Love me or else (Part Two) (Where is it now?)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Monday, December 31, 2012, 17:07 (4346 days ago) @ dhw

DHW: Don't be frustrated! Just don't make and then try to defend authoritative remarks like "Love is not a feeling. It is an action...It does not have to come from within."
> -I can define love as action in great detail. Can you do the same with love as a feeling?-> Dhw: I do not dismiss human suffering on the grounds that there may be compensation in another life.
> 
> TONY I do not dismiss the suffering, either. I find it a tragic shame. 
> 
> DHW: You keep talking about blame, judge, criminals, punishment, as if every person on earth deserved to be struck down by lightning, disease, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, droughts, earthquakes. This pattern of suffering goes back to long before we arrived (I think our fellow animals can suffer too), and in terms of self-centredness (probably the main root of evil), that was already established when Nature introduced carnivores.
> -Ironically, at least according to the biblical record, initially animals were not carnivores, nor was that the intent when they were created. (Gen 1:30) So apparently, God agrees with your logic. I knew you would resort back to natural disasters(I said as much in my previous post before reading this one.) While I can certainly say that the majority of victims in the case of natural disasters are actually self-inflicted, and perhaps climatologist might agree that the vast majority of natural disaster(excluding volcanoes and earthquakes) are likely a direct result of mankind's actions regarding the environment, I do not know the geological or weather patterns of early earth. I can not say for certain what the conditions were.-
>DHW: .. if he does exist, I still see nothing wrong in loving my fellow humans for their own sake and not for his.
> -There is nothing wrong with loving your fellow man for their own sake. I have not meant to imply that you should love others for God's sake, only that you should show the same consideration to God. If all of our actions were grounded in love, how much better would this world be?-
> DHW: I don't believe I've ever done any lasting harm to anyone with the wrongs I've committed, but as you so rightly say, God may have different standards from mine. For instance, if I don't have faith in Jesus, maybe I shall be denied everlasting life, or even worse I shall suffer everlasting damnation (as threatened in various parts of the bible according to some interpreters). So I most certainly find no comfort in the thought that my actions are being judged by a power who can arbitrarily do what he likes with me, especially when I don't feel that even my wrong actions merit being chucked in a lake of fire and brimstone.
> -Acts 24:15 ... This is actually the answer to your thought. There is no 'burning in hell' or 'lava bubble baths' for people that try to do the right thing but fall short either due to ignorance or simple human imperfection. Yes, the wage you pay for mistakes is death, and that is a price we all pay. Then you are offered an opportunity to learn how to do things correctly before being offered a choice to follow the rules or not. So, no, your wrong actions do not warrant being chucked in a lake of fire and brimstone, and fortunately, that is not what the book says would happen to you anyway. -
> BBella: Maybe creation has always been and always will be, and is made up of such a malleable fabric that evolution and What Is and has become, is a natural product of it.
> 
> This is very similar to the idea that I've been trying to articulate: a form of energy that is constantly changing ... not with self-awareness, but nevertheless with a creative intelligence, just like the unknown mechanism within the genome (David prefers "genome" to "cell"). I'm slightly ashamed to say that I have never delved into the Kabbalah (the spelling I'm used to), and am hugely impressed by Tony's initial description of Ein Sof as "nebulous, having no form, purpose, intelligence, personality, infinite and unknowable." That is surely the perfect description of an atheistic first cause. My own compromise would allow for intelligence but not for the "self-realization, awakening to awareness" that apparently follows. David's UI would presumably already have had purpose and intelligence AND self-realization from the start, though perhaps our panentheist could live with "an awakening to awareness".-Agreed, though it would depend on how we were defining intelligence. To me, intelligence and self-awareness are intricately interwoven, which is why I chose to use that term. If you mean perhaps an animal intelligence, a more primitive intelligence that is not self aware, then I suppose we could agree.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.