It seems so obvious; it says ‘love your neighbour as you love yourself,’ we are told to love our enemy, and if we believe in Him we are to do these things.
Discussions about consciousness, and about the potentials of collective consciousness and communal cognition, in the context of the new testament would turn what we have in the west right now into something resembling a viable religious perspective. As it is now, those who value their own welfare more than the truth will end up in a difficult position.
You must remember Jeff that the human race is incapable of loveing themselves because of vanity among other things. (Proven)
Therefore if you are unabal to love yourself how then can you love another? Through the illusion of such yes but betrayel quickly hasens love to hate.
Most hate themselves and therefore their neighbor. (wether conciously or unconciously)
You can not ask a species which is built on Chaos, Death, Destruction and War Caused by the want to Love, be Loved, be Purified, Wanted, Holy, and the yearn for life everlasting to do the oposite.
You could but obviously that hasn’t worked yet for you Humans now has it?
No, as it was this text and belief system that sent you down the path your now on. Combined with the nature of man. While true if one was to follow and believe only the Good in the Bible to the letter and live his life as such yes it would be a rather peacful prespective religion.
But, you Humans lack the ability to do such. Now don’t you?
Just thought I’d offer a quote from Kierkegaard’s Works of Love here:
“…There is a lot of talk in the world about treachery and faithlessness, and, God help us, it is unfortunately all too true, but still let us never because of this forget that the most dangerous traitor of all is the one every person has within himself. This treachery, whether it consists in selfishly loving oneself or consists in selfishly not willing to love oneself in the right way–this treachery is admittedly a secret. No cry is raised as it usually is in the case of treachery and faithlesness. But is it not therefore all the more important that Christianity’s doctrine should be brought to mind again and again, that a person shall love his neighbor as himself, that is, as he ought to love himself?”
What I think is most important is Kierkegaard’s use of the word “will.” It is not natural that we love each other or ourselves, and less natural that we do it in proportion–and that is where will comes in. Loving the neighbor as yourself wouldn’t be a law if it came naturally to us.
I think i share a version of this sentiment; it makes me try to better myself, when it occurs to me.
It is interesting that people can’t love themselves because they want to love how they look.
The way i read the ‘loving your neighbour’ bit is that we should think of our neighbour as self; then we just love or hate ourself more wholistically.
Well, i think language was built on familial love; and writing is grounded in mistrust. I can imagine the occasional mindless conflict before the evolution of language; but i can’t imagine language evolving in a persistently individuating environment.
I think the love thing works, and has worked. Some people don’t like that it works and are trying to extinguish it. The chaos is caused not by the want of love but by the want to lord it over others.
I don’t think we’ve ever really had a chance to talk about it, until now; we do have that ability.
I am meaning human female; i am considering the human condition. An infant doesn’t compete with its mother; there is, at the outset, no reason to think of mother as other.