Can God love?

Greatest I am said:
I would think that all emotions, to be true emotions, need to be shared. They should all have a recipient and the circle is not complete till acknowledged.

Positive emotions are what we send out to others. They are in a sense gifts. What good is a gift if it does not get to where it is sent?
Click to expand...

Ah, so the no true Scotsman fallacy, huh? So how do you explain the subjective experience of emotion prior to, and the motivation for, such expression? What is this feeling which may prompt an emotional expression if not already an emotion?

You are conflating a communication cycle with emotion where there is insufficient reason to do so. You've even said that the perceived expression doesn't need to be objectively distinguishable from neutral behavior. This puts emotion squarely in the subjective realm, where your "true emotions need to be shared" definitely does not apply.

So what about hate? What is it that a person exerts an effort to inhibit the expression of? If hate doesn't exist until expressed, what is the target of such self-control?
 
Every altruistic act and emotion has a self-serving component to it.
That is likely the motivator for all emotion. As we live, all we ever do is either cooperate or compete with each other. Cooperation is favored by our survival instincts.

If whatever positive emotion is being sent out is returned, then both parties are gratified and rewarded. If not, then the initiator gets survival points and the other gets nothing.

If love happens to be the emotion being sent out, and it is not returned, the fullness of that exchange is incomplete and thus we can say that they did not share the rewards and that true love did not come about.

BTW. I am French, not Scottish.

Regards
DL
 
I'm satisfied that the OP was as fully addressed as it could be, given no evidence of a deity is present. We might further conclude from logically known expectations:

--Child/mother closeness during fetal stages continues to strengthen as bonding, during breastfeeding. Mother is initial major "love structure" for infant. Depending on father's voice and vibrational interplay levels during these early periods would probably determine the child's perspective on individuality, fear of non-mother entities, and other baser dynamics of early social/psychological implantation, and behaviors.

--Mothers were probably the first deity figures.

--Anti-mother/alternate male deities, and other deities may have initially risen from missing or dead mother situations, where fathers, other family members, other available parenting surrogates did not instill or satisfy the close child/ mother relationship.

We should not conclude or observe the initial mother/child relationship as one that involves two individuals, but the "splitting" of one complete individual that continues as a close relationship as two freshly-separated individuals.

This should add to one's database of conceptual notions of "an individual's love and a more complex, vaster state of individuality".
 
Last edited by a moderator:
This is rather long but shows how right you are on the ancient role of the female Goggess.
She lasted way longer than the male God to date.

Our male Gods have proven themselves to be quite the pricks and will not last much longer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU1bEmq_pf0

You are right on with female child bonding. Science is showing that with some animals, even geographical maps get imprinted on the newborn before birth.

Who can say what humans are capable of.

Regards
DL
 
Greatest I am said:
Every altruistic act and emotion has a self-serving component to it.
That is likely the motivator for all emotion. As we live, all we ever do is either cooperate or compete with each other. Cooperation is favored by our survival instincts.

If whatever positive emotion is being sent out is returned, then both parties are gratified and rewarded. If not, then the initiator gets survival points and the other gets nothing.

If love happens to be the emotion being sent out, and it is not returned, the fullness of that exchange is incomplete and thus we can say that they did not share the rewards and that true love did not come about.

BTW. I am French, not Scottish.
Click to expand...

Apropos that you don't know what a logical fallacy is.

For example, you've completely missed the point that, whether emotion or self-serving interest, such motivation exists independently of any expression, just as you've already admitted by asserting that neutral behavior can be "taken" as reciprocity. You are also assuming your conclusion without supporting it. You assume that some kind of later reward must reify the motivation before the motivator is granted. This is reversed cause and effect.

As I already told you, "fullness of exchange" applies to a communication cycle, not the existence of an emotion. If all motivators had to be accomplished before they could be said to exist then nothing could be initiated.
 
Hypocrites. How can you disregard the male authority for it's 'inadequacies' and then go and do exactly the same thing??!
 
Hypocrits. How can you disregard the male authority for it's 'inadequacies' and then praise the female for exactly the same inadequacies??!
 
Jan Ardena said:
Do you think well fed people are more loved by God because they don't starve.

jan.
Click to expand...

this is a valid premise...not worthy of your guys's snarkness..
this is an issue that gets addressed in some of the better churches..(mine does)

what is it that you expect of God?
is your expectations of God reasonable?
is it reasonable to expect God to grant your wishes?
Is it reasonable to assume that God is in the lives of the prosperous and not in the lives of the destitute just because of their social/economic standing?

granted alot of this attitude is encouraged by most churches..this does not make it true..with just a little scrutiny(study of the bible) this is revealed.


i think this is a case of those that have, using God as an excuse to feel better about themselves..

you have seen my argument about a persons failure to act being blamed on God,(why does God let X happen?)

same thing applies here..if a person is starving it is not Gods fault that he is starving..it is the fault of those that see him starving and refuse to feed him..

Can God love?

sure, but it isn't love as us humans describe it,

lets look at the extremes of the question..
Is it Love to give a person everything they ever wanted?
Is it Love to have someone tell us what to do constantly?(or to give us the answers constantly?)

do not mistake Gods lack of interpersonal communication, as a lack of Love.
as parents we are required to love our kids so much as to be silent and let them make their own way in the world and distance ourselves from them so they can be the responsible ppl that we have raised.

like it was said earlier in this thread..emotions tend to be a selfish means, IOW if you loved someone and it would be in their best interest for you to leave that person, would you?
Do you love them enough to let them go?

of course this isn't addressing the current attitudes of what love is,
IE;
Lets live together and see if this works if it doesn't then we can just split up,this doesn't sound like Love..this sounds like a means of self protection.
(sorry, i used to argue about living together is ok, but recently i am being convinced(by God) of the the validity of the churches attitude about 'living in sin')
 
NMSquirrel said:
what is it that you expect of God?
is your expectations of God reasonable?
is it reasonable to expect God to grant your wishes?
Is it reasonable to assume that God is in the lives of the prosperous and not in the lives of the destitute just because of their social/economic standing?
/.../

lets look at the extremes of the question..
Is it Love to give a person everything they ever wanted?
Is it Love to have someone tell us what to do constantly?(or to give us the answers constantly?)

do not mistake Gods lack of interpersonal communication, as a lack of Love.
as parents we are required to love our kids so much as to be silent and let them make their own way in the world and distance ourselves from them so they can be the responsible ppl that we have raised.

like it was said earlier in this thread..emotions tend to be a selfish means, IOW if you loved someone and it would be in their best interest for you to leave that person, would you?
Do you love them enough to let them go?
Click to expand...

This line of reasoning, however, is sometimes used as a way to make the point that one shouldn't ask anything of God, shouldn't hope for anything from God - in fact, that it would be best if one just vanished into thin air.


With this kind of reasoning, a person can be talked out of anything, and effectively into suicide.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top