Bob - I feel there is a problem with holding selfless love in high regard, since, in my opinion, the way in which you love yourself is the same way in which you love other people. The Bible talks about ‘loving your neighbour as yourself’, so how do you match that with the idea of selfless love. What do you actually mean by the term selfless love ?
But Christianity and Islam didn’t so much start at the time of their savoir (whoever that may be) but more or less “broke off” at the time of their savoir. They both still evolved through Judaism.
Hadj wrote
“Received” religions all have one thing in common. They are all at there very best, not the words of God, but rather, the words of men who “claim” to speak for God. Now maybe they do and maybe they don’t. But before you can put your faith in the God they describe you must first put your faith in the men who describe him. If you are comfortable putting your faith in such men then more power to you.
In Hinduism there is only one creator. All of creation is simply a manifestation of the infinite one, Brahman. There is no object, no energy, no space or void where you can point and say, “god is not there”. There is no idea, no concept, no word that can be spoken and say, “god did not create this”. In all or creation there is only one, Brahman. Now if that isn’t monotheism then what the fuck is?
Well this may be an overly esoteric or arcane definition, but I seem to remember something like monotheism being specifically one God with a personality complete with emotions and such.
Deism is God without emotions, almost always just one.
Pantheism would be God = Everything (which is different from God being everywhere mind you.)
Like I said, it could be overly specific.
Plato reasoned that a God must have particular attributes and assumes that our own urge toward conceptualization reflects an intellectual structure underlying reality itself. Certainly Plato’s thought had influence on western Religion, as did Greek thought altogether – even if Theologians tend to play this influence down. Especially Plato showed for example that the question whether God could potentially do anything isn’t reasonable. If the material world were created by God with certain attributes, then it would be inconsequent to want to override those attributes. It seems that Plato was still struggling - even though he pointed out that without universal referents neither logos nor knowledge is fully possible, he lacked the mystical experience.
In fact, Christianity began with his believers – perhaps a great deal different to the Christianity of our day. I see Jesus as a jewish prophet (much like Islam) but as one of great importance, someone who took us over the threshhold into a new spiritual insight and service, fermenting religious discernment and enthusiasm.
As I mentioned elsewhere, ‘agape’, or selfless love is ‘godly’ love – something which we do not have in us naturally. However, when we discern the principle of love in creation, we find it to be a selfless love, ‘giving birth to’ or awakening affection, altruism, amity, attachment, benevolence, caritas, clemency, compassion, fellow feeling, generosity, goodness, goodwill, grace, humaneness, humanity, indulgence, kindliness, love and mercy.
Of course this love should not be purely outward but also inward, that is why to love God is to love one’s self and one’s neighbour equally, because we all grow out of the Mystery of divine benevolence.
Shalom
Bob
Christians and Muslims would fully disagree with you. Many people think they have knowledge saying that: “Well looking at their religion: they took it from the jews.” Of course is this very untrue, matter in fact we don’t acknowledge jews to be muslims and neither their rulings are considered islamic! So how can we ignore our so-called ancester religion?
Most of you people don’t even give it a try to think that it’s possible that something really occured when Jesus and Muhammed began their journey as Prophets. No, you all see it’s like a part of an “abrahamic evolution of religion”.
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“Of them there are some who (pretend to) listen to thee; but We have thrown veils on their hearts, So they understand it not, and deafness in their ears; if they saw every one of the signs, not they will believe in them; in so much that when they come to thee, they (but) dispute with thee; the Unbelievers say: “These are nothing but tales of the ancients.””
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"When Our Signs are rehearsed to them, they say: “We have heard this (before): if we wished, we could say (words) like these: these are nothing but tales of the ancients.”
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“Such things have been promised to us and to our fathers before! they are nothing but tales of the ancients!”
et cetera.
These verses clearly attack those who say that the Quran is not more than a tale of the old. And most of you will believe that with all their hearths.
And those who say that Muslims have deviated from the right path are for the most right however we still have enough resourcers to known the true path and many countries are considering to act by these laws (e.g. Islamic law in Canada for muslims). Since 60’s muslims are experiencing a revival of Islam to know the true path trough two basic sources:
- Quran
- Hadith (the sayings of the Prophet)
But most of you are still skeptical about the authentications of the Quran and hadith. To prove these are still trustable I will quote from an objective writer:
"The Quran holds a unique place among the books of Revelation, shared neither by the Old or the New Testament. The main reason for the preservation of the Quran is, that it was written down at the time of Prophet; we shall see how it came to be written, i.e., the process involved.
Here a distinction should be made between the hadiths and the Quran. The Quran is a book of revelation, while the hadiths are the collections of sayings if Muhammad (saws). Some of the Prophet’s companions started to write them down from the moment of his death. None of the hadiths were written down during the time of the prophet, so there is a possibility of human error slipping in. But this is not the case with Quran, as we will shortly see.
As the Revelation progressed, the Prophet and the believers following him recited the text by heart and the scribes in his following also wrote it down. It therefore starts off with two elements of authenticity. This continued up to the prophet’s death. At a time when not everybody could write, but everybody was able to recite, recitation afforded a considerable advantage because of double-checking possible when the definitive text was compiled.
Archangel Gabriel made the Quranic Revelation to Muhammad (saws). It took place over a period of more than twenty years of Prophet’s life, beginning with the very first verses of Sura 96, then resuming after a three-year break for a long period of twenty years up to the death of the Prophet in 632 A.D.
The following was the first Revelation (Sura 96, verses 1 to 5): “Read: in the name of thy Lord who created, Who created man from something that clings. Read! Thy Lord is the most Noble. Who taught by the pen, Who taught man what he did not know.â€
Professor Hamidullah notes in the Introduction to his French translation of the Quran that one of the themes of this first revelation was the ‘praise of the pen as a means of human knowledge’ which would ‘explain the prophet’s concern for the preservation of Quran in writing.’"
Written by Dr. Maurice Bucaille
And what about the sayings of the Prophet?
"Over time, due to different social, religious and political considerations, many hadith collections developed. A consensus of Islamic scholars weighed various collections, and judged them to be in one of the following categories: “genuine” (sahih, the best category), “fair” (hasan, the middle category), and “weak” (da’if).
By the ninth century six collections of hadiths were accepted as reliable by Muslims, although they varied in how many they considered authentic: al-Bukhari (d. 870) accepted 7275, while Abu Muslim (d. 875) accepted 9200. The other four well known and widely used colltions are those of Abu Da’ud (d. 888), al-Tirmidhi (d. 892), al-Nasa’i (d. 915), and Ibn Maja (d. 886). More compilations have developed over time, but these six hold the greatest weight."
geocities.com/WestHollywood/ … Quran.html
However I have to note that hadiths are only writings of humans and can’t be considered holy or whatsoever. It’s basically the islamic jurisprudence.
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"Or do ye say that Abraham, Isma’il Isaac, Jacob and the Tribes were Jews or Christians? Say: Do ye know better than Allah? Ah! who is more unjust than those who conceal the testimony they have from Allah? but Allah is not unmindful of what ye do! "
The verse speaks for itself.
Hadj, I am a bit concerned that you seem to be taking on the fundamentalist stance and have no respect for others. I can understand that Islam was highly critical of Christianity and perhaps of Judaism (although Judaism had to find it’s footing again) due to the developments of the dark ages. There was no doubt that Christianity had fallen into a dark pit but there was even then faithful believers who suffered just as much under the power struggles going on in Europe.
But the primary goal of Muhammed after his encounter with the Mystery was to restore the Abrahamic monotheism, instead of worshipping the many pagan idols (e.g. al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat) that still drew followers. And if you make a jump to the later sufi tradition, Rabia of Basra (d. 801) called for love of God “for his own sake,” not out of fear of hell or hope for heaven, much like Jesus did. Indeed, Sufism was early criticized by those who feared that the Sufis’ concern for personal experiential knowledge of God could lead to neglect of established religious observances and that the Sufis’ ideal of unity with God was a denial of the Islamic principle of the ‘otherness’ of God - much like the Mystics were attacked by the Roman Church.
The fact is, that behind the three Religions there exists a basic truth - that Man can encounter the Mystery like Abraham, Moses, Jesus or Muhammed, after which all idols become ridiculous. But the strength of the ‘Righteous’ lies not in physical but spiritual strength and the ability to resist the suppression by the unbelievers. This has been experienced by all Mystics of all Religions and is the true ecumenical alliance.
If you go quoting the Qu’ran against those who enter into dialogue with you, you are trying to install the fear of Judgment Day upon believers - albeit believers from a different tradition to you. Consider that Allah has many means to win people.
Shalom
Bob
Bob - I think we have a different view of humanity’s essential nature. For me, at core, we are all God, we are all divine, and filled with unconditional love for the whole of the universe. Love is our true nature. Unfortunately it gets covered, and filtered, through layers of unhealed emotional trauma. That means it is still there, and at times we may touch it, such as during peak experiences, or looking at the face of one you love very much.In my opinion, it is from this core that all the qualities that you listed can emerge.
For me, I aspire to live in this unconditional love, and to act from it. To get to it, in any permanent way, means to heal that which is covering it, namely the unhealed emotional trauma, and to do that means placing value on my own feelings and well-being. This is where I think there is a problem with selfless love, or agape, that is prone to forgetting the well-being of the self. In my opinion, selfless love is common, most often seen in the way that many mothers are with their children, sacrificing their lives for the apparent well-being of their children. I don’t actually feel that it is that healthy for the children, let alone the mother, since it becomes easy for the child to take the mother for granted, and not learn to do things for themselves, but remain dependent on her. They may grow into adults who expect everything to be done for them, or else feel that they too have to sacrifice their lives for other people. As for the mothers, it seems probable to me that they will become worn out far sooner than if they lived a healthier life, and that unless their children reciprocate some feeling they may come to resent all, or much, of what they have given. An action from unconditional love will never be resented, since their is no attachment to what the other person does.
Hi Michael,
Yes, I think you’re right - but we’re here to exchange views aren’t we…
I don’t agree that we are divine, simply because for me the divine is the Mystery. That is: of, relating to, emanating from, or being the expression of a Deity - of which Addison wrote “the more he contemplated the nature of the Deity, found that he waded but the more out of his depth.” The Divine is holiness or a holy or infinite spirit, or Jhvh, or God, or Allah; maker, numen, prime mover, spirit or world spirit - but not me…
Soemthing I wrote elsewhere: I think that we are more than ambiguous on our essential nature. We like to be this or that and then change our minds suiting short-termed advantages or capricious ideas, sometimes biding only a short time with a thought. One day we’re God, the other we’re vomiting up the most obnoxious part of us.
It is this ambiguity that is our nature - full of promise but often disappointing. Capable of enlightenment but very often in the gutter. High-flown and then buried in the earth. Perceiving the Mystery and then hoplessly blind. Mankind is capable of everything - the good and the bad, with a clear tendency to the bad. And it isn’t the bad that condemns him, but the good he is capable of - but doesn’t do.
I agree with you that there is a lot of unhealed emotional trauma around - but man is victim and perpertrator I’m afraid. This also smears over a lot of potential that sometimes comes out in varying circumstances, but that proves my point. The greek view was that our ‘pure’ soul was trapped in this carnal body, but I think that is a little too optimistic.
Good on you for trying that. I think I too have delved in such aspirations, especially when I was a care nurse for the elderly. It is when you want to do good when an ill wind is blowing hard that you realise where your boundaries are. I came to realise that my potential is equally sorted - and, if I am not mistaken, the potential of everybody else too.
As I said, selfless love doesn’t forget the self, because it is the love of God, not mankind that is praised. It only has to find a place to expand and manages to ‘cover a multitude of sins.’ The love of a mother seems to be a genetically driven tendency to put the child first and isn’t healthy if it is unconditional. But that is something else, being restricted to children - and probably usually only their own.
Even Christ hinted that the seperation of Mother and Child was necessary, a time when a Mother goes from being a Mother to being a Sister. Selfless love is more an attitude that overcomes the prejudice and hate, overcomes selfishness and greed, and shows our neighbour to be a brother or sister, just like us - and loved by God, so why not by us.
Shalom
Bob