If dignity is a zero sum game, then humiliation is how the dignity one is self-evidently born with is taken from one.
— unenlightened
Then equality is a pipe-dream for we can only increase our freedom by taking other's away? If that is the case, then it's survival of the fittest.

It isn't a zero sum game. I don't believe it is because I can talk highly of myself without bringing others down — Harry Hindu

I agree - dignity is not a zero sum game, nor something that we are self-evidently born with. We are born naked, vulnerable and utterly dependent on others for our every need. Our dignity is in our potential, and our potential is not self-evident, but realised in interaction with others. There is no dignity in isolation - nor is there identity or humiliation, for that matter.

Humiliation is the denial of one’s status claims: destroying or tearing down the various structures of identity that protect us from this experience of being naked, vulnerable and utterly dependent on others to achieve anything. We feel humiliated whenever this truth about us is exposed, because our sense of dignity is apparently built into these structures of identity.

As Whitney Houston said, ‘you can’t take away my dignity’: but I must recognise that my dignity is not built into structures of identity, but inherent in the unlimited human potential that is often concealed or inhibited by these structures.

My identity as a ‘white Australian’, for instance, conceals a greater potential afforded to me than my identity as the child of an Asian migrant, but less than my identity as a human being. And my identity as ‘Catholic’ would likely inhibit your view of my potential as a philosopher, and open my presence in this forum up to humiliation by those who would destroy the status claims of Catholicism or Christianity - should I choose to defend either, or stake my sense of dignity or pride on them. The more I define my identity, the more I build my sense of dignity into these structures, and the further I get from the truth of my humanity: not only from my nakedness, vulnerability and dependence, but from my unlimited potential.

If you take away the clothes I am wearing that protect me from nakedness in public, you apparently take away my dignity, and thus humiliate me. And if a kind soul then approaches and wraps a cloak around me, he appears to restore that dignity. But if my own sense of dignity is in my potential and not in the clothing, then I lose nothing of value. That is not to say that this act of kindness meant nothing - on the contrary, one must first recognise in this naked, vulnerable form, the dignity and potential of a human being, before interacting to help restore their sense of dignity in the minds of others.

A human being who retains their own sense of dignity despite recognising themselves as ultimately naked, vulnerable and dependent has more potential (ie. capacity to develop, achieve and succeed) than one who has built the most powerful, autonomous and popular identity structure on the planet. And in this one human being’s courageous interaction with the world (much of whom would see only the humiliation), they can also help many others to realise their own potential in the process.

Our aim is not to increase our freedom from, but to increase awareness of our potential by developing our interconnectedness. We feel most ‘free’ when we are naked, vulnerable and unashamedly connected with the universe in every possible way - then anything is possible.

so are you saying that there’s nothing at all to be achieved by living?
I wonder if ‘society’ really benefits from procreation - we seem so intent on promoting it, despite overpopulation. In my opinion, bolstering procreation and pride in family bonds are excuses for surrendering to evolutionary instincts...but that’s another discussion...

Sure, but it's the lack of connection that I am talking about. A connection between at least one other person.. It's not the trappings of love that you describe. Though I agree some may put weight on the outer manifestations and not the connection.. The facts on the ground are that some people have that connection with another person, and some don't. — schopenhauer1

I’ve been there - I spent many years thinking that maybe I was just never going to have that deep connection with someone, despite yearning for it. It’s easy to be convinced in that situation that there are two kinds of people in the world, and I’m one of the ‘have nots’. But it wasn’t that I didn’t have that connection - it was that I didn’t recognise a connection when it was standing right in front of me. I had walls up that I didn’t even know were there - for a long time I was so sure that the problem either had to be with the world or with me, not realising that there was a third option: that it was the way I was interacting with the world.

As I understand it, at any point in time it appears to you as if some people simply ‘have’ that kind of relationship with another person, and some don’t - this is your observation of ‘the facts on the ground’: an objective and consistent reality. I would hazard a guess that you also separate the world into people you have any kind of relationship with at any point in time, and people you don’t, and that each relationship is classified or valued in relation to others. This is not a criticism - it is how most people interact with the world - this is how the world makes sense.

These relationships change, shift or come and go over time, but you’re not focused on the process of change, let alone any potential for change - only on the reality at any point in time. The change isn’t important - it’s the facts on the ground that matter. This way the world as you see it at any point in time makes sense - it’s solid and predictable...to a certain extent.

When change happens, it often appears to happen suddenly and without warning - and it hurts. From your point of view, a relationship ends, but the pain or the loss continues to reverberate through your life, and the only way to eradicate the pain is to pretend the relationship was never there to begin with - to sever all connections with that particular relationship - or to somehow ‘manage’ the pain.

I don’t expect you to fully understand the way I see the world - It probably sounds like I’ve been trying to ignore the ‘reality’ that you see so clearly. I would describe the difference in terms of particles and waves: you look at the world and see the particle, whereas I see the wave. I’ve learned that neither is more correct than the other, and that the trick is to recognise both/and.

As far as I can see, the entire universe is already interconnected. When we interact with the universe, we develop awareness of this deeper existing connection through our ‘relationships’ - in our physical or emotional interaction with another person, for instance. The relationship is evidence of our awareness of this connection, but it is not the connection itself, anymore than electricity or heat is the energy itself.

Relationships change (because all of life is a process), and with that awareness of change we experience pain, loss or humility. And even though the deeper connection itself remains unchanged, it is the relationship - the facts on the ground - that we tend to focus on. When a relationship changes dramatically, it feels like that deeper connection is lost, but we have only lost our awareness of it. We find it again by accepting the pain of change, the continual loss and lack of an open system and the humility of interdependence. And we find it by giving love instead of looking for it.

Or, you could continue to do battle against life as if it’s the enemy, but to me that seems a waste...

I’ve been wondering about the period of education. Are those years in high school enough for students to be educated in all of those aspects, plus the subject matter itself? This seems more than a teacher can impart whose job it is to teach English, maths, etc. This also includes a lot of specialists. So should education be compulsory on into university. Should students be leaving school at the age they do? Should they be leaving at all if they are not educated? — Brett

I’m not sure that simply keeping students in school longer is going to make them more educated. There are already many who are there only because they have to be - they have no plans to get a job - just to sit at home and play computer games. Unfortunately, you can’t make learning compulsory, only attendance at best. No education system is going to be beneficial for every child.

Having said that, every interaction is an opportunity to learn, and everything we say and do with a child present is an opportunity to teach. This needs to be a whole community approach to education: to take responsibility for what impressionable minds are learning from their interactions with us, and to be open to lifelong learning ourselves. If we wait until first grade to start ‘teaching’ resilience or emotional intelligence, we’ve already missed a crucial period of brain development. And if it’s left up to high school teachers (even a ‘specialist’) who would have each student for an hour per day at best, then we’re already way behind.

These aspects of a child’s education are more effectively acquired through all their experiences and relationships, starting from birth. The stronger the relationship, the more they will learn - even if what they’re learning is damaging. Ensuring that a child has opportunities to develop strong relationships with quality teachers will go a long way towards enhancing their overall education in these areas.

The purpose of education can be described as ‘to realise a child’s unique potential’. This ‘potential’ covers their physical, intellectual, social, emotional and spiritual capacity as an holistic approach.

The main purpose of education these days should be to prepare students to fulfil their potential in a future we can only begin to imagine. If we focus on the competency or knowledge of a specific device, system, set of traditions, axioms or theories as if they were constant, then chances are we will fail in this fundamental task. It is essentially pointless to prepare our children for the world of knowledge in which we currently operate.

These days, educators are beginning to realise that students have greater and faster access to informational knowledge than ever before. The problem is that most of it is misinterpreted, heavily biased or just plain rubbish masquerading as fact. And a decent proportion of what we can currently accept may very well become irrelevant, outdated, disputed or discredited within their lifetime, if not already.

So a good deal of education should be less focused on content, and more on developing critical thinking, data interpretation and communication skills, as well as creativity, flexibility and a lifelong love of learning. But this includes providing a grounding in a variety of written, verbal and visual languages, conventions and discourses across literature, television, art, mathematics, science and technology: their uses, concepts, terminology and diverse interpretations (and misinterpretations), as well as the disputes and rate of change they can expect.

Education as a whole should also further develop resilience, emotional intelligence and physical and mental health awareness, as well as spiritual awareness and interconnection within an ever widening sense of community. But without sufficient grounding in this area (from parents and community in the first five years), students begin school life at a serious disadvantage, and teachers are not equipped with time or resources to bridge this gap within the year and the hours they have with each child (on top of all the other requirements of teaching). This area is one of the biggest handbrakes to fulfilling each child’s unique potential, and therefore to education. It should be a whole school approach, if not a whole community approach - because few parents today have enough knowledge or experience themselves to provide this grounding - so long have we dropped the ball in this area.

Ok - I get that there is certain amount of brain and body physiology that is determined at birth - some of which is influenced by interaction with the environment in the womb (eg. sex hormones at particular times, etc).

I also get that some of our unique gifts, interests and talents are determined partly by biology and partly by interaction with environment, culture, significant others (including family, teachers, etc.).

But is it really helpful anymore to categorise any of them along gender lines?

Ideally, a child’s genitalia (and therefore their gender) would not factor into identity until puberty, although they would hopefully have had opportunity by then to explore a range of social roles and to ‘dress-up’. At this point their physical strength, body shape and brain function might begin to limit some of their career/hobby/sporting options, and they will start to have some idea of their sexual attraction preferences.

I guess from this point it would be helpful to describe attraction along the lines of masculine/feminine physical attributes, preferred sexual behaviour or activities (including procreation), etc that would allow one to find an ideal sexual partner, either casually or romantically. But I’m trying to rack my brains to determine what else ‘gender’ is useful for anymore...

I understand that life would not be quite so simple if we couldn’t operate in a male-female binary, especially in terms of language and pronouns - but surely we’ve worked out by now that real life is not as binary (or as simple) as we once imagined it was.

I’m also conscious of the 0.1% of people that we so easily dismiss as an anomaly because they don’t fit into our neat categories. In a population of 6 billion people, that’s still 6 million human beings who right now don’t fit into our categories of what a human being can be - not to mention subsequent generations. We may not ever meet them personally - but, I’m sorry, I tend to find that level of dismissiveness unacceptable.

But do you see that you are not really countering my argument but strengthening it here? Overall, love is a bitch, if you will.... I don't see the need for people to pump their fist in the air and try to defy the gods by suffering through life experiences as if life is one's own work of art that one embraces through the catharsis of one's own suffering. Rather, I see no need to make anyone suffer through life in the first place. — schopenhauer1

I never claimed to counter your argument as such. I recognise that we’re approaching this concept of romantic/pragmatic love from very different perspectives, although we’ve discovered that we agree on many things. We can either turn this into a political debate and achieve nothing, or I can attempt to see it from your perspective, and perhaps we may both get something useful out of the discussion. I refer to the term ‘romantic/pragmatic love’ not because I recognise it as ‘a type of love that exists’, but because you do, and I think I understand what you mean by it. We won’t get very far if I reject your terms and you reject mine, and I’ve been enjoying the discussion so far...

Overall (and if you’re going to look at it this way), I would say that life is a bitch. But, okay, we’re in it now, so what are we going to do about it? Stop living? We may recognise that ‘life is pain’ (‘The Princess Bride’) and it’s also loss and humility among other experiences, but when did we decide that these experiences are so terrible?

Pain, after all, is simply awareness that energy/effort/attention is required to adjust to change. Loss or lack is awareness that everything is a process and nothing lasts - that we are dissipative structures who must continually assimilate from the universe and let go of elements of ourselves in order to perpetuate our existence. And humility is awareness that in isolation we are fragile creatures, utterly dependent on our relationships with the universe in order to have any power in it at all.

None of this is so terrible in itself - it is what it is. It’s only ‘suffering’ when we refuse to accept it, when we misunderstand or are led to believe that life should exist without pain, loss or humility. Or that life shouldn’t exist because of the pain, loss and humility that inevitably comes with it. We’ve been led to believe that some things should last forever, that who or what we are essentially shouldn’t change, and that we should strive to be the most independent, most powerful and most loved.

Whenever we deny that pain, loss and humility are a necessary part of life, we perceive the experience as ‘suffering’. And we hide from it. This is what we’ve done with our self-awareness - we have run for cover. And we’ve wasted almost the entire history of humanity so far ‘suffering’ from fear and misunderstanding, striving to avoid pain, loss and humiliation by pushing it onto others - which contributes to more ‘suffering’, and so the vicious cycle continues to escalate and radiate outwards.

We were led to believe that life can be perfect if we do it right and that romantic ‘love’ is some amazing cure-all that makes life all sunshine and rainbows til death do us part, but that’s actually a load of crap. This appears to be where you are now in your awareness. And it probably feels like ‘suffering’ occurs everywhere you look. Why would anyone choose this? What good can possibly come from it?

I think the problem is we’ve inherited a worldview that is built on misinformation. It tells us that ‘suffering’ IS pain, loss and humiliation, and that it shouldn’t happen - it’s bad, wrong, unfair or evil. Everything we do, then, is geared towards eliminating this evil from the world (prioritising our own experiences, of course). And some of us eventually recognise the futility of this task. Because what we have come to see as ‘evil’ (pain, loss and humiliation) is in fact the very process of life.

So does that mean life itself is the ‘evil’ we need to eradicate? Or does it mean that there’s something wrong with our concept of ‘evil’ - that we should be doing something other than trying to eliminate pain, loss and humility from the world?

I don’t think it’s a matter of finding purpose in ‘suffering’, either. I think we should still be trying to reduce ‘suffering’ - just not by trying to eradicate pain, loss and humiliation. I think it’s a matter of recognising ‘suffering’ as an internal, misinformed response to pain, loss or humility - one that can only be eliminated from the inside. It’s a matter of reassessing how I respond to pain, loss and humility, and how or why that response then contributes to or reduces experiences of pain, loss and humility around me, and so on.

I can’t eliminate your experience of ‘suffering’, but I could pity you, perpetuating the illusion that your experience makes you different to me because you suffer, whereas apparently I have a life without pain, loss or humility (at least by comparison), OR I can interact with you in a way that demonstrates how much I also recognise pain, loss and humility as fundamental to my own experience as a human being. This is compassion, literally translated as ‘suffering with’. And I think it’s the first step towards discovering what ‘love’ is, at its core.

But anyways, I still think it is a telling thing about life that this seemingly basic need of the human- to at least connect with one human in a meaningful way, is so difficult in the first place. It is precisely this elusive nature of this basic need that I am examining here... — schopenhauer1

I think maybe what makes it so difficult is that most people don’t really understand what this ‘basic need’ is. It isn’t ‘romantic/pragmatic love’ that we need - that’s just how we’d prefer to have this need met as human beings. We prefer romantic/pragmatic love because it’s always been the easiest form of love to legitimise - I can accumulate proof that I am loved by a real person in a visible way, and this love promises to last. I have a ring on my finger, a signed legal document and witnesses to our solemn vows. I also have two children who can be genetically traced back to a physical ‘union’, and a real person to stand beside me as a physical comfort, support and witness to key moments in my life. Romantic/pragmatic love not only satisfies a deep, spiritual connection, but it also provides objective, material evidence of its existence - evidence that cannot be produced in such ‘lasting’ abundance by any other form of love.

The more our modern lives are built around digital and wireless connection, the less we connect with people physically. It’s no wonder the elusiveness of romantic/pragmatic love is felt as a source of ‘suffering’. But I think it is more the physical, material proof of love that eludes us, and causes us to doubt its existence. Because as much as my love is legitimised for outside observers in all the physical evidence described above, it is only the subjective experience of deep, spiritual connection that constitutes love. Everything else is an imperfect and transient expression. If I lose my ring or the signed document, if death comes to these witnesses or to my children, if this person loses their life or their ability to witness or provide physical comfort or support in my life, then have I ‘lost’ that love? I would say no - but when these things do happen it can certainly feel like it, because we will have lost a key material proof of that love, even as the connection continues to exist.

Also, just to add, I see romantic/pragmatic love as more basic than traveling the world or other cultural forms of entertainment. I see it as more fundamental in our psyche (on a species/animal level) as a social animal that craves deep connection with at least one other person in ways that are different than other loves that might be obtained in life (philial, agape, etc.). — schopenhauer1

To reduce travelling the world to ‘a cultural form of entertainment’ is to miss the value of the experience, but that’s another discussion.

What you see as fundamental on a species/animal level in romantic/pragmatic love I see partly as the urge to procreate - and I realise that you don’t recognise it as such right now, but our physiological responses are nevertheless informed by the systematic assimilation from the universe and letting go of elements of ourselves in order to perpetuate our existence. For you, it may be more associated with forming relationships with the universe for the purpose of functionality. It feels so fundamental because it links basic physiological responses on the surface not only with this systematic awareness but with an even deeper connection at a sub-atomic level. I often refer to this as a ‘spiritual’ connection, although I’m conscious of the connotations this term may bring. And this connection exists whether or not we’re aware of it. It informs all ‘other loves’ that might be experienced (not obtained), as well as our sense of wonder about the universe, our courage to experience more from life and our reverence for the overwhelming potential of our interactions with the universe.

I believe that we’re connected to the entire universe in a deeper and more fundamental way than we may ever fully realise, but we’re often hampered from recognising this by fear and misinformation about pain, loss and humility - and about love.

Okay, here’s where you and I appear to differ:
I don’t believe that pragmatic/romantic love is a ‘stochastic phenomenon’ - that’s not to say that I think it’s easy to predict, but that it’s possible to increase your chances of experiencing it by developing a greater awareness of interdependence and an openness towards interactions with others that risk experiences of pain, loss and humility.

I think we spend so much of our energies these days trying to protect ourselves from experiences of pain, loss and humility when we should be welcoming them as evidence that we are living. They are the fundamental condition of every living being. The more we believe that we should avoid these experiences or that we are entitled to a life without them, the more we ‘suffer’ or inflict suffering, and the less we truly live or experience a ‘quality of life’.

One could also say that owning your own home or travelling the world are similar experiences that bring positive effects in people’s lives and make life richer or better in some way to those few who achieve this. That we can buy these experiences and even tailor them to our needs disguises the fact that, like pragmatic/romantic love, their real qualitative value lies in how we are able to connect with the universe on a deeper level. These experiences, too, can be “a major form of suffering for those who don’t experience it or who experience it and lose it or have a bad time with it leaving the person worse off”.

I think the main contributor to this ‘suffering’ or feeling ‘worse off’ is the unrealistic expectation that this ‘magical’ experience will somehow be free from associated experiences of pain, loss or humility, or will be some kind of antidote to counteract these ‘negative’ experiences.

Okay - I’m not going to disagree with any of the points you make here. I’m going to try and explain my view from my understanding of your perspective, so bear with me.

Yes, a sustained experience of pragmatic/romantic love is perceived as a deficit for many people. They ‘suffer’ specifically from an awareness of loss or lack, fuelled by the false perception that a sustained experience of pragmatic/romantic love: 1) is out there to be found in a complete state, 2) simply combines the experiences of sexual attraction and life compatibility, and 3) requires no continued effort on their part.

You define pragmatic/romantic love as a combination of immediate sexual attraction and being in a long-term, committed relationship. Sexual attraction can be reduced to the combination of physiological responses to certain visual and other stimuli. A long-term committed relationship can boil down to a mental checklist of preferences and ‘deal-breakers’ in terms of actualities (common interests, beliefs, ideology, etc) based on future hopes and past experiences. This is by no means all they are, but the fact that they can be reduced to so little points to a flaw in how we define this type of love.

Many people experience these two elements separately without experiencing the ‘love’ that is an awareness of interconnection at a deeper level. On the other hand, it is possible (if difficult) to experience a deep and abiding ‘love’ that transforms our wellbeing without experiencing either of these two. Somewhere in between is a journey towards deeper awareness from the experience of only one of these elements at time, to a love that encompasses both.

This deeper awareness is certainly prompted by experiences of immediate sexual attraction and life compatibility. They draw our adult attention in the strongest way to a necessity of interdependence - the recognition that complete independence is achieved ultimately to our detriment - and they potentially open our minds and hearts to experience that deeper sense of interconnectedness across all our relationships.

But there are many experiences in life that close our minds and hearts to this deeper experience of love. People experience a disconnect from the universe and each other now more than ever in our history. We have learned to protect ourselves from pain, loss and humiliation with boundaries and limitations on our awareness that make it almost impossible for us to experience sexual attraction and life compatibility in a single relationship, let alone experience that deeper sense of interconnectedness.

Personally I think it helps to examine these boundaries and limitations in the way we interact with others, to recognise them as false, and then to dismantle them. This often leaves us vulnerable in a way that terrifies us to our core - but I think only then can we be genuinely open to experiencing love.

My 24 year relationship was primarily based on life compatibility (from my experience) for the first 18 years. In my youth I failed to combine romantic and pragmatic love, and ultimately chose one over the other. This was a deficit I chose to ‘suffer’. It wasn’t until many years later that I managed to recognise and discard the boundaries I had to experiencing a deeper interconnection, opening myself up to romantic love within an existing experience of pragmatic love.

It wasn’t easy, and I imagine most people who feel that deficit find it easier to assume that romantic love must be experienced elsewhere. I spent many years conscious that some ‘romance’ could come along and tear my marriage apart. But I still yearned for both in the one relationship, and I was willing to entertain the possibility that the issue was mine, and that it was fixable. We were raising two children, I knew my partner loved me (in both ways), and I knew from experience that life compatibility required constant effort to sustain over time.

After examining my past relationships, I recognised that the problem was with protective boundaries and limitations I had formed around sexual attraction since childhood. Recognising and dismantling these boundaries was scary and required not only facing some dark, painful truths, but also sharing them with someone who thought they knew me already. It was, and continues to be, well worth the effort.

So I would say that romantic/pragmatic love definitely seems more trouble than most people are willing to face these days. This is partly because we have a long way to travel from our experience of individuality, independence and profound disconnect with the universe, and partly because we can experience one side without the other and in it fail to see the deeper love that each experience of sexual attraction or life compatibility is leading us towards.

But the sum is definitely greater than its parts, and being open to experiencing that deeper sense of interconnection is worth more than any effort you can put in, more than any fear you have to face or any experience of pain, loss or humiliation - in my experience, anyway.

Yes, but it’s more than that.

It’s also a culturally and historically located expression of the metaphysics of human experience - a collection of attempts to substantiate or objectify what is insubstantial and subjective, yet immanent in our experience. Whether we agree with how they’ve expressed it or for what motives, it remains a testament to humanity’s experience of this insubstantiality or ‘spirituality’ nonetheless, along with our failure to adequately define, control, manipulate or harness ‘it’ for our own ends.

It’s a cautionary tale, a documenting of what not to do in many respects: of wrong turns and dead ends, of promising starts led astray. But in doing so, it also provides some experiential clues as to how we might best respond to or interact with this peculiar dimension of experience or awareness, in light of everything we’ve learned about the human experience since then.

Personally I don’t think it’s ‘God’ we should be looking for in our lives, but the experience people have called ‘God’ and unsuccessfully tried to substantiate in their own cultural, historical or ideological context.

We have recently begun to recognise (through modern scientific and philosophical exploration) that existence does not necessitate substantiality. This seems like a good time to revisit the metaphysics of the bible without being dismissive or judgemental, and

Without being affected by unsupported belief, social pressure, and wishful thinking — xyz-zyx

.

We’re really dealing with an interpretation of an interpretation of an interpretation of an interpretation...

The majority of the bible writings were stories and teachings passed down in oral tradition for many years before they were written down, including the gospels. The ‘source’ can also be understood as more experiential than verbal, making any attempt to ‘read out from the bible its meaning’ problematic to say the least - although I agree that this is a good place to start, at any rate.

To add to your examples, I’ve noticed that are a number of different Greek verbs that translate as ‘to see’, and that the author of the gospel of John uses three main ones, often together to illustrate the differences between simply looking, attributing meaning to what we see and recognising the ‘truth’ of what we see. This distinction and depth of meaning is lost in the English translation, obscuring in particular the author’s understanding of the resurrection (which incidentally might surprise most Christians).

θεωρέω - theoreo refers to seeing as in observing, discerning, considering. It describes more than simply looking - it includes thinking and deciphering what the visual cues mean. Theoreo is the root of the English word ‘theatre’, where spectators concentrate on meaning, as well as ‘theory’, in which a meaning is offered without confirmation. The seeing action is to attribute meaning through observation. The verb is used to describe someone not just seeing, but attempting to make sense of what they see - e.g. recognising a person or mistaking that person for someone else, recognising that what they observe has meaning, but not necessarily grasping the true meaning.

ὁράω - horao is described as seeing with the mind, seeing spiritually, or with inward perception. The verb is used in the imperative to instruct the disciples or readers to do more than simply look with their eyes. The seeing action is to grasp the truth of an observation.
Horao is also used in the aorist form (eido) to describe knowing, or a seeing that becomes knowledge. Like the English expression ‘I see what you mean’, eido is described as ‘a gateway to grasp spiritual truth (reality) from a physical plane’ - a bridge to mental and spiritual seeing.

Both of these verbs are distinct in meaning from βλέπω (blepo) which refers to one’s physical sense of sight only. When this verb is used, the intention is to look at what is objectively visible, without necessarily associating what one sees visually with any meaning or knowledge in the mind. It describes a physical ‘looking’ or noticing. When someone is said to ‘see’ in this manner, there is no sense that they are processing what they see, deriving meaning or realising the truth (from the perspective of the author).

FWIW, John 6, 9, 16 and 20 illustrate these three ways of seeing.

I’m personally more agnostic than anything else, and it was a thorough reading of the bible that led me to realise that the important thing is not so much whether or not God exists, but the value of sharing experiences that point to something larger than ourselves.

But I understand that most people would prefer to know one way or the other and, frustrated with the not knowing despite their intelligence, they seek a ‘sound position’ from which to engage intelligently in any discussion of the topic. I’m not trying to convince you one way or the other - I am under no illusion that my approach to ‘God’ or the bible is based on any sound argument for or against the existence of God. All we really have is unverifiable subjective experiences, whether our own or those documented in the bible.

Just as I have found value in reading and understanding the history of philosophical thought, so I find value in reading the bible, and see it as documenting a specific cultural progression of philosophical and theological thought and experiences in narrative and other forms.

I consider it all to be myth - but that doesn’t make it a waste of time, in my opinion.

You either misinterpreted what I meant or you are creating a strawman, as I never mentioned genetics as a result of bad parenting situations and foster care. I was simply stating that it is a fact that some set of people will not experience "love" from a parental figure the way others might. That was it. My argument had nothing to do with whether someone was raised by genetic parents or not. — schopenhauer1

I’m not arguing with you here - just offering additional thoughts on the notion of parental love. My point (clearly not well made, let me try again) was that we tend to expect an expression of love between parent and child that (as you suggested) doesn’t always occur, and we wonder where the failure lies. My thoughts were that, given the frequent occurrence both of genetic bonds without an experience of parental love and strong experiences of parental love without a genetic bond, it seems to suggest that what we think of as ‘parental love’ is not really parental, but something more generic that not everyone is open to experiencing at that point in their life. This is not to say that they never will, however. Most of us have barriers that need to be dismantled first.

I'd say this is a case of "moving the goal posts". I can certainly point to a phenomenon called "romantic love" and I can identify its traits. In fact, you described the feelings associated with this phenomenon quite well. But it seems that to counter my claim, you denied the importance of romantic love all together when it seems to be a very powerful force in the human psyche. — schopenhauer1

Perhaps ‘myth’ is not the right word - I think your use of ‘phenomenon’ and ‘experience’ is closer than your previous suggestion that there is ‘true romantic love’ out there that we either have and keep, or we don’t. I’m not saying the phenomenon of ‘romantic love’ doesn’t exist in subjective experience - I experience this phenomenon myself within a marriage of more than 20 years, which I guess makes me one of the lucky ones. But I think it’s false or even misleading for me to claim that I ‘have’ romantic love at any point.

I think that might be part of the problem. Those of us who experience love attempt to substantiate it in the ways we describe our experience. We talk about possessing or having something, about physiological responses such as heartrate, and even psychological evidence such as emotion. Each of these associations help to make it seem more ‘real’ or substantial. In doing so, we paint a ‘false’ picture of what it is we are actually experiencing.

I’m not saying that we lie. That’s the trouble with romantic love - because it’s defined by association with sexual attraction and sharing a life, it’s easier to rely on these elements of the experience in order to substantiate what is essentially a much deeper feeling. One that’s difficult to articulate, let alone to verify. The human sexual drive is a powerful force in the human psyche, so it stands to reason that this notion of ‘romantic love’ would also be seen as such. But I think what everyone is searching for comes from a more universal ‘love’ that originates at a deeper experiential level, and is then informed by a variety of physiological and psychological responses to our interaction with others.

It’s a bit like the concept of energy. We know it exists because we observe or experience evidence of change. But we can’t see it, and we can’t say what it really is. So we talk about it in terms of the physical evidence it leaves behind: kinetic, thermal, etc.

In my experience, at the base of all love is the awareness that one’s unique potential and capacity for life is greater for being intertwined with another (and vice versa). This is the source of romantic as well as parental and familial love, deep friendship, tribal, community, humanity, etc.

I don’t think it helps to expect anyone to show love on the basis of genetics, ideological affinity or physical attraction. Just as there are many children born to parents who fail to ‘love’ them, so many children are raised in a loving bond that has nothing to do with genetics, and also children adopted or switched at birth can form a bond just as strong or even stronger with non-biological parents.

It certainly suggests that while parental love can be enhanced by genetics, this may have more to do with awareness than any actual connection.

As for romantic love, I think the parameters we set for what this type of love ‘looks’ like, and the belief that we are obliged to find one person who best fits these particular parameters, prevent us from being open to love in all its forms. Personally, I think romantic love is a myth - if we work to free the concept of love from the parameters of sexual attraction, and likewise free sexual attraction from the parameters of ‘romantic love’, we recognise that sexual attraction really has nothing to with love as an awareness or deep feeling of interconnectedness - all it does is enhance our awareness or feeling in certain circumstances.

I get the sense that we all have the capacity to love and be loved with the intensity of a mother and child bond in all circumstances. The apparent ‘distribution’ of this love perhaps comes down to the boundaries, structures and distances that have helped us to make sense of, control and feel safe in society and the universe in general. When we have the courage to dismantle these and to be aware of interconnectedness beyond them, then perhaps we may find love in unexpected places...

Personally, I see love as an experience of our fundamental interconnectedness - not so much that ‘I need you’, but that my unique potential and capacity for life is greater for you being a part of it, and vice versa. Whether that love is romantic, between friends, parents and child, for our dog, our neighbour or our enemy - love is a recognition that complete independence prevents us from living to our full potential.

Because this interconnectedness is a deep feeling, we observe its impact on our physiology and psychology, but like energy we cannot observe it directly. Nor can we reliably distinguish it from other simultaneous interactions with our physiology and psychology, such as sexual drive and other evolutionary drives to manipulate our surroundings for the benefit and perpetuity of our genetic code.

So we observe it as ‘romantic love’ when our inner conditions strongly suggest this: sexual attraction, compatibility of genetics, interests, ideologies, life paths, etc. All of these strengthen our awareness of this interconnectedness - but it is concentrated between two actual entities. We are more convinced of this particular pocket of interconnectedness, the more physiological and psychological evidence we experience, and those around us also notice its impact on our outward demeanour and our actions.

When we are ‘in love’, that sense of interconnectedness often radiates into our other connections, enhancing the way we interact with everything - the world looks brighter and full of possibilities, food tastes better, we are nicer to everyone, etc. We become more aware of how we interact with the world and create potential for ourselves and for others.

But society’s view of love and marriage dictates that we can only feel this romantic love with one person (at a time). The institution of marriage, with its origins as a property exchange contract and an effort to control sexual drive, restrict our capacity to love when the conditions suggest this interconnectedness to be of a ‘romantic’ nature. So we strenuously deny our interconnectedness with other ‘romantically compatible’ people around us, rationalising physical and social compatibility boundaries to love, and channel our capacity to love towards that one person.

Likewise, as a mother, my connection to my own child is enhanced by the recognition that she carries my genetic code and that her life is intertwined with mine in so many more ways than any other human being. As a newborn, her unique potential and capacity for life was almost completely dependent on my own capacity - the experience of fundamental interconnectedness was at its strongest. As she grows, I must adjust to the reality that my individual capacity is limited, and that her capacity for life becomes greater the more she interacts with the universe and intertwines her potential with others.

Like being ‘in love’, this sense of interconnectedness radiates into the way I experience the world around me - If I’m honest, I become acutely aware of the capacity of others to genuinely love this child, too: from my husband and family members, to the nurse, neighbours, friends and strangers. I am also aware of my own capacity to love others with the same strength of feeling, including other people’s children, the orphans on TV ads, etc.

If I wholly embrace this feeling, then the fear and lack of control can be overwhelming, so I cope with this awareness of universal interconnectedness by applying a hierarchy or circle of concern - rationalising physical, genetic, ideological and other boundaries and distances that deny this capacity for love beyond a certain point. Rightly or wrongly, these structures form the foundations of our society...

“My trouble is I don’t want to accept who I am. On balance, I don’t like it.”

I’m not sure if it’s about accepting who I am as a finished product, but about accepting where I am currently in a continuing process of being or becoming that is never really completed. I accept that who I am now is different in a number of ways to who I was this time last year, and to who I will be this time next year...

Acceptance at this stage is not about liking myself, it’s more about being aware of who I am now and honest with myself [i]without[/i] judgement and without fear. There is a starting point that I have to be honest about (regardless of how I feel about it) before I can begin to become anything or anyone else in my own eyes, let alone in someone else’s. This is the hardest part, because judgement and fear tend to be our strongest motivators, so we think they’re our allies. But I think our aim in life is not really to be highly valued or powerful, but to have the courage to say ‘This is who I am, like it or not’ - first to ourselves, and then to others.

There are things I can change, but I cannot control how other people see me, let alone what they think, say or do. I can only control my own thoughts, words and actions - and even that may take some practise, or at least an awareness of how much I allow others to choose for me. I need to be honest about what I can expect to change with any amount of effort, and about who makes the choices.

But most things I shouldn’t be wanting to change even if I could. What I need to change instead is the way I think about these aspects of who I am. It’s about seeing difference not as a value hierarchy (where we judge ourselves based on some ‘objective’ or society-based sense of good/bad), but rather as diversity: which is a goodness in itself.

Lastly, I think it requires being patient about the process of becoming - being honest about how long any change will take, and how much energy it will require from me - and then being prepared to make that time and energy available, without attempting to outsource it (along with the control and responsibility). And remember that it’s not about an end product - life itself is a process, and even when that person comes along who loves me for who I am being or becoming in that moment, it’s more important that they love the process than the actuality, because I will continue to change...

I agree with ThinkingMatt - ‘love’ describes the same emotion, regardless of how you express it or the rationale you use to back it up.

But what is this ‘strong affection’?

When we say ‘love’, we are attributing a continuing strength to a particular relationship. When I say that I love a book, I’m describing the feeling or awareness of an ongoing relationship between everything that encompasses that book and everything that encompasses myself. The expression or manifestation of that relationship is clearly different from the one you may have with your wife, but both refer to a strong and ongoing connection that (in theory) transcends past, present and future ‘versions’ of either entity.

I believe that I will always feel a strong connection to that book, no matter what changes in my life or in the universe. It’s easy to say this about a book, because we believe that the strength of our relationship with that book lies in the actual contents of the book, which we assume will not change. We also find it easy to say this about a sister, because we believe the strength of that relationship lies in our biological and historical actualities, which (we also assume) will not change. When we ‘love’ a book, we recommend it to others, defend it against those who would harm it, and perceive its potential as somehow intertwined with our own: we can feel hurt when someone denigrates this book, or feel proud to declare our love for it.

But when we say ‘love’ about a husband or wife, the experience often feels very different. This difference is not in the strength of the emotion, but in our perception of the ‘actual’ relationship between two connected entities. Marriage represents a connection in ‘objective’ or actual reality, but ‘love’ really has nothing to do with actuality.

Some people ‘love’ another with the assumption that both entities will not change, and that the strength of their relationship lies in a physical attraction, or an attraction based on other actualities of their lives: our perception of their personality, sense of humour, lifestyle choices, beliefs, ideology, etc. Because people do change, and not just physically but in many other ways, they may eventually find themselves no longer ‘in love’ with that person, growing apart, unable to recognise the person they ‘fell in love’ with anymore.

I think that love between two people is recognising a strong relationship and actively affirming or attending to that connection independent of any actual changes that may occur to either entity. Love includes an awareness that this connection remains strong regardless what ‘version’ of that person shows up on the day, and even whether or not we acknowledge the existence of the connection.

To love another being is to recognise that they are an ever-changing entity, a work in progress, and so am I. It is to recognise that the strength of the relationship is not related to physiology or even personality, ideology, etc., but lies in the awareness that our own potential is forever intertwined with theirs, and their potential with ours - that even when this relationship appears to have no lasting physical or ‘actual’ attributes of connection, or even when it is damaged and causes pain, it continues to exist.

Hate, on the other hand, is a negative response to the same connection. To hate is also to recognise a strong relationship to another entity, but to actively deny or seek to damage that connection. Some people hate another with the assumption that both entities will not change, and that the strength of their hatred lies in the perceived distance between certain ‘actualities’ in themselves or in the other: physical attributes, personality, lifestyle choices, beliefs, ideology, etc...

Interconnection and interdependence exists regardless - Love derives from awareness and affirmation, Hate from ignorance or denial...

The Greek term ‘Logos’ does not translate directly to the English term ‘word’. It is more an expression of truth, encompassing logic, reason, opinion, account, discourse, etc.

‘The word’ is how humans communicate thoughts, feelings and subjective experience with others. It is one of the many ways that we express this truth of ourselves - encompassing how we interact with the universe.

God, on the other hand, does not ‘express Himself’ through the written or spoken word, but through the unfolding universe itself, which is the expression of who/what God is - the ‘Logos’. We then experience that expression subjectively in various ways, and attempt to communicate it to others using words.

I don’t think this is the opposite of what the Bible says at all. And I don’t think ‘the Word was God’ is necessarily the same as ‘God is the Word’ - but that’s another debate.

God is certainly to be found in what we tell each other about our subjective experiences, but what we tell each other is only a part of our subjective experiences, and our subjective experiences only a part of God...

I’m only just coming into this discussion (and into this forum), so bear with me...

I think there is merit in both of these positions. No book and no interpretation can be a pure communication from God, but by the same token all books contain within them an opportunity for communication from God (yes, even those that aren’t very ‘good’) because they are each an expression of the human experience, which includes a personal relationship with God (regardless whether they name it as such or actively ignore it).

So I think each book of the bible contains either a personal or collective expression of humanity’s relationship with God, imperfectly enacted and entangled with personal and political motivations to communicate with others. I think more than most books, the writers of these texts were motivated (among other things) to express the nature of their relationship with God through their experiences, and in doing so try to understand the nature of what they understand to be God and its connection to their lives.

In interpreting scriptures, I try to take into account the historical, political and cultural context and motivations of the human authors as much as possible, especially their limited awareness and understanding of the universe, and my limited awareness of their language and life experiences, and then try to remember that these were real, imperfect human beings putting pen to papyrus and attempting to express what - let’s be honest - is almost impossible to completely and accurately put into words in any language, let alone in a way that billions of unique human beings across millennia will understand.

If we can forgive human errors in judgement, misunderstanding, ignorance, poor use of language, ulterior motives, fear, hurt and anger - and also recognise that God doesn’t communicate using words but through subjective experience - then yes, communication from God is in the book for us to experience for ourselves.

But it’s impossible to then duplicate that experience completely in someone else’s life, because we are all so unique...

That’s my take on it, anyway.