All You Need is Love?

Nah, tcis. That's just them beatles gettin' their philosophy of music across. Often, when the wolf comes in the door, love flies out the window.

Seriously, pulling together in tough times, is the deepest reflection of familial love.

There is a clear system for chucking someone out of their home. First, there is a friendly reminder, then a warning, which isn't as creepy as it sounds. There is generally a postulation in the warning letter stating that if you disagree with the terms, and wish to withhold rent, you have the right to contest the eviction on legal grounds, should you have any. At least that's how it works for renters.

This is not a great example of what you want to discuss. Any time someone rents or mortgages a house, you enter into a legal contract, which you are expected to live up to. It's not really your money you are playing with. If you don't pay, and get chucked out, it's your own fault.

Should you love the property owners or the banks? No, but you can't blame them for just doing their jobs.

Ahh, just saw Letty's post. I agree.

The wolves came to India and non-violence prevailed. I think the message of love by Ghandi was definatly recieved.

Hundreds lined up to take beatings for a love based message.

Kings words of loving your enemy did more for the 60's than X's 'by all means necessary'.

I personally think that the only way to transcend your reality and see something larger than yourself is to love others. I also think that if there is a God then the only way to 'know' him is through the love of others.

I think that love is not all you need (food and shelter are high on my list) but perhaps for transcendence it is a necessary but not suffiecient component).

Nanak (Seikhism) boiled all faiths down to love... I think he has something to be said here...

Aristotle believed that God created the world because he loved it.

The concept of philosophy is loving wisdom....

Hmmm

TF

How can God have created the world because he loved it? He'd have to have loved it before he created it, but that's impossible.

The word love in greek is roughly translated as 'love'. Like / wanted is a better word perhaps in this instance.

However, I loved the idea of marriage before I was married. God is commonly conceptiualized as creating the earth from thought alone. It could be, similarly, that he loved the idea of the world and thus created it through this concept. I see no conflict with loving something before you have it.

TF

Agrote, nothing's impossible when you're talking about the Creator.

'All you need is love' reminds me of very young couples getting married and not having much money or anything else, it was said that they were "living off of love."

eoe:

I am not sure I agree. Conflicts of common conceptions of God have lead him to many things he cannot do. He cannot restrict his power lest he cease being all powerful. He cannot sin - lest he cease to be good and so on.

I see God as being able to do all things that are possible - not all things.

However, I am not in the majority as many philosophers, Descartes and Kierkegarrd included, thought that all is possible with the creator.

TF

Okay. god created the world because he wanted to. That makes sense. I'm not sure marriage is such a good analogy since marriage isn't really a concrete thing, whereas the world, presumably meaning or including the earth, is a concrete thing as far as I know. So could you ever love sculpture before you've carved it? How could you? How could "I love this sculpture" be true if there is no sculpture?!


"Agrote, nothing's impossible when you're talking about the Creator."

If that's the case then there's not much point in saying anything about God, because there's only an infinitely small chance that you're right, and you'll probably never know.

If the sculpture is made from love and sculpted out of love, it's loved before it's created.

As far as God and the small chance that we're right in what we believe, that's simply called faith and in matters of faith, I'd guess that we'll never be proven right or wrong because we'll never be in a position to share that knowledge one way or the other.

How can a sculpture, which is a physical object, be made of love, which is a metaphysical concept?

And what's the point in having faith in something which is almost definitely not true? Where does it actually get you?

I am not sure you can so quickly dismiss the idea of a material object.

When I want a new paintball marker (I am sort of a geek when it comes to that) I imagine what I want, mull it over, fall in love with an idea or too (or at least desire the object that is not yet born) and then call the manufacturer and have them make it for me. Some of my markers are one-of's thus they have never been created. I have desired the idea of the object, loved that object, and then had that object created.

I remember when my son was in the womb. He was not a physical object yet - not in any real compariable sense to what he is now - yet I loved him. I loved him before he was born.

I remember when my wife lost our first baby (at only 12 weeks of jestation) and I mourned the loss of the child that was not yet born.

I think it is very possible to love something before it exists. You love the idea of it. I agree that this love is different from the real object - bt God does not deal in physical creation anyway - he deals in mental creation.

TF

Believing in the 'unknown' is what faith is. That's all I'll say on this subject. I don't debate my spiritual beliefs. Nor yours.

As long as you acknowledge that God loving the idea of the world before creating it is different to God loving the actual world before creating it. I can't even remember why I brought this up - it seems so petty now. But it seems we both agree that God couldn't possibly have loved the world itself before he created it, right? Same as you don't love your actual paintball things before they've been made - you only love the ideas you have come up with and you anticipate loving them when they are created.



Yes I understand what faith is, or at least I agree with that definition of it. But what's the point in faith? I think that was the question I was getting at.

How about debating your reasons for not debating your spiritual beliefs? Why is it that you don't debate your spiritual beliefs?

ohmygosh, there's so much more to life, yes, all you need is love if you're wise enough to understand life, you're wise enough to understand that quote, but one must be in the state of true happiness, it takes people thier whole life time to fig. out what it is to be happy, the key, what is it to be human? to just be, OBSERVE, LEARN, and BE. and if you're not happy of course love won't be enough, materialism all that is temporary will rule your life and that will never bring you to the state of serenity.

One needs to be loved when s/he is an infant/child; one needs to (be able to) love when s/he is an adult.

One quote that I've come up with is "Love is God and God is Love; If one cannot accept Love, then one cannot accept God." I believe that love is the ultimate feeling. When you listen to music, much of the time the topic is going to be love to some extent. Put it this way, the physical world and man came from God, the spiritual. Since we continually speak, think, write of, and strive for love, and God create us and the world out of love, then Love is an vitally important thing that all of us need.

Contention: God cannot have loved the world before he created it because it didn't yet exist to love
Refutation: God is timeless. God is not linear as we are, therefor he has, and will, always love the world.

Contention: God cannot restrict his power.
Refutation: One word. Jesus.
God is the great "I AM". God is in all things as all things are in God. God IS. We are the exemplifications of God's power "restricted".

Contention: God cannot sin lest he cease to be good.
Refutation: Are we, the creation, the children of God, not sinners? God is all and we are that which sins.

You don't have to be religious to see the argument, but please understand what you are talking about before you deny it. As for faith, in my book, faith without reason is not faith, it's fanatacism.

It's alright saying that, God is timeless, it's very convenient. But where the hell does that idea come from? Why is God timeless? Why would he be? If God is timeless, why isn't everything he creates timeless? If God is all, and God is timeless, surelly ALL must be TIMELESS! Am I timeless?! How can a timeless God spend any time (6 days) creating the world?

Refuting the argument that 'God cannot have loved the world before he created it' by saying "God is timeless" is utterly useless. I know everybody always says this, but where is your PROOF that God is timeless??? You might tell me that you don't need proof, because you have faith, but what for? What's the point?

Answer a few of these questions please, when you have the time.

agrote: I love that you question this! No I will not tell you that you don't need proof if you have faith, I have always believed that to be a HUGE cop out which people use when they can't be bothered coming up with a coherent argument (sorry eoe, no insult intended ). As I said, as far as I'm concerned, faith without reason is not faith, it's fanaticism

The concept of timelessness is a very difficult one, I admit. I've struggled with it for a lot of years. I suppose it really hinges on your concept of what God is. If you think he's just some guy sitting on a cloud arbitraily making up rules for the rest of us then it's really hard to apply the "timeless" thing. Umm, perhaps if I'm going to explain what I mean then I should explain a little about my concept of God.

My only authority in this matter is a life-time of Catholic indoctrination. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to start bible bashing, my stance on theology has always been one of inquiry rather than easy acceptance. I don't claim to be a theologian, I've just spent a lot of my time thinking about the things my elders told me.

So what I've come up with so far is that God is more than the common conception of the idea. God is not just a person, or a big powerful thing, God is all. Everything. Everything seen and unseen (hence the statement that God is in all things and all things are in God). That includes us. It includes the past, the future, the whole shebang. So if God is all that is and ever will be, then God is not restricted by time.

This is not the same as the concept of a traveller moving through time (like a time machine), it is time itself. To us it seems like one event after another, immutable, unchangeable. To God, time would be both the procession and the whole at once. (yeah I know I'm just about confusing myself here!)

Let me try an analogy. Think of the entirety of existence as a book. To read the story you start at the beginning and keep going till you get to the end. So you see the story happen piece by piece. But now think of the book as a whole, pretend you hold the book in your hand. The whole story is right there, at one time. The whole thing. Now say you wrote the book.

So we're the story and God is the author. Time is the turning of the pages. Can you see what I mean?

I hope I have cleared up my statement a little, maybe I just muddied the waters even more. If, indeed, this is the case, I really hope you'll ask again.