudice in myself, all people are the same racially speaking as far as I am concerned,...... I wasn't aware of any in my family either, though talking to my daughter's, my mother did have some prejudice against immigrants, particularly Indians and Black Africans, though I was never aware of this as a child...
     
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  6. Terry Page

    Terry Page Supreme Member
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    Yes when love is mentioned in our culture we are usually referring to sexual/reproductive feelings or Eros, which are basically shallow and mainly concerned with survival of the species, it is so powerful a force that is often referred to as True Love or Real Love, but I regard Real Love as a much more lasting and a deeper understanding of a person and not simply feelings, so yes we can love anyone in a platonic sense, but maybe not like or even want to be around some ....
     
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  7. Patsy Faye

    Patsy Faye Supreme Member
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    Now I'm confused because I do me best to understand someone but when that fails, I neither love, nor want to be around them
     
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  8. Terry Page

    Terry Page Supreme Member
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    Yes I know what you mean Patsy, but as I understand it the love that connects us all is not a feeling,........ it's an acceptance of the oneness that binds together (love) all humanity, good bad and indifferent, you keep another being in your heart,...... though you cannot be with them or even like them?
     
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  9. Patsy Faye

    Patsy Faye Supreme Member
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    No Terry - I'm tough on people that are 'bad' - such as paedophiles
    @Terry Page
     
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  10. Shirley Martin

    Shirley Martin Supreme Member
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    @Terry Page , that's a very idealistic view of love. I don't think any human is capable of feeling it. We aren't wired that way.
     
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  11. Terry Page

    Terry Page Supreme Member
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    I agree @Shirley Martin the best we can do is to aspire to it :)
     
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  12. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    I really like what you wrote, @Terry Page , and thank you for taking the time to write it all out for us. I actually didn't expect a whole synopsis of the video, just what your thoughts about the concept were.
    I think that we can actually love everyone, although not in the same way that we love people who we are bonded with or are part of our family.
    We can even love someone who is not a good person, although we hate what that person is doing.
    Here is how I look at it personally. If I were to come upon a car accident, or something similar, and saw someone who was trapped in the car; I would certainly do my best to help rescue them, and save their life. It would not matter what race they were, or anything else, just that this was another human being that needed help. In this way, it is a kind of love for fellow humans broadly speaking, and all-encompassing the human race.
    However, if someone had tried to harm my children, and I was able to hurt or kill that person; as a mother, I would have protected my children in any way that I could and not had a hesitation doing it.
    It is hard to reconcile those two acts; but I think that it is still possible to care about humanity as a whole, while still hating the activity of vile people.
     
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  13. Patsy Faye

    Patsy Faye Supreme Member
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    Yes - the way you have put that - I can agree with :)
     
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  14. Terry Page

    Terry Page Supreme Member
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    Yes I agree with what you say here @Yvonne Smith , it's more or less exactly my own thoughts, being human protecting our family of course would override any altruism we may attempt to follow, imo completely unconditional love and altruism are not possible...
     
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