You know that love exists? Who doesn't believe that love exists?
Your previous comment about love...indicates to me that you do not share my interpretation of that word..
*God is love? Yes, but the human idea of love is immature and unevolved"........*
Jesus was/is *human*..with the whole gamut of human feeling and emotion, and the liberty to respond to his own thoughts and feelings.
So, NO!! The *human idea of love" ...is NOT.."immature and unevolved".!!! As you wrote first.....it is as he presented it! There is nothing at all immature and unevolved...in recognising and understanding the most profound need of love...and nothing at all immature and unevolved in his KNOWING FOR SURE...that his chances of avoiding the most horrible, painful death ..were remote...impossible even..once he began his path as "son of god"... He knew what would happen ...he knew that he was standing absolutely alone, against some of the most cruel, most powerful men of his time. He was an outsider, bearing rejection, hate, the death wishes of the powerful...and KNOWING..that he did...
I do not think that you have, yet, seen the truth of the love in his life. He was fearless, on behalf of the poor, rejected, outcast, and you too.
You quote bits of a book, as if this is all the evidence there is, but of course that is not so! The evidence, is in the experience. It is in recognition. I mean..recognition of one man, alone, with god, taking the lonliest, most frightful path to torture and death, in full awareness of what he was doing, and the pain he knew he must face... I don't have the smallest interest, in this or that interpretation of bits of book. There is no miracle, no spirituality, no religious practice or vision...that has more strength and power than that Love that knows no boundaries. The *story* is not the source of power. Strength comes from knowing, from experiencing, the qualia? Of Love and loving. Everyone who felt touched by it ..everyone who feels touched by it now..has that power burnt into his heart. Its a flame ...just like a flame...that will never be extiguished.
So, Satan? All those bad good or indifferent spirits, angels? All the magic layered on by primitive religious practices with its heavy threats and promises of heavens and hells? There's nothing in any of it..nothing at all, to be afraid of. Just mythology, tales of imagination, all fears, sadness, mistakes, all just washed away in that light, that warmth.
You know that love exists? Who doesn't believe that love exists?
Even in the most basic JC story, love is there? So, when He killed the fig tree, that was love? When He tore up the money lenders tables, that was love? When He initially refused to help the woman who's child was possessed or mentally disabled, that was love? When He said "I come to bring the sword", that was love? Jesus was a complicated being, we all are. No one is all good with no bad parts at all.
When you give your life because of love? Jesus had to bestow upon the earth to experience what it was like to be human so that when He finished He could judge who could enter heaven. The door to heaven was not opened until Jesus finished His earthly bestowal. So, He was never going to stay here forever. He did not have to die the way He did though, He chose not to interfere and allow the crucifixion to continue so the angels would develop more respect for Him.
When someone purposely stomps on your toe, that's not love.
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