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From: berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian,net.religion
Subject: Re: The love of God
Message-ID: <1794@psuvax1.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Sep-85 02:31:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: psuvax1.1794
Posted: Mon Sep 16 02:31:40 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Sep-85 03:22:47 EDT
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Organization: Pennsylvania State Univ.
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A sceptical voice on Christian love, in response to Peter Homeier.
The quotations are abbreviated.
Although I am an atheist, I do not want to be hostile to the message
of Peter.  However, I would like to point out that I do not see the
religion as a reliable basis for love (meant as a general notion as 
opposed to the one connected with emotional involvement of a sexual kind).

> We love, by first accepting the love that God would give to us.  
> 
> Love is not optional for a Christian.  It is the commandment of God, which
> subsumes all other commands within itself.  
> 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" (Mark 12:30-31)
> 
> Love is not very much an emotion. Rather it is more a decision, and an action.
> To love your enemy may seem impossible if you are trying to have nice feelings
> towards him, but it does become possible if you realize that what God wants 
> you to do is to forgive him, and if you see something lying by the road that 
> he has lost, to restore it to him.  You love because you decide to love, 
> and that love  shows itself in an action.
> 
Here I disagree.  Love without emotion is false or, at best, weak.
One of necessary emotions is sympathy: the feeling of somebody elses pain.
Even when you hit somebody in anger, you should feel his pain as strong
as yours.  This cannot be a decision, it is rather a matter of experience
and emotional maturity.  Of course, will and reason may influence our 
feelings, so we should remember to "mantain" are positive emotion,
not to let them weaken and vanish.

> But what is it to love one another?  Love is a word which is much ill-used in
> today's culture, and those errors tend to creep into our minds and deflect
> our purpose from the clear straightforward love that Jesus exemplified.  First
> of all, Christian love does not mean fornication or adultery!  These sins of
> the flesh have nothing to do with the love of God, indeed they war against 
> God, and those that love them also hate God to the same degree.  This should 
> not be taken as implying that no one who loves God does these things, but 
> when they do,
> they are operating out of their sin nature, out of the old man, and they are
> obeying the passions of their flesh and not the law of God. The obedient
> Christian, due to a love of God, respects the body as the holy temple of the
> Spirit of God.
> 
Peter is close here to a vision of Damager-God: God gave us flesh together
with the passions of the flesh, yet He demands that we abstain from the
fulfillment of those passions.  I do  not regard promiscuity as an
advisable conduct, but if any extramarital sex is an act of war against
God, then indeed God is in the state of war with the natural human instincts.
Indeed, Peter refers here to "their sin nature".  Why the nature is sinful?
Why our bodies do not belong to ourself, but to the Spirit of God as the
holy temple?  What else?  Smoking, junkfood eating, excessive exercise 
which may lead to an injury etc., everything risks a damage to this "temple",
and as such may mean "war against the God".
I do not suggest that you profess the Mischiever-God, introducing taboos for
the reasons unknown, but your view on God-human relationship is not
atractive.

> "Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade
> itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own,
> is not  provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices 
> in the  truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, 
> endures all  things."
> 
Are you serious?  Believes all things?  Hm.
Hopes all things?  Hm.
The general feeling is that you to love "thy neighbors" you need to be either
a hermit monk, or a hipocrite.  I would prefer: "Love avoids any harm and
tries to help, does not envy, wishes well, is patient".  

> "And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is
> love."
> 
> Also, the love of God cannot be earned.  There is nothing so wonderful that we
> can do for God that will make Him love us any more than He already does.
> Similarly, there is nothing so depraved that we can do against God that will
> make Him love us any less than He does right now.  No matter how many times we
> fall back into sin, He is always ready to cheerfully clean us up and set us
> straight and get us going again!  His love never ends.  
> 
I do not undestand!  How is it that God suffers our every sin and remains
cheerful?  What is Gods suffering anyway?  At any moment the Almighty
suffers 1,000,000,000 sorrows and enjoys 1,000,000,000 good things.
With all the mercy which is attributed to Him, He is supposed to judge
on the Judgement day.  

> In view of such a complete, overwhelming love, what can we do but let our
> hearts overflow with the same love back to God, and also to our fellow men,
> saved and unsaved, bringing everyone the beauty of the knowledge of God.
> 
> -- 
>                                   Peter Homeier          ______

Who is the unsaved one?  How do you know?  Also, is it sufficient to
bring everyone the beaty of the faith?  What about more fleshy needs?
You even do not mention such a small example like "good did of a day".
I claim that ether your notion of love is strictly one-dimentional or
you have not express your thought very well.
Your kind of love was already professed by slave-hunters, who duly
baptized all captured slaves.  You devote so much attention to God
that you forgot to explain what is "love of thy neighbor" in any
other aspect but the speading of Gospel.

Piotr Berman