The Choice to Love

[lunamoth]

Choice as illusion, love as illusion. I don't know. It seems to me the choice to love is something to sink your teeth into:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.


Dopp, I understand your idea that commandment, duty, are the antithesis of love. If I really know that my sister and I are one, there is no need for duty to be selfless and consider the needs of others.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

I'm enquiring about it applied to "loving God," that is the image or idea held of creatorship in which "I" participate (either as created or co-creator, whatever idea is held). To put it another way, could anyone who holds to God not love God?

I've no better definition of "choice" at the moment. Do you have one?

I think as far as having a choice is concerned, we have that choice when we experience the act of making a choice. We can discuss free will, and add deterministic patterns to the choice and remove our freedom from it, but then we'll experience it again, and free ourselves.

In that way, we have both free choice, and no choice.

But that is part of co-creation, eh? We are at once a part of and separate from everything else and live and grow within a mind that is at once a prison and freedom.

Love is understanding. From the Moody Blues song "The Balance":

And he thought of those he angered,
For he was not a violent man,
And he thought of those he hurt
For he was not a cruel man
And he thought of those he frightened
For he was not an evil man,
And he understood.
He understood himself.

Upon this he saw that when he was of anger or knew hurt or felt fear,
It was because he was not understanding,
And he learned, compassion.

And with his eye of compassion.
He saw his enemies like unto himself,
And he learned love.
Then, he was answered.

We choose to love "God" when we attempt to understand the concept and give it power. When we fear "God," we can choose to understand it, or bow down to it. In understanding it, we choose to create love. In bowing down to it, we choose to create hate, but the potential for love is in accepting the role of co-creator; both of the Self and God, the twin reflections of reality.

 

[doppelganger]

Love is understanding. From the Moody Blues song "The Balance":

Love the Moody Blues. I just heard "The Question" on the radio this morning. :rainbow1:

But in the grey of the morning
My mind becomes confused
Between the dead and the sleeping
And the road that I must choose.

I'm looking for someone to change my life.
I'm looking for a miracle in my life.
And if you could see what it's done to me
To lose the the love I knew
Could safely lead me to
The land that I once knew.
To learn as we grow old
The secrets of our souls.

It's not the way that you say it
When you do those things to me.
It's more the way you really mean it
When you tell me what will be.

Why do we never get an answer
When we're knocking at the door?
With a thousand million questions
About hate and death and war.

It's where we stop and look around us
There is nothing that we need.
In a world of persecution
That is burning in its greed.

Why do we never get an answer
When we're knocking at the door?

 

[Guitar's Cry]

Love the Moody Blues. I just heard "The Question" on the radio this morning. :rainbow1:

But in the grey of the morning
My mind becomes confused
Between the dead and the sleeping
And the road that I must choose.

I'm looking for someone to change my life.
I'm looking for a miracle in my life.
And if you could see what it's done to me
To lose the the love I knew
Could safely lead me to
The land that I once knew.
To learn as we grow old
The secrets of our souls.

It's not the way that you say it
When you do those things to me.
It's more the way you really mean it
When you tell me what will be.

Why do we never get an answer
When we're knocking at the door?
With a thousand million questions
About hate and death and war.

It's where we stop and look around us
There is nothing that we need.
In a world of persecution
That is burning in its greed.

Why do we never get an answer
When we're knocking at the door?

Which works great, since it's from the A Question of Balance album from which "Question" is the first song, and "The Balance" is the last.

"Question" is the question, and "Balance" is the answer.

 

[Don Penguinoini]

That's what I would call "no choice but to love God."

I see. But what i am saying is for me. It is just for me. Maybe also for some other people, but not in general.

 

[dingdongknockknock]

If God loves u unconditionally, enough to create you, wouldnt you love God? I mean there is no force in the matter it is pure choice.

 

[Draka]

You can most certainly choose not to love God. Doesn't it all depend on how you see God and what God you see?

If you believe in the Abrahamic version of God then it is also possible to believe in the being called Lucifer. Many people see Lucifer to be the truly good one and that God is the vengeful and evil one. If you see Lucifer to be the one who brought knowledge and light to human beings and God as the vindictive abusive parent...it becomes quite easy to choose not to love Him.

 

[Blentyn chan Celi]

God gave us a choice. He didnt just make all of us programmed to love him. If you believe in him which i do, you love him.

Not so!
Belief in God is not synonimis with love of God.

James 2:19 - "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder."

All men have an awareness of God (IMO), but plainly not all men love him. I think the hang up in this thread is on the definition of “Love.”

 

[tomspug]

Very true. The choice to believe in God and the choice to love God are very separate.

It is better to say that to love God is to obey Him.

 

[logician]

Is it better to have a choice to love God, or no choice but to love God? Why or why not?

What if a supposed god is not worthy of love, for example, a malevolent god, then let's hope you have a choice.