Continuing with the general theme introduced in my 1:00 pm post of today, I am struck by the lack of love in the world today. I am not suggesting that love has dissipated on the level of personal intimacy and fraternity, but its universal aspect seems to be on an extended sabbatical!
Living in a nation in which the majority of my brethren identify themselves as Christian this observation, at first blush, seems ironic. We're told that the Christian God is the full embodiment of love and yet most of his followers pursue policies that are the epitome of unloving. Of course, every religion I am aware of speaks of love from their own perspective and terminology; their followers are just as guilty as any evangelical Christian!
If love is the overriding consideration in your personal and collective life, why is there so much war and violence? Often, the people who say that love is the centerpiece of human existence are the very same people who are the most hawkish. In this country, the majority of evangelical Christians are steadfast cheerleaders for all things military.
What does killing other people have to do with love?
If love is the overriding consideration in your personal and collective life, why is there so much suffering and poverty? In a finite world, when others don't have the basic necessities to live, those who do possess them possess too much. For those people who believe in a concept of heaven in an afterlife, do you really think God will portion out what is needed? Do you think that there are two heavens? One for the well-to-do and another on the other side of the tracks?
More importantly, what does allowing some people to suffer in abject poverty have to do with love?
On issue after issue, the overriding human concern has to do with ego-based desire, not love! The individual consumed with love wants what is best for themselves and everyone else. The selfish person only wants what's best for themselves and "their kind."
Genuine love knows no bounds. It cannot be contained within self-defined boundaries. It oozes out of a person and touches everything they do and say.
We humans talk about love so much, yet we do not LIVE as if we truly believe IN it.
We write poems about it, then put down our pens to go out into the world to live as if love was a toxic poison.
We pray, dance and sing of love as if it was the most important quality of life, yet, by even a casual observation, it patently is clear that hate and fear are engines that propel us.
NOT LOVE. Not even close.
Living in a nation in which the majority of my brethren identify themselves as Christian this observation, at first blush, seems ironic. We're told that the Christian God is the full embodiment of love and yet most of his followers pursue policies that are the epitome of unloving. Of course, every religion I am aware of speaks of love from their own perspective and terminology; their followers are just as guilty as any evangelical Christian!
If love is the overriding consideration in your personal and collective life, why is there so much war and violence? Often, the people who say that love is the centerpiece of human existence are the very same people who are the most hawkish. In this country, the majority of evangelical Christians are steadfast cheerleaders for all things military.
What does killing other people have to do with love?
If love is the overriding consideration in your personal and collective life, why is there so much suffering and poverty? In a finite world, when others don't have the basic necessities to live, those who do possess them possess too much. For those people who believe in a concept of heaven in an afterlife, do you really think God will portion out what is needed? Do you think that there are two heavens? One for the well-to-do and another on the other side of the tracks?
More importantly, what does allowing some people to suffer in abject poverty have to do with love?
On issue after issue, the overriding human concern has to do with ego-based desire, not love! The individual consumed with love wants what is best for themselves and everyone else. The selfish person only wants what's best for themselves and "their kind."
Genuine love knows no bounds. It cannot be contained within self-defined boundaries. It oozes out of a person and touches everything they do and say.
We humans talk about love so much, yet we do not LIVE as if we truly believe IN it.
We write poems about it, then put down our pens to go out into the world to live as if love was a toxic poison.
We pray, dance and sing of love as if it was the most important quality of life, yet, by even a casual observation, it patently is clear that hate and fear are engines that propel us.
NOT LOVE. Not even close.
1904, Max Weber attempted to answer the questions you have raised about the apparent lack of love demonstrated by the so-called Christian in his book, "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism." Here are a few excerpts from that book concerning the concept of Predestination which I believe underscores the main "holy justifications" which are used by many Christians in order to exonerate their behavior and the display of a decidedly uncaring attitude toward the poor and downtrodden:
ReplyDelete* So, wherever the doctrine of predestination was held, the question could not be suppressed whether there were any infallible criteria by which membership in the electi could be known.
* Labour in a calling was also the ascetic activity par excellence…God Himself blessed His chosen ones through the success of their labors.
* This consciousness of divine grace of the elect and holy was accompanied by an attitude towards the sins of one’s neighbors, not of sympathetic understanding based on the consciousness of one’s own weakness, but of hatred and contempt for him as an enemy of God bearing the sins of eternal damnation.
* We know only that a part of humanity is saved, the rest is damned. For the damned to complain of their lot would be much the same as for animals to bemoan the fact that they were not born as men.
* In the field of its highest development, in the United States, the pursuit of wealth, stripped of its religious and ethical meaning, tends to become associated with purely mundane passions, which often actually give it the character of a sport.
In short, with this selective interpretation of Christianity, many have found what they believe to be the means to justify their selfishness and greed by turning the object of their scorn into deserving sinners that God also apparently hates. And who will get no better treatment from them.
DeSwiss