All religions have one central message, not usually stated, but resembling the following: ‘You need to improve, and you need us to help you. You’re no good just as you are. Do whatever we tell you and you’ll have great reward, disobey us and you will spend eternity in hell.’ This seems to me to be the opposite of what church is supposed to be. Shouldn't it be a place to learn love, forgiveness, and tolerance? If churches were really tolerant, they would love and accept all their members just as they are. If churches really understood love, they would love even those whose beliefs and lifestyles were way different.

There is something called unconditional love. This is supposed to be better than ‘regular’ love. Unconditional love is accepting of everything. Jesus, whether historical or not, was a model of unconditional love: he turned water into wine to help his Mom, spoke with a Samaritan woman, healed anyone who asked, and sat down to eat with ‘sinners’. Unconditional love is a somewhat rare quality.

What I’ve realized is this: unconditional love is the only love. There is no other kind. Anything professed as ‘love’, but with conditions is not love. It is a contract, offered by someone who wants you as part of their personal support system. Fail to provide what they want, and their ’love’ is withdrawn.

So, if it’s not unconditional love, it’s not love at all. The purpose of religion should be to help people find unconditional love. If they’re going to stand in judgment of you because they see you as a sinner, non-believer or non-conformist, what do you need them for? You can get that anywhere.

So, I look back on all my years of Mormonism, and I ask, has all of that striving improved me? When I sit quietly by myself in a dark room, eyes closed, I sense I’m exactly the same person I’ve always been. The same awareness of the world around me has never changed. Only my opinion of the world changes. I’m no better or worse. Just letting go the belief that I need to improve or repent has been totally liberating.

I exist, I’m aware that I exist, just being exactly as I AM.

If I believe in a God, it is one who accepts me just as I am, just as the sun shines on everyone the same, no questions asked.

Well, that rules out Jesus. His condition is to accept him or else no eternal life for you.

I think there are all kinds of love, but unconditional is the hardest to find.

madeguy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> All religions have one central message, not
> usually stated, but resembling the following:
> ‘You need to improve, and you need us to help
> you. You’re no good just as you are. Do whatever
> we tell you and you’ll have great reward,
> disobey us and you will spend eternity in hell.’

"All religions" are not as you have described them here.

If you had limited your remarks by referring to "All Christian religions," I would have no real quarrel with your words (even though I'm pretty sure that, even among specifically Christian religions, not all are as you have characterized them here--for example: Unitarians, Christian Science, Unity School of Christianity, etc.).

I was raised, concurrently, as Hindu and metaphysical (with a dollop of Buddhism added for a few years), and I am now a Jew, and I can say with certainty that your words do not describe Hinduism, metaphysics, Buddhism, Judaism, or Native American religions (or, very likely, all or very nearly "all" indigenous religions around the globe).

I know that the widely-accepted belief that "everyone" is some kind of Christian is a common underlying assumption (in my life understanding: this is true particularly among Americans), but this assumption is not true EXCEPT for those who either actively self-identify as Christian, or who default to "Christian" if prompted to identify their religious beliefs.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2022 02:15PM by Tevai.

Well yes, I could have been more specific. I have only belonged to two religions, Catholic and Mormon, both Christian, though I have more than a passing familiarity with non-dual traditions like Advaita Vedanta.

The Catholic church is not as controlling as the Mormon church, but unconditional love is still quite a stretch for them.

madeguy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well yes, I could have been more specific. I have
> only belonged to two religions, Catholic and
> Mormon, both Christian, though I have more than a
> passing familiarity with non-dual traditions like
> Advaita Vedanta.

Advaita Vedanta (the Vedanta Society of Southern California; specifically the Hollywood Temple, directly across the freeway from the Capitol Tower) is the base (beginning in my very early elementary school years) of my religious knowledge and understanding. I still run new-to-me Jewish tenets (I'm doing some advanced philosophical learning right now) through what I learned at the Vedanta Hollywood Temple, starting when I was about age four or so.


> The Catholic church is not as controlling as the
> Mormon church, but unconditional love is still
> quite a stretch for them.

From what I know, I agree.

The God of the OT is an example of a VERY conditional personality. The laws alone that many Jews try to follow show extreme conditional thinking when it comes to following that God (out of love or fear). I'm not sure that is any better than some Christian ideas of conditional love.

Agreed. The description sounds mostly like Christianity, though I’d put Islam in there too. The God of The Book is a cranky old coot. Maybe he got sand in his underwear from hanging out in the desert for all those centuries.

Lovely post. I think you would love Byron Katie's Loving What Is and Eckhart Tolle's Power of Now. Maybe you've already read them. :)

Romantic love is different than other types of love. Love (the emotions) and Loving (the actions). Loving should be actions consistent with love u have for individuals or family, others.

If it's conditional, it is not love.

It's something like a system of judgment, reward and punishment.

The above line has been used in two movies, with the same male actor being the recipient of the line

In the first movie, which I didn't actually see because I used to be a manly man and wouldn't be caught brooding in a chick movie, I understand after hearing the line, the actor portrayed himself as being totally smitten...or maybe he was already smitten?

The next time the line was used, in the second movie, a different actress delivered the same line to the same male actor who'd heard it in the first movie, but this time there was an immediate response: "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."


And yes, love CAN be unconditional, but few people can afford it.


I sat through two showings of "What's Up, Doc".  It's in my will that it is to be screened at my funeral rehearsal, but not the actual funeral, which will feature "Let it Ride".

"he turned water into wine to help his Mom"

I'm sure Jesus was the life of any party. Plus, why stop at wine with the ability to bring partygoers back from the dead?

The church was the codependent partner you walked away from. You know, the high maintenance gaslighting control freak. So yup, you're free. Let that gold digging whore find somebody else to suck dry.

I have no doubt that many here believe the opening paragraph of this thread and thus see it as true. I do however reject it in full. The whole premise of Christianity is that the salvation it preaches comes entirely as a free gift. One has to do nothing to receive it except place their trust in the one offering the gift. Christianity teaches that it is a free gift just as you are from the moment that you receive it. The gift comes first. The changed life is what follows out of gratitude for the gift already given.

Free as in free beer? Free love? Free ride?

Let me re-introduce my God as incubus hypothesis. You have this resulting demigod selling us a bill of goods, promising a write-off of karmic debt that is founded upon wishful thinking.

Unconditional love could just be a form of nihilism. If anything goes, then what?

Some people don't understand freedom as others do

They want to make fun of it (until they lose it).
And boy, can we lose it! Just like LOVE.

Some lose it and never find it again...

That's why you've got to make it!

With conditions, your life will be conditional.

Life is free. We all have a different vision.

Of what FREE is... and how to make life freeing for others.

So, if someone doesn't take the free gift, it's OK to kill them. That's not a gift. It's a form of extortion over the idea of an afterlife.

Reread the opening statement in this thread. My post is in response to that not s debate on whether or not the Christian position is right or wrong.

I read it differently. To me, the opening statement implies that we need to take the gift (as improvement or help). Jesus is needed to do it.

I do understand your view though, and what specific point you are making. I am just adding my view that there is nothing unconditional about Christianity. Opinions will vary of course.

This follows on bradley's post.

I've been meaning to quibble with madeguy over the scope of his assertion. There are many possible gods, including ones that do not exhibit virtuous qualities. So what you are describing is a subset of theistic possibilities, a God who is both omnipotent and all-loving. I think most of us would agree that is the only sort of deity deserving of worship.

Moreover on a human level--and this is where I feel bradley is on to something important--unconditional love is only appropriate in specific circumstances. The best example is parental love for an infant. Such love is both possible because of the parent's superiority in so many ways and essential to the healthy development of the child. Parents should therefore aspire to unconditional love in those circumstances. I frankly believe a lot of adults do quite well on that score.

But is unconditional love always appropriate among adults? I say it is not. Put differently, there are things that love should not embrace or tolerate. I don't know what the list of such things would include--or, better yet, I think everyone has her own list and that caveats would apply to many of the entries. But prominent among candidates for love-cancelling actions are infidelity, spousal abuse, child abuse, grave crimes like murder, etc. Anyone who accepts such behavior in a love partner may, in bradley's terms, succumb to emotional and moral nihilism.

I therefore suggest that unconditional love is essential for any deity worth his salt and for the parents of young and innocent children as well as for those in relationships with adults undergoing physical, mental, or emotional travails that render them temporarily or permanently childlike. In most other circumstances adult love must be conditional.

I can't take it! But I can share it while I have it (my mind). LIFE! Conditions everywhere. I even condition my hair. You ask where? I say everywhere! I might wax my boots, and boards, my beard, and 'de-wax' my candles and ears, but, I don't use nair. I like my hair. I wear it everywhere! Even hair has conditions.

Share (love, life, whatever you have, while you have it)

Give freely
Love happily
Help endlessly

Unconditionally when you can

Have hope
Live deeply

Love is a feeling. Feelings can be very difficult to control.
They tend to come and go on their own.

When I think of my children, the love I feel isn't based on anything they "did". I loved them right from the start.
Therefore, I'm not going to STOP feeling love for them because of anything they "did". I will love them for the rest of my life.

That being said, if someone behaves in a way that is harmful or dangerous, you don't have to let them ruin your life.
It's o.k. to love someone from a distance in order to keep the peace.

And...if that feeling eventually fades, then I guess you don't love them anymore.

Not according to Mormons, it ain't.

SCENARIO:
Do I feel love for you?
Of course I do!You are a wonderful human being!

Do you feel love for me?
That is your choice and I have no control over it. It does not however alter the feeling I have toward you!
How does this compute?

Catholicism begins with the concept of Original Sin, meaning that even the sweetest, most wide-eyed baby was born with a stain on his or her soul. Even as an indoctrinated child, this made zero sense to me.

As a young Catholic child, I was trained to examine my soul weekly against the ten commandments, with thorough instruction given as to the particulars of each commandment. I struggled to come up with enough in the way of "sins" to confess to the priest. Did I think a bad thought about someone? Not obey my parents perfectly? Great, my problem of what to discuss with the priest in the dark confessional was solved. The Catholic church tends to encourage religious scrupulosity when it comes to matters of the soul. It took decades for me to fully shed Catholic guilt.

This thorough moral training left me wholely unprepared for the world. I had no idea that people might try to cheat me, or fool me, or be less than honest with me. I was unprepared when it came to dealing with people with a wide range of serious sins.

This has led me to feel that the emphasis on a spotless soul is rather misplaced. It is said that the perfect is the enemy of the good. There came a point when I decided that "good" was good enough. It was not an emotionally healthy thing to worry about being perfect.

Maybe some other sect or faith gets it right. I like how the Dalai Lama emphasizes kindness and compassion. A friend of mine who grew up UU told me about how her church handled moral instruction for the youth, and it sounded appealing.

I would do anything for LOVE, but I won't go to church!

OK ok I have over played this joke on too many threads. :(

RIP Meatloaf.

But I haven't over played this one...yet...

Louie Louie, oh baby!

Me gotta go now

Aye yai yi yi!

RIP Louie Anderson.

that you accept my love as it is