by frankiespeakin 26 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I think most would agree that real true love has to be impartial,,no favoritism,,completely fair,,equal concern,, reguardless of race,,nationality,,or even species.
Yet when we read the bible what do we find? We find God hating no only singled out persons, but entire nationalities. He even tell his people to sacrifice innocent animals for sins,,I don't know about you but I see a big discrepancy here, if God is supposed to be impartial.
well at least in psalm you can get the warm fuzzies. LOL
Ko,
Do you mean like this psalm?
Ps 137:9 Happy will he be that does grab a hold and does dash to pieces your children against a rock.
Leaving Jehovah aside, to me "impartial love" is a perfect oxymoron. A very interesting one btw.
Jehovah is a psycho genocidal babykiller.
Nark,
I agree, because the way we use the word love today means anything but impartiality. Usually there is some sort of focusing and exclusion in the common accepted usage of the term.
The mystical kind of love that the transcend our common everyday love according to many is supposed to be completely impartial and if everything is "one" then every atom and sub atomic particle is loved just as much as man or beast. That form of love to me can cause everything we see to work together or be the glue that hold the universe in place(guessing here).
Frankie, I think the "love" you are speaking of, at the sub-atomic level up through the universe could be summed up in two scientific theories: E=MC2, or Einstein's Theory of Relativity, the balance of the universe on a gihugic scale, and quantum mechanics, the balance of the universe on an ultra minute scale, of which Himself Prof. Hawkings tries to combine into an overall theory, as the two theories seem to contradict each other.
I still believe the true face of god is glimpsed in science. Including contradictions.
Hugs
Brenda
BC,
I still believe the true face of god is glimpsed in science. Including contradictions
You may be right. But I'm more inclind to think rational thought can not grasp the first cause, being that when we find the cause behind time and space (if we can?) then we are left with the cause of the cause of the cause of time and space which perhaps could go on for infinity ex: the cause of the cause of the cause of the cause etc...
Nark,
I also think that true love has to be without any selfish motive. Which rules out pretty much all types of human love. Perhaps being a separate self rules out knowing or liveing this type of pure love.
Get back to the topic of Jehovah of the bible:
Jehovah has way to much ego to show impartial love. His love is very conditional ie: do everything I tell you or your'e toast,,and only those that please me will experience my Love the rest can go to hell!!!
I also think that true love has to be without any selfish motive. Which rules out pretty much all types of human love. Perhaps being a separate self rules out knowing or liveing this type of pure love.
If that is true, wouldn't it be better not to call "love" what you're speaking about? For "love" as we know it from experience requires both "being a separate self" -- or, rather, two separate selves at the very least -- and overcoming the separation.
Fwiw, the formula "impartial love" reminds me of one Talmudic passage which was nicely pointed out and commented by French (and Jewish) philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas. As it often goes, the Talmud was attempting at reconciling two formally antithetic Biblical expressions: (1) "(God) is not partial, in Hebrew lô' yissa' panim, lit. "he doesn't lift the face up" (e.g. Deuteronomy 10:17); and (2) the priestly blessing in Numbers 9:26, "the LORD lift up his face (yissa' Yhwh panayw) upon you, and give you peace." The Talmudic solution was the following: only after the judgement is passed does God "lift up the face". That was the rabbinical way of harmonising "grace", or "love", and "justice" or "impartiality". Food for thought, at least if you take it at a deep level (as Lévinas did).
The famous Gospel saying "love your enemies" is paradoxical: the first thing it implies (although most Christians overlook it) is that you do have enemies, i.e. people that don't love you and that you don't love. From that point it stretches love out of its natural boundaries. Now if you redefine love from the conclusion (such as the WT does with its silly definition of "principle-based love") you just lose both the paradox and the meaning of "love".
As for the "love which moves the stars", as Dante said (I already quoted the conclusion of the Divine Comedy in another of your threads), it can only be appreciated as a poetical, i.e. analogical statement. Imo, taking the poetical definition of a selfless love as a starting point, and from it denying human, partial "love" the right to call itself love, is the kind of "idealistic sin against life" scholastic Christianity was always guilty of, as Nietzsche pointed out.
