Are Christians capable of selfless love?

J

Joeman

Eviiiiiiiil Clown
Registered Senior Member
Jesus preached selfless love in the bible, but I wonder if Christians are capable of doing what he preached.

Selfless means a person do something but except nothing in return.

Christians have to love God and love people so that they can get to heaven. That sounds awefully selfish. Christians do what God tells them to do in order to please God. That's selfish.

Selfless love is more like people who knew they are going to hell but still do good things and expect nothing in return.
 
Joeman: Jesus preached selfless love in the bible, but I wonder if Christians are capable of doing what he preached.
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M*W: There is no proof that Jesus ever existed, so there is no proof that he ever preached anything. I believe Jesus to be just a myth, so there is nothing in the bible that Jesus actually said.
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Joeman: Selfless means a person do something but except nothing in return.
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M*W: The NT was written and influenced by Paul of Tarsus who based his fictional character, Jesus, on the collective 16-25 dying demigod saviors who preceded him.
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Joeman: Christians have to love God and love people so that they can get to heaven. That sounds awefully selfish. Christians do what God tells them to do in order to please God. That's selfish.
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M*W: Christians love who they believe to be their creator, and yes, this is selfishly convenient for them. God, however, I believe is the Sun who has been anthropomorphized through human history.
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Joeman: Selfless love is more like people who knew they are going to hell but still do good things and expect nothing in return.
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M*W: Your analogy is true. Hell is taken from the city in Egypt called Heliopolis. Early humans feared and awed the Sun. It was the Sun who created and sustains life, but the Sun gives no judgment to mankind except in their own frail minds.

You won't find an argument from me here. I'm on your side.
 
Paul's letters explain over and over again that the desire to do good works should be the natural side-effect of a Christian life. This is not entirely untrue, either. I don't really know what to say beyond that yes, some people will be motivated out of salvation but that is not the case with everyone. Some people legitimately desire to do good works for their inherent value as Christlike actions.

Works that are done solely for salvation are selfish. There are people who might perform kind acts entirely out of the desire to go to heaven after they've died. The mindset of having no afterlife is probably a better one for cultivating less selfishness in this sense, of course - the notion of (and heavy emphasis on) salvation is detrimental to the effort to encourage the desire to do moral acts but does not entirely kill it, like your post seems to imply.

I live in a very liberal church. Many people here hold that there is no hell (because of its conflicting nature with God's gracious forgiveness and unconditional love). But, these people are not radically immoral, expecting just to be saved by God's grace in the end and finding no reason to live Christlike lives. They still live out a good life to (often) the best of their abilities. But, they are still Christian. For me, that is reason enough to believe that Christian acts are not always based on the prerequisite of salvation: my Christian friends who feel that they will be saved regardless of what they do are still acting out good lives.
 
Lori_7: You can't fake or force love...not true love.
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M*W: Sure you can, it's done all the time in Christian churches everywhere! Fear is the absence of love, and Christianity preaches fear. Therefore, there is no love to be found in Christianity -- only fear. True love can only be found where there are no conditions to meet (i.e. obey God and Jesus and end up in heaven, etc.). True love cannot be experienced when one RECEIVES physical, emotional, spiritual or intellectual gratifications from the giver, because fear will always accompany the potential loss of these 'gifts'. True love is experienced when one GIVES of himself those physical, emotional, spiritual or intellectual gifts to others as these are not based on fear but love.
 
You can't fake or force love...not true love.

Capture-bonding, or social reorientation when captured from one warring tribe to another was an essential survival trait (especially for women) for at least a million years. Those who so reoriented often became our ancestors. Those who did not were often killed.

When captured and escape is not possible, giving up short of dying and adjusting to the new is good for genetic survival. Over evolutionary times genes would become more common if the genes built brains/minds able to dump previous emotional attachments when captured and forge new social bonds to the captors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome
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I said true love...as in true, not false or fake.

Why are you guys so hung up on organized religion? It's not about being a member of some organization....you may as well join a country club, or maybe the KKK...it's about knowing God personally and having a relationship with Him. If all of you are as intelligent as you are constantly claiming, then why is this concept so difficult to grasp?
 
If all of you are as intelligent as you are constantly claiming, then why is this concept so difficult to grasp?

Could it be that the concept of a personal god is merely that which is created from ones imagination and has no basis in reality?

It's easy to imagine a personal god.

It's also easy to have a relationship with a personal god.

What is not so easy to grasp is how someone could do such a thing and believe it to be reality.
 
Lori_7 said:
Why are you guys so hung up on organized religion?
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b/c it divides people,teaches you to avoid or hate and even kill those who dont share your particular type of fantasy belief...
not to mention it exploits the people financialy.
or do you think churches do something productive such as create jobs,
or feed the hungry,build hospitals and so on... with all those billions of $$$
they colect TAX FREE!

www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/shields_18_1.html :(
It's not about being a member of some organization....
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sure it is,
and every one of these organized cults thinks they are better than any other, that their belief is the True one.
...it's about knowing God personally and having a relationship with Him.
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having a realtionship with an IMAGINARY friend is no relationship at all,its a fantasy....I prefer real people.
 
The atrocities of organized religion are apparent. What I'm saying is let's move on. It's obvious that it's not what God is or even is about. So why not stop using it as an excuse not to get to know Him?
 
of course christians are capable of self-less love.

and why do you even need to make it specific to christians.

Wouldn't a better question be "are humans capable of self-less love?"

which of course they are.
 
there is no such thing as "selfless-love"
it is practically impossible to do things for others without taking in consideration your own needs!
 
yank said:
there is no such thing as "selfless-love"
it is practically impossible to do things for others without taking in consideration your own needs!
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What about people who dive onto grenades?

Hypothetical....

You are one of the only two people left on the planet. Your friend, the only other person alive, is about to fall off a cliff. You are able to save them, but if you do, you'll die. Lets say that you in fact save them, because you love them. What the f*ck do you get out of that? :eek:
 
i'll tell you what..
wouldn't you try to protect your life as well while tryin to save your friend??
or would you just give your friend a hand and dive into the cliff without caring much about yourself???
now why the f*ck would you do this?
 
the hypothetical says that you can either save your friend and die, or let your friend die. It's a hypothetical. You can't change it.

thanks for telling me what yanky doodle.
 
ok i agree with your "hypothetical"
but even when you know your gonna die... wouldn't you even think once that you can as well TRY to save yourself??
if it works good if it doesnt no worries!
but wouldn't you wanna save yourself too???
 
you would want to save yourself sure. and you could try.

but if it was your little sister. you'd happily die for her. wouldn't you?
 
Ozymandias said:
Paul's letters explain over and over again that the desire to do good works should be the natural side-effect of a Christian life. This is not entirely untrue, either. I don't really know what to say beyond that yes, some people will be motivated out of salvation but that is not the case with everyone. Some people legitimately desire to do good works for their inherent value as Christlike actions.
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Actually Paul said doing "works" is the physical manifestation of those being "chosen" for salvation, to put it more accurately. This means those who love are not doing it by free will but by "irresistable grace".

I live in a very liberal church.
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Sounds like a cult. :D

Many people here hold that there is no hell (because of its conflicting nature with God's gracious forgiveness and unconditional love).
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They are correct, but for an entirely different reason. Hell is a bad translation. There are at least 4 different words used in the bible that I am aware of are translated into hell, but none of them mean "hell".
 
Jeremirroer said:
you would want to save yourself sure. and you could try.

but if it was your little sister. you'd happily die for her. wouldn't you?
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i wouldn't find reason to die for my sister if i still could try to think of saving myself too.. don't tell me you wouldn't even think fur a moment "is there a way i can save myself too?" and if there isn't i would die happily tryin to save myself in the process too!
 
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