What is really love, how to tell what isn't . . .

[com7fy8]

Oh-oh . . .

I think a major cause of a lot of trouble is how I . . . do not know the difference between real love and selfish love.

And if I am able to so fool myself, what am I supposed to do?

I put this here, in this forum where all Christian Forum members are welcome to share your input, whether you use scripture or not.

Thank you, God bless you

 

[jacknife]

You know the Greeks identified different types of love, love is so open in it's interpretation I think we are all going to be thinking of a different idea when we say it kinda makes the question hard to answer.

 

[com7fy8]

In my case, what I would say helps me is I have noticed how in the United States there is something like a fifty-percent divorce rate for marriages. To me, this means there are people who do not know how to relate in love.

So, I can just look down on others and criticize them, or I can see I am human, too, so "it could be me." And therefore, I understand I need to trust God to have me get real correction so I am able to really love.

And this means be able to love any and all people, the way Jesus means in His Sermon on the Mount >

"For if you love those who love you, what reward have you." (in Matthew 5:46)

So . . . then . . . by the way > I see a basic problem that I or other humans can have. We can pick and choose who we consider to be good enough to love. We can love the ones we hope to use to get the pleasures we want. I can be in love with the pleasure I am feeling, possibly, and not really loving the person.

 

[com7fy8]

You know the Greeks identified different types of love, love is so open in it's interpretation I think we are all going to be thinking of a different idea when we say it kinda makes the question hard to answer.

You are welcome to share your interpretation with your definitions.

Maybe you could share about what you have found to be the best type of love, how this has been good for you.

 

[The happy Objectivist]

Oh-oh . . .

I think a major cause of a lot of trouble is how I . . . do not know the difference between real love and selfish love.

And if I am able to so fool myself, what am I supposed to do?

I put this here, in this forum where all Christian Forum members are welcome to share your input, whether you use scripture or not.

Thank you, God bless you

Love is a profoundly selfish value. It's your emotional response to seeing your highest values in the actions and character of others. Imagine saying to someone you love that you have no personal interest in them whatsoever but you are so selfless that you are loving them anyway for their sake and not your own. That would be a total contradiction. It would be a causeless love. A love divorced from values.

 

[messianist]

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

 

[com7fy8]

Imagine saying to someone you love that you have no personal interest in them whatsoever but you are so selfless that you are loving them anyway for their sake and not your own.

Yeah, that does not work, I would say.

Love is a profoundly selfish value. It's your emotional response to seeing your highest values in the actions and character of others.

I have had people who have been good examples for me, in ways I was not valuing. But their example has helped me to value better ways of loving. So, I do not appreciate them for having values I had, but for showing me what is better.

I have needed to feel for other people, and be mutual with anyone capable of a mutual way of sharing and not only using each other, or trying to.

 

[com7fy8]

Charity suffereth long, and is kind;

I note how this says love suffers and is kind We can suffer and be kind, at the same time. We can suffer, but be actively doing what is kind to others, caring about others, right while we may be suffering. And instead of how I might isolate myself while I have a problem, I should let others share with me so we can love one another.

 

[messianist]

I note how this says love suffers and is kind We can suffer and be kind, at the same time. We can suffer, but be actively doing what is kind to others, caring about others, right while we may be suffering. And instead of how I might isolate myself while I have a problem, I should let others share with me so we can love one another.

Amen

 

[eleos1954]

Oh-oh . . .

I think a major cause of a lot of trouble is how I . . . do not know the difference between real love and selfish love.

And if I am able to so fool myself, what am I supposed to do?

I put this here, in this forum where all Christian Forum members are welcome to share your input, whether you use scripture or not.

Thank you, God bless you

Gods standpoint describes love as a principle (putting others before self) .... we humans .... for the most part equate love from a emotional standpoint .... a "feeling".

 

[Neogaia777]

In between it being an act of the will free from how you might feel or sometimes even think, or that extends beyond your intuitions sometimes maybe, etc, and it also being a very intuitional thing, as well as a very emotional or passionate thing also, I've come to the conclusion that maybe Love just "is" a lot, or maybe most of the time maybe, etc...?

I don't know? Is there a such thing as the great "I IS" maybe, etc...? lol...

Anyhow...?

God Bless!

 

[TheWhat?]

Agape is revealed in Jesus on the cross.

It's beneficial for all our relationships but agape, alone, won't necessarily save a marriage.

Everything God made is good, and God didn't demand that we dismember ourselves or start amputating our emotions, etc. The parts just need to be re-ordered.

 

[Blade]

Oh-oh . . .

I think a major cause of a lot of trouble is how I . . . do not know the difference between real love and selfish love.

And if I am able to so fool myself, what am I supposed to do?

I put this here, in this forum where all Christian Forum members are welcome to share your input, whether you use scripture or not.

Thank you, God bless you

A few years ago I experienced a love I have never felt before. As fast as it came it lifted. The love I had was for someone that was talking acting like they had so much hate for me. The short... oh I loved them.. I wanted nothing more then to just please them. To not want them to do anything .. I didn't expect anything. It far more then a joy to love them I felt as if I was being rewarded for loving them. It was so strange. To give was the reward..to expect them to do something for me.. oh not even a thought. Then it was gone.

Love never thinks of self.. love never finds faults.. I truly believe it has to come from HIM! That is the only way we can do anything. In 60 years I have never loved anyone like that experience. Self was never once thought about then. If they were going to be that bad.. talk like that to me for the rest of my life.. OH I didn't care. I was so blessed to love them.. to please them. Anyway

 

[Estrid]

Gods standpoint describes love as a principle (putting others before self) .... we humans .... for the most part equate love from a emotional standpoint .... a "feeling".

We font really say " I love you" . Mom neverbtold me she loves me.
She showed it, a million times over, in her every action.
She always put others first.

 

[MehGuy]

As someone who considers themselves a sadist (empath) I have always been somewhat insecure and confused regarding what love is and isn't. I can only feel emotional love in the context of pain/suffering. This isn't limited to the romantic, but the spiritual as well.

Love is complex and subjective, and the experience and expressions vary depending on one's genetics. As someone who needs a context of pain/suffering to feel love I do not believe my needs are too far removed from how ordinary people experience love. To "care" often implies on some level attending to the needs of another who are in distress/pain. This is not always the case, but I think it for the most part it is. Such scenarios deepen connections. Going through painful periods can help one feel closer to another. I just believe that in my case I happen to be someone who has a few mutations that make these connections much more needed, potent and vivid.

While I have felt bad about being a romantic sadist for most of my life, the spiritual aspect has given me the worst nightmares. When I was a Christian, I felt like suffering was "divine". Spiritual sadism feels very similar to romantic sadism, and I do not see how they do not come from the same psychological place. Mother Teresa is one person who is suspect by many of harboring these feelings. She describes suffering as beautiful and glorifies others who suffer as well. While one can never say for sure, I do know such mindsets are very real, and when I first heard about her (shortly after becoming an atheist) it made me sick to my stomach. I personally call it "suffering worship" and view a lot of iconographies featuring tortured saints with halos very suspect. Since becoming an atheist I've distanced myself from such thoughts, but I still feel bad that I am capable of it. Occasionally I will have a spiritual sensation and spiritual sadism will come roaring back, but thankfully as an atheist these feelings are no longer have the staying power they once had. A warning that one needs to be self-aware, simply feeling things can lead people down bad paths.

How I experienced Christian love has psychologically scarred me, especially when I became self-aware of the process. I still have and will always have incredible trouble feeling loving connections with others, but these days I try to be nice and kind to others. Even though I feel nothing. Sometimes I wonder why I act the way I do, but year by year I feel myself becoming more locked into this mindset. I've heard other sadists report similar things psychologically happening to them. I have heard some call this form of love "charity". Feeling nothing emotional but acting loving anyways. For me I think "charity" is just a psychological complex I have developed because I've developed a phobia of feeling things because of guilt for the way I do feel things.

 

[Neogaia777]

I think some of the higher types or forms of Love, is just doing good/caring for the sake of doing good/caring, and nothing else, etc...

Which does not require feelings really, and truth be told, a lot of the time they just mess it up anyway, and it becomes very selfish, or very primarily self-serving, or egotistical love, etc...

Suffering is just a teacher to show/teach you how, etc, that once learned, loses it's point or power or purpose or point after that, etc...

God Bless!

 

[MehGuy]

I view love under more of an evolutionary/genetic lens. Something that can be psychologically altered. A major reason I enjoy studying various fetish scenes. I see these people as living examples of genetic altercations; beings who have a modified perceptive and experience of "love". "Love" not being a static thing nor what the average human experiences currently as some objective ideal or concrete of reality.

One might label such things as "perverted" and outside the "norm" but given enough time and generations it might someday become the norm. Things often never stay the same; human psychology might be widely different in a million years. Aspects of what are normal now, might have been strange to our ancestors.

Even beings who experience things they value more than "love" and what the major religions hold in high esteem. Emotions and experiences totally alien to us.