You can talk of priorities in meeting the beloved’s needs, interests and concerns … and it’s the nature of belonging to the same species that one can see to that more efficiently. For instance, I wouldn’t sniff a dog’s butt, no matter how much they would really appreciate it …. I assume I am not alone in this regard ….
That's what I mean with
different kinds of love.
You on the other hand maintain that all love is the same but that it differs in degrees.
Tell me, from your example, do you love your kids in the same way as you love your wife ? They are after all human..
If it’s not practical it doesn’t persevere. For instance if you claim you have a loving relationship with a family in rural china how does that compare to a person who actually is involved in reciprocating with them and understanding their personal needs, interests and concerns? How would you know whether you have put a loving relationship “to the test” unless you have some practical issues to assess?
Are you denying that love can be completely unpractical, and even sometimes undesirable ? I mean
really ? :bugeye:
Maybe start here …..“I love nature because …..” and explain it in a way that wouldn’t be more efficiently explained as “I like nature because …”
I love nature because I need it to be alive, I am part of it.
Nature is awe inspiring and interesting. I really can't describe my feelings about it very well though. The words don't seem to do it justice.
No insult intended
Just indicating that you already have established norms in regard to what constitutes a loving relationship, and that trying to drive home that love is some sort of universal all encompassing verb that one can apply from anyone to anything in any way is not valid.
It is not valid !? Who are you say what and who I can and cannot love ?
And nature isn't just anything, it encompasses all life.
In fact, when I speak of nature in this context I am talking about life in general.
Actually my question is about reciprocation.
There are all sorts of reciprocation, and receiving love back is but one of them.
My point is that if there is absolutely no reciprocation, there is no means for a relationship. I mean in what ways would you explain that your loving relationship with nature has improved (or degenerated) over the past several years in a way that wouldn’t more aptly be framed as a “respectful relationship”. What did you do to nature (or nature do to you) that really made you two strike up a relationship or had a thing going?
I already told you that you don't seem to get the reciprocation nature provides. Your loss.
What is the relationship between god and nature?
I'm sorry ?
Didn't he create all life ? :bugeye:
I see creation as a contingent potency of god.
Sometimes it is explained that creation is like laws and god is the lawmaker.
Eg
(Invocation Isopanisad). The Personality of Godhead is perfect and complete, and because He is completely perfect, all emanations from Him, such as this phenomenal world, are perfectly equipped as complete wholes. Whatever is produced of the Complete Whole is also complete in itself. Because He is the Complete Whole, even though so many complete units emanate from Him, He remains the complete balance.
So the general idea is that by loving god, one develops the right perspective on all his contingent potencies, like creation.
Of course in western religious circles, there is a contemporary prominent idea that creation is somehow separate from god (which catalysed many developments in the way of colonialism, industrialism, capitalism etc … which are now dominant social norms the world over), so examining a historical treatment of this issue doesn’t reveal the right perspective.
I'm not sure... are you conveniently making up your own creation story ?
And if you love God as you claim, you MUST also love nature. Because nature is, in a way, God according to you.
So if a person likes the colour blue, there is something faulty at hand when they start to talk about which shades of blue they like more than other shades?
It's an analogy, it is only meant to display the way you and I differ (apparently) in our view of love.
Even if you don’t love people, that can also be attributed to issues of reciprocation and service.
I never said I don't love people.
As for that last bit, I don't know what that means.
Even if you want to talk of loving all living entities, that is made practical by determining their needs of existence – for instance you seem to agree that keeping a chicken in a cage like that doesn’t indicate a good “service attitude”
Ok..
What about me kicking the shit out of someone that drives over a cat, that wasn't mine, on purpose ?
If you can’t talk about the qualities of the beloved, you have no means to present an understanding.
For instance suppose I was madly in love with a rock star (let’s call him Gumpy Gazza)and this struck you as absurd since you never heard of them.
Then perhaps I could go and talk about how his snake tattoos were really cool and he was really cute the way he has no front teeth and just wait till you listen to the way he burps when he plays the guitar and smashes a beer bottle over the head of his road manager.
At this point you could either agree and say “yeah, Gumpy gazza is the topmost of lovable things” or “Just as I thought, gumpy is a loser and you are a nutcase” or anything in between. If I have nothing to say, you have no scope for making a value assessment.
Familiarity with the name, form, qualities and pastimes of a thing is what paves the way for all sorts of relationships .... My question to you (which you will hopefully address earlier in the piece) is in what ways are your declarations of “loving” nature distinct from “liking” nature.
My point is that nature (or even a dog) will never have the potential capacity to win your heart (or alternatively, piss you off) in a way that a person can, simply on this issue of reciprocation, service and knowledge of name, form, qualities, pastimes.
And as it relates to the OP, god is the topmost person, with all good qualities that we find in others finding their origin in him, ... so therein lies the value in loving him.
If you want to argue that nature offers more potential for great loving exchanges than people, it would seem to suggest that you have experienced something that hampered your love and understanding of people. Actually there has been a long standing dominant paradigm of seeing the purpose of creation simply as something we can just take from to get whatever we need to make us happy in whatever way we imagine. Just now we are perhaps beginning to see how this results in strife and entanglement, so a new sort of paradigm is starting to emerge. So when you talk of “loving nature” I see that as representative of a new way of assessing the purpose of creation. However even though love entails issues of obligational duty, dependence, etc, it is something more sublime than simply assessing issues of purpose (hence the word “love” distinguishes itself from the word “like” even though they might be frequently interchangeable)
You never answered the question. I think you have some major flaws in your mindset, but you will probably say the same about me. On top of that, people like you vastly outnumber people like me.
