Does Jesus/Yahweh love us or is he stalking us? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Lol. I nominate this for the thread title of the year. Award ceremony next February. But if the Divine Creator is crushing on us, wouldn’t that be better than living alone in an empty universe? Plus, think of the swag you’d get having a supernatural honey. :halo:

Does Jesus/Yahweh love us or is he stalking us? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

They're fictional characters, so neither. Similarly, Harry Potter isn't in the bushes outside my house, and Gandalf isn't bombarding my inbox on social media with flirtatious messages and requests to go on a date.

Or, in the case of the historical Jesus, if there ever was one, no, because he is a corpse which has long since rotted away.

Love without reciprocity, works and deeds, according to scriptures and Jesus’ own words, not that a supernatural Jesus ever existed, is not a true love.

All you need to do, to know the truth of that notion; is to look at your own standards of love. You would not love someone who does not return that love, as that is more a stalkers kind of love.

Some Christians and other believers will not see that. Most who are not led by faith, generally accept the truth stated above.

This link, in its message, gives about the same notion.

http://imgur.com/a/CIce4

Your thoughts? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

My thoughts are that love can quite obviously be unreciprocated without being stalking, and that anyone who has had this experience will know, which is a lot of people; and that this not a particularly well thought out line of attack on Christianity.

But I love that picture you linked to. Brilliantly funny, and a much better method of attack than your own wording in the opening post. The point it makes is more than a point about unreciprocated love. It is about a threat relating the reciprocity of love. That is definitely a behaviour characteristic of a stalker, and that is definitely deserving of criticism.

You would not love someone who does not return that love, as that is more a stalkers kind of love. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

You can love someone who has the capacity or potential to love. You can love someone who despises you , because you know he doesn't understand you. You can loved someone for their attributes, even if they don't love or even know you.

Love without reciprocity, works and deeds, according to scriptures and Jesus’ own words, not that a supernatural Jesus ever existed, is not a true love.

All you need to do, to know the truth of that notion; is to look at your own standards of love. You would not love someone who does not return that love, as that is more a stalkers kind of love. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I’m curious as to what is your understanding of ‘a true love’? What do you think it means to love someone?

In my view you can love someone who doesn’t return that love, without being a stalker. I’m thinking perhaps there is a fine line between love understood as recognising and actualising potentiality as a broad concept, and love understood as recognising and actualising a more specific/narrow view of potential.

Does Jesus/Yahweh love us or is he stalking us?

Your answer is yes. He does both

But I'm not understanding your argument because
The definitions I have
1. Love (to put something above you're self)
2. stalking (unwanted surveillance)
3. faith (complete trust or confidence in someone or something.)

So when you say, for instance, that you love your dog, are you really putting your dog above yourself, or are you loving the dog as a possession, a pet and a loyal companion? If your dog suddenly turned on you, would you continue to love it - putting it above yourself - or would you determine that it no longer fulfilled your narrow view of its potential?

When one loves, one loves regardless if one is loved.
When one enjoys, one enjoys regardless if one is enjoyed.
Reciprocation is not affirmation, but a gift.

Does he stalk? Well as any parent.

So when you say, for instance, that you love your dog, are you really putting your dog above yourself, or are you loving the dog as a possession, a pet and a loyal companion? If your dog suddenly turned on you, would you continue to love it - putting it above yourself - or would you determine that it no longer fulfilled your narrow view of its potential?

Intresting question I will admit.

First can we agree that people think love and passion (strong and barely controllable emotion) are interchangeable when they should not be.

Secondly if you truly love something you will never see it as a possession because you will respect it.

Third that last one is up to the individual. Some can continue to love and others will not. However, even
a person that remains to love the dog may see thay they need to do something they may not want to do, but know it is for the better of both of them and the dog.

Lol. I nominate this for the thread title of the year. Award ceremony next February. But if the Divine Creator is crushing on us, wouldn’t that be better than living alone in an empty universe? Plus, think of the swag you’d get having a supernatural honey. :halo: — 0 thru 9

Thanks.

I do not think I want to take a chance on that vile prick of a god when scriptures say that the vast majority of us will end in hell regardless of how hard we kiss Yahweh's ass and that only the few of us will make it to heaven.

Better to reign in hell that have to kiss ass eternally. Not that hell exists.

Regards
DL

They're fictional characters, — S

Yes I know.

What do you think of the ideology that those who are too indoctrinated to recognize that truth follow?

Is it a moral ideology or an immoral one?

Regards
DL

My thoughts are that love can quite obviously be unreciprocated without being stalking, — S

So love can be real love even to those who reject yours.

Tell us how that would work, let's say with one you love and who does not love you back.

How would you show that love in a way that was not stalking like?

Regards
DL

You can love someone who has the capacity or potential to love. You can love someone who despises you , because you know he doesn't understand you. You can loved someone for their attributes, even if they don't love or even know you. — Joshs

Simply said, love is something you send out to another but if not reflected back, it is never a completed love. You cannot have true love alone. Love to be real love takes two.

If you think the love you are giving to one who despises you returns the same good emotions in you that a returned love does, I think you have not thought this out well at all.

Regards
DL

I’m curious as to what is your understanding of ‘a true love’? What do you think it means to love someone? — Possibility

I defined it in the part you quoted buddy. It consists of works and deeds and reciprocity.

I think what I gave Joshs just above might shed some light on this for you.

If not, tell us how you show someone you love them if not by works, deeds and reciprocating the emotion. That will help me formulate an answer if you do not get my position.

Regards
DL

Does Jesus/Yahweh love us or is he stalking us?
Your answer is yes. He does both

But I'm not understanding your argument because
The definitions I have
1. Love (to put something above you're self)
2. stalking (unwanted surveillance)
3. faith (complete trust or confidence in someone or something.) — hachit

If yes to both, then you ignore the law of the excluded middle.

1. I do not agree in all cases, but do agree that that is usually a component of love. It falls into the deed or works part of my definition.
The exception I was thinking of is equality that I would deny all whom I love but in the law of the sea notion where men are to put women and children above ourselves. If they refused, I would ignore their equality and throw them into the lifeboat before ever taking their seat.

2. Do you like the idea of an omni-present god watching you and your made enjoying each others company in bed?

3. That is not the biblical definition. It is more like complete trust or confidence in someone or something unseen and unknowable and unfathomable that works in mysterious ways. I adlibbed a bit as I don't have the time to get the biblical definition right now.

Regards
DL

When one loves, one loves regardless if one is loved. — Shamshir

You think love can be true love if not reflected back and shared with another. You think one can love alone.

Lets look at you and your wife. She looks at you that certain way and an emotion is generated and shared that I call love. Reciprocity is there along with the work and deeds that create it.

Let's now look at you at work where a woman who is there loves you and looks at you in that certain way. That also produces an emotion in you. Are you saying that that emotion is the same emotion that your wife generates in you?

Can true love be just one way as it is at your work or does true love need more of what your wife and you share thanks to your reciprocity?

Regards
DL

When I sit by the campfire, it warms and enlightens me. I do not reciprocate, nor would I need to; but I am grateful.
Now, when I sit by a candle, its flame albeit smaller, operates in the same way. It warms and enlightens me.

My wife looks at me and shares with me her delight. She shares with me, she does not barter with me; she does not expect a reward. She loves me, not because I love her, but because she loves me.

So the woman at work, who looks at me and too shares her delight. She does not do this as an exchange, but for its own sake.

I see a thing that delights me, and I love that thing. That thing could be a stone on the side of the road; and it is doubtful the stone would reciprocate, yet I love it as I would love any other.

These are three variations of love, yes? Just as the candle, the torch and the campfire are three different housings for fire and the fire they house is of three different magnitudes, yes?
And yet all fire would warm and enlighten. Such is the case with love.
Love is the same wherever it goes, but its paths change.

They're fictional characters,
— S

Yes I know.

What do you think of the ideology that those who are too indoctrinated to recognize that truth follow?

Is it a moral ideology or an immoral one? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

It depends how self-aware they are. If they can become self-aware enough to see it for what it is, I say that they should abandon it.

Shamshir — Gnostic Christian Bishop

They pulled your post. Clean it up as i am interested in your response without whatever they pulled it for.

The mods here are quite good so don't be an a hole.

Regards
DL

It depends how self-aware they are. If they can become self-aware enough to see it for what it is, I say that they should abandon it. — S

Your judgement and not theirs is what I sought and I see that we are in the same moral position.

Nice.

Regards
DL

So love can be real love even to those who reject yours.

Tell us how that would work, let's say with one you love and who does not love you back.

How would you show that love in a way that was not stalking like? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Love isn't something that needs to be shown, except if you're seeking to let the other person know. It's just something you're in. And displays of love can be made in innumerable creative (or not so creative) ways without being stalker-like. I don't think I need to give examples, so I won't. I'm sure you're capable of thinking some up yourself.

I don't think I need to give examples, so I won't. I'm sure you're capable of thinking some up yourself. — S

If I could, I would not have asked for examples.

Love isn't something that needs to be shown, — S

So you would not show someone you loved that was hungry your love with some food. Ok.

Or if your child was shivering in bed, you would not show your love by putting a blanket on him. Ok.

Regards
DL

Sorry, I didn’t read that as a definition.

Simply said, love is something you send out to another but if not reflected back, it is never a completed love. You cannot have true love alone. Love to be real love takes two. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

You seem to be talking specifically about ‘true love’ as romantic love - an emotion that, if reciprocated, supposedly leads to romance, sex, marriage and ‘happily ever after’. This is not ‘love’ as described in the bible. Yes, love does require action (works and deeds), but not reciprocity.

I love my husband, and he loves me in return, but I know that if something happened that somehow prevented that awareness of reciprocity, I would continue to love him - because I love him for him, not just for me.

I don’t see that this is the same as ‘putting something above yourself’, either. Love in my view is not an emotion that comes and goes, and it’s not a self-deprecating act - it’s an awareness and actualising of potentiality: doing what I am capable of to enable another to do what they are capable of.

In this same way, I strive to love my children, my work colleagues, my siblings (most of the time), and more...

You seem to be talking specifically about ‘true love’ as romantic love - an emotion that, if reciprocated, supposedly leads to romance, sex, marriage and ‘happily ever after’. This is not ‘love’ as described in the bible. Yes, love does require action (works and deeds), but not reciprocity. — Possibility

I did not have romantic love in mind but I find it interesting that for romantic love, you would think that reciprocity of desire would not need to be around. That is like you using the one you say you love as a masturbation tool that has no desire for you in the romantic sense. Yuk.

I love my husband, and he loves me in return, but I know that if something happened that somehow prevented that awareness of reciprocity, I would continue to love him - because I love him for him, not just for me. — Possibility

Nice that he loves you in return. You make my case for reciprocity, which you seem to deny.
If the initial awareness on his part were to somehow be negated by illness or accident, the knowledge that he would reciprocate if he could should be just as potent as the real thing, so yes, you do the right thing by continuing to love him.

The rest of your post I have no argument against. You seem to have your head on straight.

Regards
DL

If I could, I would not have asked for examples. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Yet you do so just below. :brow:

So you would not show someone you loved that was hungry your love with some food. Ok.

Or if your child was shivering in bed, you would not show your love by putting a blanket on him. Ok. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

No, that's an interpretation miles off from what I meant. I didn't mean to suggest anything of the sort. There is some degree of ambiguity here, and that's what has caused this misunderstanding, so it would've been better if you had've been clearer with your meaning before expecting answers.

I thought that you were talking of things like hugging, giving someone flowers, saying "I love you", and so on, and so forth. Those are just some of the typical expressions of love. These acts are not a true means of determining whether or not someone loves another. Love comes from the heart, not by acts. The acts are just expressions of love, not love itself.

Of course there are things that I would do, and that I do do, because I love another, but that is beside my point. My point is that I already love another, and so for that reason, I don't need to do anything to love another. Showing love is just that: it shows love. And acts which signify love or caring are just that. There is a distinction between this and the actual loving or caring.

A father can love his child, even if he lost parenting rights and never came into contact with his child again, and thus could not cuddle his child or put a blanket around his child or cook his child dinner, and so on, and so forth.

Asking me what I would do misses the point. There are things which I would do, like give my mum a hug, for example. But I don't need to do so. That would be a weak love if it depended on superficial shows of affection. My mum knows that I love her regardless. Our love for each other is stronger than that.

Those are just some of the typical expressions of love. — S

Yes, and without them, the one you love would not know it. You mentioned some of the things you do to express your love while not licking the expressions of love which I mentioned. You are quite selective if you would not cover your cold child or feeding a hungry loved one while telling them you love them, which was on your will do list.

Can the one you love know you love them without you doing works and deed and can you know they love you back, which makes it a true shared love without the reciprocity of works and deeds towards you? No they cannot. Simply said, true love is giving and taking and sharing. if only one is doing it then it is a one sided love and not true love at all.

The works and deeds do not have to be much and they may not even be apparent.
Take a paraplegic who cannot even move and might only be able to mumble an I love you to his wife. Even that can be a true love as the wife would know that he is doing all he can while she is doing a hell of a lot more with only those three word that apply to reciprocity.

Have we now cleared up our ambiguity as I think we are on the same page basic page?

Regards
DL

Most who are not led by faith, generally accept the truth stated above. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

What does faith have to do with it? Are you saying that most atheists accept that
love without reciprocity, works and deeds is a true love whereas most good Christians don't? Why do you think that is?
I would argue the capability to love someone is a function of one's ability to understand an empathize with another from their own perspective, by slipping into their shoes. That is probably the most difficult task on earth, and for that we need to make use of the most penetrating insights into human nature that are available to us. Embracing christian theological concepts influenced by 17th enlightenment enlightenment thinking will allow one to better achieve love and intimacy with others than relying on a 5th century Christian platonism. By the same token, I believe that seeing the world through a Kierkegaardian 'death of god' perspective will enable one to connect more effectively and insightfully with others in friendship and love that by relying on Kantian-era Christian thought.

And better still would be understanding and incorporation the psychological insights of postmodernists like Nietzsche in one's social life.

So , fist of all, my question to you is, which particular sort of Christianity are you advocating here as a guide to understanding 'true' love? Since you reject a supernatural jesus, it sounds like your thinking is more evolved than that of 17th century christian theology. What do you think it is about Christian faith that leads to the valuing of reciprocity for 'true' love in a way that atheism doesn't?

Simply said, true love is giving and taking and sharing. if only one is doing it then it is a one sided love and not true love at all. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Test

That is not the biblical definition.

You don't need a biblical definition, if the meaning of the world changes we will do our best to find the closest definition we can. That is why we have both the New King James and the New International Version. In fact if you want the exact definition from the bible you need to know Ancient Hebrew.

What does faith have to do with it? Are you saying that most atheists accept that
love without reciprocity, works and deeds is a true love whereas most good Christians don't? Why do you think that is? — Joshs

Because those of faith believe in the foolish idea of unconditional love while atheists do not share that delusion.

I would argue the capability to love someone is a function of one's ability to understand an empathize with another from their own perspective, by slipping into their shoes. That is probably the most difficult task on earth, and for that we need to make use of the most penetrating insights into human nature that are available to us. Embracing christian theological concepts influenced by 17th enlightenment enlightenment thinking will allow one to better achieve love and intimacy with others than relying on a 5th century Christian platonism — Joshs

Pffft.
Atheists would tell you to shove your inference that Christianity enhances anyone's ability to empathise as they preach a homophobic and misogynous doctrine that is anathema to empathic transference. It is the opposite of the golden Rule as a matter of fact. Not being an atheist, I would be more loving.

Your enlightenment period of time was rife with inquisitions and murder and the end of freedom of religion and I don't see any empathy from Christianity in that epoch.

By the same token, I believe that seeing the world through a Kierkegaardian 'death of god' perspective will enable one to connect more effectively and insightfully with others in friendship and love that by relying on Kantian-era Christian thought. — Joshs

You assume I have read all you have read and understand it the same way. Being French, that is unlikely and what I get from this is gibberish so try common words.

And better still would be understanding and incorporation the psychological insights of postmodernists like Nietzsche in one's social life. — Joshs

Same as my last. Talk with words. Not some concept that only you are understanding in your own way.
It seems you are trying to show off instead of actually communicating. I am duly impressed, so stop it.

So , fist of all, my question to you is, which particular sort of Christianity are you advocating here as a guide to understanding 'true' love? — Joshs

Whatever kind of Christianity that uses the part where Jesus says that he would recognize his people, those he will recognize and love, due to their showing their love for him with works and deeds.

Since you reject a supernatural Jesus, it sounds like your thinking is more evolved than that of 17th century Christian theology. — Joshs

Thanks.

Given the stupidity of literalism within Christianity, anyone who has not put their brains into intellectual dissonance will likely be more evolve than those literal reading Christians. Any child or reasoning age will be brighter.

What do you think it is about Christian faith that leads to the valuing of reciprocity for 'true' love in a way that atheism doesn't? — Joshs

As stated, atheists seem more in tune with reciprocity as a part of love than Christian who hold a notion of a unqualified or unconditional love. An silly concept to me, given the need for works and deeds. Remember that even saying the words I love you is a work or deed and it you have ever told a girl that, you know you were likely expecting reciprocity and would have been some disappointed if you did not get it. I will have to check your other post later. Guests just arrived.

Regards
DL

I did not have romantic love in mind but I find it interesting that for romantic love, you would think that reciprocity of desire would not need to be around. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I did say that for romantic love - DESIRE as you more accurately put it - reciprocity is necessary to advance towards romance, sex, marriage, etc., but this is not love as the bible describes it - not love as I understand it.

For love, reciprocity is not necessary, and in fact should neither be expected nor requested. If, by chance, I desire AND truly love someone who does not return one or both, I would continue to love them: to wish them happiness and to do what I can to enable them to do all they can in this world, despite the loss/pain/humiliation I would undoubtedly experience. That would be love in my opinion, and it would have nothing to do with my desire, which may divert my attention but makes no decisions for me, in the end.