God and Unconditional Love


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Today I was at the St.John's University for my brothers graduation and during one of the speeches the speaker said that God loves everyone unconditionally. My question is, isn't this a bogus statement, why should god love everyone unconditionally? Shouldn't love have to be earned?

Thanks,

David C.

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Today I was at the St.John's University for my brothers graduation and during one of the speeches the speaker said that God loves everyone unconditionally. My question is, isn't this a bogus statement, why should god love everyone unconditionally? Shouldn't love have to be earned?

Thanks,

David C.

Only as bogus as the existence of God. Assuming God does exist, however, how does the speaker know about God's love and the actual nature of that love? I love God and God loves me means I love "everyone" too and the whole thing falls off the tracks for no one can love "everyone" which is a guilt controlling, mongering altruism even to the extent of feeling guilty for the real love you have for those you really love.

--Brant

"Man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains."

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David writes:

Today I was at the St.John's University for my brothers graduation and during one of the speeches the speaker said that God loves everyone unconditionally. My question is, isn't this a bogus statement, why should god love everyone unconditionally? Shouldn't love have to be earned?

The validity of that statement would depend on how you define love.

My definition of love:

Doing what's morally right.

So using my definition of love... God's love is unconditional because He created the moral law for everyone's own good, and to which everyone is equally and unconditionally accountable.

Now if you use the popular collective cultural consensus definition of love as an affectionate feeling...

..."unconditional love" is just liberal feelgood fantasy self esteem crap.

Greg

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David writes:

Today I was at the St.John's University for my brothers graduation and during one of the speeches the speaker said that God loves everyone unconditionally. My question is, isn't this a bogus statement, why should god love everyone unconditionally? Shouldn't love have to be earned?

The validity of that statement would depend on how you define love.

My definition of love:

Doing what's morally right.

So using my definition of love... God's love is unconditional because He created the moral law for everyone's own good, and to which everyone is equally and unconditionally accountable.

Now if you use the popular collective cultural consensus definition of love as an affectionate feeling...

..."unconditional love" is just liberal feelgood fantasy self esteem crap.

Greg

Greg, now that the OL software has been fixed you no longer need your multi-step by-pass of the Quote function to quote. Just click on "Quote." This is a courtesy to your reader who wants to go immediately to the quoted material instead of hunting it down.

--Brant

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David writes:

Today I was at the St.John's University for my brothers graduation and during one of the speeches the speaker said that God loves everyone unconditionally. My question is, isn't this a bogus statement, why should god love everyone unconditionally? Shouldn't love have to be earned?

The validity of that statement would depend on how you define love.

My definition of love:

Doing what's morally right.

So using my definition of love... God's love is unconditional because He created the moral law for everyone's own good, and to which everyone is equally and unconditionally accountable.

Now if you use the popular collective cultural consensus definition of love as an affectionate feeling...

..."unconditional love" is just liberal feelgood fantasy self esteem crap.

Greg

What's the point of "moral law"? If you want something, you take it, right? If you can get away with taking something, you deserve it, right? If you fail, you don't deserve it. Period, end of discussion.

Who needs moral law, when the only thing that matters is success or failure?

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Brant writes:

Greg, now that the OL software has been fixed you no longer need your multi-step by-pass of the Quote function to quote. Just click on "Quote." This is a courtesy to your reader who wants to go immediately to the quoted material instead of hunting it down.

Sorry, Brant...

If the quote function worked for me

I would have already been using it.

I just need your unconditional love... :wink:

Greg

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Frank writes:

What's the point of "moral law"?

Moral law governs the just and deserved consequences of our actions.

If you want something, you take it, right?

Wrong. If you want something you work to rightfully earn it.

If you can get away with taking something, you deserve it, right?

You deserve to become the kind of immoral person who takes what he does not rightfully deserve to possess.

If you fail, you don't deserve it. Period, end of discussion.

It's good for you to fail to take from others what does not rightfully belong to you

Who needs moral law...

It is not a matter of needing. You're damn well stuck with it whether you like it or not, just like everyone else is. For those who love what's right, moral law is a genuine blessing to their lives...

...and for those who don't, moral law is their own self inflicted never-ending personal tormenter.

when the only thing that matters is success or failure?

It only matters what you are a success or failure as. :wink:

Greg

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Brant writes:

Greg, now that the OL software has been fixed you no longer need your multi-step by-pass of the Quote function to quote. Just click on "Quote." This is a courtesy to your reader who wants to go immediately to the quoted material instead of hunting it down.

Sorry, Brant...

If the quote function worked for me

I would have already been using it.

Greg

If it doesn't work for you, you don't deserve it to.

--Brant

I can't figure out the MultiQuote

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Frank writes:

What's the point of "moral law"?

Moral law governs the just and deserved consequences of our actions.

If you want something, you take it, right?

Wrong. If you want something you work to rightfully earn it.

So if someone takes something that rightfully belongs to you, he doesn't deserve it. You deserve it. Or, to put it another way, you don't deserve to have it taken from you.

To put it in specific terms, if someone breaks into your home and steals your gold, he does not deserve the gold. You deserve the gold. You don't deserve to have your gold stolen.

If the thief is never caught, the gold still rightfully belongs to you. After all, the thief did not earn the gold, he didn't obtain it through trade or voluntary payment. You still deserve your gold. You do not deserve the theft of your gold.

If you can get away with taking something, you deserve it, right?

You deserve to become the kind of immoral person who takes what he does not rightfully deserve to possess.

And the person who is the rightful owner of the gold deserves not to be a victim of theft but to have his gold returned to him.

If you fail, you don't deserve it. Period, end of discussion.

It's good for you to fail to take from others what does not rightfully belong to you

And those who do not fail in theft do not deserve to keep what they possess. And those who lose to thieves do not deserve their loss.

Who needs moral law...

It is not a matter of needing. You're damn well stuck with it whether you like it or not, just like everyone else is. For those who love what's right, moral law is a genuine blessing to their lives...

...and for those who don't, moral law is their own self inflicted never-ending personal tormenter.

And we know that people who violate the rights of others are tormented because they always, um . . . what, complain about being tormented?

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Brant writes:

If it doesn't work for you, you don't deserve it to.

You deserve to be bothered by it... because I'm not. :wink:

Greg

(let the games begin... :smile: )

Moving-animated-picture-of-kittens-playi

I'm glad you don't have a gun trained on me. I'm glad you're not a psychopath.

--Brant

I'd be bothered

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Is your question about the nature of unconditional love or about the existence of god or about whether god loves all people?

A good parent loves unconditionally. The child does nothing to earn that aside from being born. The parent may become disappointed or even heartbroken by the child's actions, but the love never goes away. Also, it is that love that allows, even requires, the parent to teach and discipline.

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dldelancey- you make a very interesting point, I do have a question though, so if your child murdered someone would you still love them?

Thanks,

David C.

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dldelancey- you make a very interesting point, I do have a question though, so if your child murdered someone would you still love them?

Thanks,

David C.

I don't know for her, but for me, sure, but my love would be measured in pain.

--Brant

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Brant writes:

I don't know for her, but for me, sure, but my love would be measured in pain.

When love is defined as doing what's morally right, it's an expression of wanting your children to grow to be decent adults by doing what's right to help guide them on an upward path... and that guidance includes punishment when it's appropriate. A good reference is how we learn through the benefit of pain in our own lives.

Love isn't a gooshy emotion. I've heard enough immoral mothers blubbering bullc**p about how their murdering son is "a good boy".

Love is taking calm decisive deliberate action in the best interests of your children.

Greg

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Brant writes:

I don't know for her, but for me, sure, but my love would be measured in pain.

When love is defined as doing what's morally right, it's an expression of wanting your children to grow to be decent adults by doing what's right to help guide them on an upward path... and that guidance includes punishment when it's appropriate. A good reference is how we learn through the benefit of pain in our own lives.

Love isn't a gooshy emotion. I've heard enough immoral mothers blubbering bullc**p about how their murdering son is "a good boy".

Love is taking calm decisive deliberate action in the best interests of your children.

Greg

True love is Tough Love. It has standards and is not foggy sentimentality.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Frank writes:

So if someone takes something that rightfully belongs to you, he doesn't deserve it. You deserve it. Or, to put it another way, you don't deserve to have it taken from you.

That would all depend on the nature of the sequence of events prior to the theft.

People who get by taking from others, get taken from by others who get by taking from others. See the circlejerk? It's matching values. That's how one world operates.

But those who rightly earn what they have don't belong to that world because they live in another world

doing business with their own kind. This is also matching values... just different ones.

To put it in specific terms, if someone breaks into your home and steals your gold, he does not deserve the gold. You deserve the gold. You don't deserve to have your gold stolen.

I'll defer to Ayn Rand here...

"But money demands of you the highest virtues,

if you wish to make it or to keep it."

--Ayn Rand

The very finest protection for what you rightfully own is your own virtue it took to honestly earn it. :smile:

On the other hand, you rightly deserve to have your home broken into and your gold stolen when you have acquired it by dishonest means.

If the thief is never caught...

...he will only lose what he stole to another thief, because thieves lack the virtue to make or to keep money they did not rightfully earn.

Greg

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Brant writes:

Only as bogus as the existence of God. Assuming God does exist, however, how does the speaker know about God's love and the actual nature of that love? I love God and God loves me means I love "everyone" too and the whole thing falls off the tracks for no one can love "everyone" which is a guilt controlling, mongering altruism even to the extent of feeling guilty for the real love you have for those you really love.



Only when love is defined as doing what's morally right does loving everyone make sense.
"Man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains."


"If you closely
examine your chains
you will discover
they were forged
by your own hand."


--Greg :wink:

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dldelancey- you make a very interesting point, I do have a question though, so if your child murdered someone would you still love them?

Thanks,

David C.

Yes. I would be sorrowful, but yes absolutely I would still love him.

Edited to add: Greg and I seldom agree, but on this we do. Love, like that of a parent for a child, is not "gooshy emotion." At least not all the time. It is wrought with bittersweetness and coupled with responsibility. It includes discipline and teaching as well as hugs and kisses. When people say that God loves unconditionally, that's what they mean.

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Deanna writes:

It includes discipline and teaching as well as hugs and kisses. When people say that God loves unconditionally, that's what they mean.

I'd add that some people do say that... while others peddle feminised liberal gooshy feelings for people who do evil.

We learn life's lessons by the moral law which governs the consequences of our actions. In my opinion that is God's love for us, because what is set into motion as the result of what we do is for our own benefit should we choose to learn from it.

Greg

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Here is a quote about love I found interesting. It's from Lajos Egri in The Art of Dramatic Writing. He is talking about how you write about love and I believe he is very close to the unconditional kind.

Love is the last stage. It can be tested by sacrifice. Real love is the capacity to endure any hardship for the beloved.


He is talking about the stages of how love grows between a man and a woman, but I believe his comment goes deeper to other kinds of love.

I know in Rand's fiction, she certainly put her heroes in all kinds of hardships to test their love through sacrifice. And not just man-woman love. Love of high values in general, whether person, thing or vision. She even had one guy commit suicide to test his love (in Ideal). That's the ultimate sacrifice.

And thinking about how a Christian would see proving love through sacrifice... well... I'll let Greg say the obvious.

:)

Michael

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Michael writes:

I know in Rand's fiction, she certainly put her heroes in all kinds of hardships to test their love through sacrifice.

She described the essence of heroism.

And not just man-woman love. Love of high values in general, whether person, thing or vision.

Yes. Loving what is right enough to do it applies to every human interaction of which spousal love is just one, however the most personal one.

She even had one guy commit suicide to test his love (in Ideal). That's the ultimate sacrifice.

And thinking about how a Christian would see proving love through sacrifice... well... I'll let Greg say the obvious.

The Guy who made the ultimate sacrifice of love already said it a long time ago:

"Love one another as I have loved you." :smile:

Greg

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My two cents about the topic of God and unconditional love: probably best not to determine such things on an internet forum devoted to a philosophy in which atheism is either inherent and/or a necessary condition of the philosophy. Many, many great minds have thought about the question you raise, and have spent lifetimes doings so. A fair number of sacred books have addressed the question you raise. Those unlucky ones who did not have a direct pipeline from God's mouth to their ears tended to come up empty on these question.

If you actually care about the question you are asking--Greg's circular and bold-faced assertions notwithstanding--you will need to expend some fairly considerable effort on questions not only such as whether God exists, but what his characteristics might (or might not) be. This is the sort of thing probably best done in private.

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David writes:

If you actually care about the question you are asking, you will need to expend some fairly considerable effort on questions not only such as whether God exists, but what his characteristics might (or might not) be.

That approach is doomed to futility because the answer to the question of God cannot be arrived at through intellectual effort. It can only be answered by the objective moral reality of your own life. In fact, the question of God isn't even for you to answer. It is for God to answer. And when God answers, reality is so obvious the freaking rocks cry out. I tell you, it's a real forehead slapper. The only question you'll ask then is:

Why didn't I see this before?

When you know, you know...

...and when you don't, you don't.

It's as simple as that.

Greg

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Frank writes:

So if someone takes something that rightfully belongs to you, he doesn't deserve it. You deserve it. Or, to put it another way, you don't deserve to have it taken from you.

That would all depend on the nature of the sequence of events prior to the theft.

If someone rightfully owns something at the time of its theft, what do events prior to the theft have to do with it? If a gold coin rightfully belongs to you, you deserve it. If it belongs to someone else, he deserves it. Other than to determine rightful ownership, prior events have no bearing on who should be in possession of the coin.

People who get by taking from others, get taken from by others who get by taking from others. See the circlejerk? It's matching values. That's how one world operates.

If true, this is excellent news. But how would we know this? How could I possibly know that the person who stole my bicycle from my front porch will have something of equivalent value stolen from him? How would I know that people who practice thievery are themselves always victimized by theft? Do, say, Obama and Biden get robbed more frequently than I do?

But those who rightly earn what they have don't belong to that world because they live in another world

doing business with their own kind. This is also matching values... just different ones.

To put it in specific terms, if someone breaks into your home and steals your gold, he does not deserve the gold. You deserve the gold. You don't deserve to have your gold stolen.

I'll defer to Ayn Rand here...

"But money demands of you the highest virtues,

if you wish to make it or to keep it."

--Ayn Rand

The very finest protection for what you rightfully own is your own virtue it took to honestly earn it. :smile:

On the other hand, you rightly deserve to have your home broken into and your gold stolen when you have acquired it by dishonest means.

True. And those who have acquired gold by honest means rightly deserve to have their stolen gold returned. If they don't get it back, they do not get what they deserve.

If the thief is never caught...

...he will only lose what he stole to another thief, because thieves lack the virtue to make or to keep money they did not rightfully earn.

Greg

Glad to hear it. By the way, when was FDR (or any of his tax-paid henchmen) robbed of the gold that he ordered confiscated from American citizens who rightfully held it?

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