BigBallinStalin wrote:I've always thought love comes from within. It isn't something that can be lost, merely something that's always residing within you and occasionally is brought out by certain people or things. A very small amount of people have learned how to extend their love to everyone, which is an impressive feat.
Love does and doesn't have much to do with God, depending on what you want to believe.
Love does come from within, but can be repressed. One of the easiest ways to repress 'love' is to be extremely selfish; at that point, 'selfishness' becomes "narcissism." If any of you have read "People of the Lie: The hope for healing human evil," by M. Scott Peck, he makes some interesting arguments about "evil" being merely a lack of love for others. While Peck himself is Christian, his arguments surpass religious boundaries.
If you look at commandments, scriptures, philosophies of spiritual nature, then, regardless of your particular brand (of, or lack of, religion) most of them agree deep down that to show your faith, you should treat others with love. That love sometimes means compassion, it sometimes means sternness, but usually includes respect and an understanding that everyone has flaws. Even pagan forms of religion/philosophy include some aspect of love/respect (for nature, for some universal energy, for other members of the sect) as part of their beliefs.
So, to say that, "God is love," is an accurate assessment. The difficulty comes with how individuals define, "God." For some, "God" is a specific entity. For some, "God" started as a specific entity, then had a part-human son (sounds like Zeus' Hercules, eh?) and then when the mortal part of that son died there were three versions: father, son, holy ghost. For some, "God," is just one of a set of lots of entities who get the three-word label. For others, "God" is the name given to an energy that is in all life, like Heinlein's "Mike the Martian" saying, "Thou art God." Those for whom "God," is just a reason to argue over a label rather than a concept behind the label usually have no difficulty believing that there are things in this universe more powerful than they are; even those who believe they can learn to be more powerful can usually agree that other things are currently more powerful.
If they chose to treat other beliefs with compassion, respect, and an understanding that everyone has flaws, they can overlook the label or redefine the label and in doing so, stop arguing so much and treat each other with "love" - with or without the 'forbidden' g-word. If they do that, they'll be exhibiting "g-like" traits, whether they believe in entity(ies) or not.
BigBallinStalin wrote:
A very small amount of people have learned how to extend their love to everyone, which is an impressive feat.
So impressive that it's something above normal (natural) human tendencies, something to revere. Dare I say it? God-like. Rather, God-love ;
