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 Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 4:08 pm
What does your religion say about love and forgiving our enemies? Here's what I found in the Bible on the subject:
LOVE:
"And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you" Thessalonians 3:12
"These things I command you, that ye love one another." John 15:17
"For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" Galatians 5:14
FORGIVENESS:
"If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins." Matthew 6:14-15
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Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 3:58 am
Well ...I'm kind of in a ...religious upheaval at the moment. I can tell you what Satanism's views on love and forgiveness are though. The Satanic Bible "Love one another" it has been said is the supreme law, but what power made it so? Upon what rational authority does the gospel of love rest? Why should I not hate mine enemies - if I "love" them does that not place me at their mercy? 2. Is it natural for enemies to do good unto each other - and WHAT IS GOOD? 3. Can the torn and bloody victim "love" the blood-splashed jaws that rend him limb from limb? 4. Are we not all predatory animals by instinct? If humans ceased wholly from preying upon each other, could they continue to exist? 5. Is not "lust and carnal desire" a more truthful term to describe "love" when applied to the continuance of the race? Is not the "love" of the fawning scriptures simply a euphemism for sexual activity, or was the "great teacher" a glorifier of eunuchs? 6. Love your enemies and do good to them that hate and use you - is this not the despicable philosophy of the spaniel that rolls upon its back when kicked? 7. Hate your enemies with a whole heart, and if a man smite you on one cheek, SMASH him on the other!; smite him hip and thigh, for self-preservation is the highest law! 8. He who turns the other cheek is a cowardly dog! 9. Give blow for blow, scorn for scorn, doom for doom - with compound interest liberally added thereunto! Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, aye four-fold, a hundred-fold! Make yourself a Terror to your adversary, and when he goeth his way, he will possess much additional wisdom to ruminate over. Thus shall you make yourself respected in all the walks of life, and your spirit - your immortal spirit - shall live, not in an intangible paradise, but in the brains and sinews of those whose respect you have gained. The Satanic Bible Satanism represents kindness to those who deserve it instead of love wasted on ingrates! You cannot love everyone; it is ridiculous to think you can. If you love everyone and everything you lose your natural powers of selection and wind up being a pretty poor judge of character and quality. If anything is used too freely it loses its true meaning. Therefore, the Satanist believes you should love strongly and completely those who deserve your love, but never turn the other cheek to your enemy! Love is one of the most intense emotions felt by man; another is hate. Forcing yourself to feel indiscriminate love is very unnatural. If you try to love everyone you only lessen your feelings for those who deserve your love. Repressed hatred can lead to many physical and emotional ailments. By learning to release your hatred towards those who deserve it, you cleanse yourself of these malignant emotions and need not take your pent-up hatred out on your loved ones. There has never been a great "love" movement in the history of the world that hasn't wound up killing countless numbers of people, we must assume, to prove how much they loved them! Every hypocrite who ever walked the earth has had pockets buldging with love! Every pharisaical religionist claims to love his enemies, even though when wronged he consoles himself by thinking "God will punish them". Instead of admitting to themselves that they are capable of hating their foes and treating them in the manner they deserve, they say: "There, but for the grace of God, go I," and "pray" for them. Why should we humiliate and lower ourselves by drawing such inaccurate comparisons? Satanism has been thought of as being synonymous with cruelty and brutality. This is so only because people are afraid to face the truth - and the truth is that human beings are not all benign or all loving. Just because the Satanist admits he is capable of both love and hate, he is considered hateful. On the contrary, because he is able to give vent to his hatred through ritualized expression, he is far more capable of love - the deepest kind of love. By honestly recognizing and admitting to both the hate and the love he feels, there is no confusing one emotion with the other. Without being able to experience one of these emotions, you cannot fully experience the other. The Satanic Bible The Satanist realizes that man, and the action and reaction of the universe, is responsible for everything, and doesn't mislead himself into thinking that someone cares. No longer will we sit back and accept "fate" without doing anything about it, just because it says so in Chapter such and such, Psalm so and so - and that's that! The Satanist knows that praying does absolutely no good - in fact, it actually lessens the chance of success, for the devoutly religious too often sit back complacently and pray for a situation which, if they were to do something about it on their own, could be accomplished much quicker! The Satanist shuns terms such as "hope" and "prayer" as they are indicative of apprehension. If we hope and pray for something to come about, we will not act in a positive way which will make it happen. The Satanist, realizing that anything he gets is of his own doing, takes command of the situation instead of praying to God for it to happen. Positive thinking and positive action add up to results. Just as the Satanist does not pray to God for assistance, he does not pray for forgiveness for his wrong doings. In other religions, when one commits a wrong he either prays to God for forgiveness, or confesses to an intermediary and asks him to pray to God for forgiveness for his sins. The Satanist knows that praying does no good, confessing to another human being, like himself, accomplishes even less - and is, furthermore, degrading. When a Satanist commits a wrong, he realizes that it is natural to make a mistake - and if he is truly sorry about what he has done, he will learn from it and take care not to do the same thing again. If he is not honestly sorry about what he has done, and knows he will do the same thing over and over, he has no business confessing and asking forgiveness in the first place. Lengthy, but it works xd
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Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 6:05 am
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Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 7:06 am
I can't add anything to this because AspergersKitty said it all.
^_^
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Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 5:58 pm
Well I'm an extremely Liberal Quaker. Because God is in all, one should have love for all. I mean, I absolutely loathe, for example, nearly everything d**k Cheney does; but I don't hate him. I wouldn't kill him and I would stop someone from killing him.
As for forgiveness, I think there is a difference between forgiving someone and trying to understand where they're coming from. I think that trying to understand where someone is coming from is more important - also an aspect of that universal pathos - than forgiving for the sake of forgiving. I think that forgiveness is more personal and human than spiritual.
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Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 7:32 am
Very intresting, Kleo. I agree that I wouldn't wish death even on those I strongly dislike.
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Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 3:38 pm
As one who follows a Nature-centered path (aka Neopagan) there isn't any set doctrines. I follow a personal Code of Honor however and within it there is a saying that goes something like this:
"Forgive, Forget, but Remember."
Forgive. In essence, those who violate one's own sense of honor deserve second chances. We all make mistakes. Forgive. Most often, apparent tresspass is not made with malevolence, but is accidental or a conflict of interests. The world and othersa aren't out to get you.
Forget. Put the incident out of your mind. Psychologically we have a tendancy to make lasting judgements particularly when we feel we are wronged. Cast those aside and approach the sittuation or person afresh. Put it in the past where it belongs and resolve to move forward.
Remember. There comes a time after these two parts (and on some rare occasions, before) that one should remember the misgivings and trespasses for your own protection. It can be unwise to be too forgiving as it leaves you vulnerable to abuse from others.
Aside from that, it's hard for me to stay upset at anything for very long with a few exceptions since I see all things as interconneted and intrinsically Sacred and of equal value. All things are like brothers and sisters, human or not human.
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Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 8:07 pm
Uzomas View
When feuding with someone, no matter how much you despise them, make an effort at reconciliation, or at least ask them to leave you alone, however, if that person refuses, then mark them as an enemy, and do all that you can to make them regret their actions. If this is not possible, then merely sit back, relac, and be content in the knowledge that they are inferior to yourself.
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Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 8:57 pm
I follow the Buddhist belief that existence is suffering. I also believe that if all existence is suffering I should help others on their path through life.
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Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 8:21 pm
So we have Christian, Satanists, Neo-Pagan, and Buddist. Anyone else want to share their religous views? There are still some other religions out there.
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Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 12:42 pm
Two of Jesus's teachings that I've seen alot of people know but never practice are 'love thy neighbor' and 'love thy enemy'. If you look at all of the hatred bore by those described above, they can recite both and yet when someone of another faith comes along, they at7tack them verbally, and some of the more sychotic one attack physically (KKK for example). To these people, those two teachings seem selective, applying it towards only people or religions they care about. Telling someone what they believe is wrong is not loving your neighbor. It's trying to force one's own beliefs upon another, which is not an act of love.
The Kemetic views of love is the act of caring for others, yet at the same time we also give respect to others. We don't pounce on other faiths, but rather take the time to understand them, the hows and whys of thier faiths. Love is accepting someone for who they are, not what they are. Hate the sin, not the sinner. That is why if the heart-soul (ka) of a person fails the weighing of the heart, the true soul (ba) is not destroyed but reborn. The ka is destroyed (the heart soul, who that person was in that life) and a new ka is bestowed upon the reborn ba. I do not believe in retribution on our part: I leave that to Mother Sekhmet (That so happens to be one of Her specialties razz ) If someone who has done wrong in this life is not punished, they will be punished in the next.
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Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 10:22 pm
AspergersKitty What does your religion say about love and forgiving our enemies? Here's what I found in the Bible on the subject: LOVE: "And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you" Thessalonians 3:12 "These things I command you, that ye love one another." John 15:17 "For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" Galatians 5:14 FORGIVENESS: "If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins." Matthew 6:14-15 I would agree with Kitty here, not surprisingly, as she has just quoted the Bible. However, one... well, I don't know that I would call it an EXCEPTION, but a footnote of sorts, on the topic of forgiveness. Forgiveness usually means to cease to feel resentment against the person who has wronged you... BUT I think it important to mention that in some cases anyway that does NOT mean letting that person back into your life in a way that they can wrong you again. I say this only because my friend struggled greatly with what she THOUGHT was forgiveness. In truth, she really had forgiven a person who had hurt her. She had no hate toward him, wished him no harm. BUT she was afraid to let him back into her life, for the very valid reason that he was an abusive person. Forgiving someone does NOT mean allowing them to hurt you again.
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Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 5:18 am
ffdarkangel So we have Christian, Satanists, Neo-Pagan, and Buddist. Anyone else want to share their religous views? There are still some other religions out there. Hey, what about my religion? I put forth its view.
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Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 3:07 pm
When I first got started in Christianity, it was surprising to see so much love, when the death of Jesus, and the many wars that have been fought in the name of God were surrounded by so much hate and violence.
As for forgiveness- I see it as a Christian virtue, as well as a virtue for any person, in any religion. I see forgiveness as the first step towards emotinal healing, especially after someone has been faced with some major tragedy, like a woman who's been raped forgiving her rapist, or a wife forgiving her husband, who beats her.
I myself have gone through a fair amount of abuse, and I found that once I had forgiven the one who had hit me or decieved me, I felt better, and was much more at ease with that person afterwards.
I forgive, but I never forget, however.
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Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2007 11:04 am
I think nearly all religions will tell you to love those around you. The only example I've seen where it tells you that love isn't always necessary is Satanism, which is why I could never call myself a Satanist. I love people. Even "enemies". And love for a spouse isn't "lust and carnal desire".
Satanism seems very focused on watching out for you and you alone. And, in my opinion, if you do that....there's no point. Life loses importance, and life loses it's passion.
Pardon me if I'm wrong, because I'm certainly not the Satanism expert. From what I know, what I say is true. please correct me if I've made a mistake; I don't want to continue saying this about something when it's not true.
Christianity tells us to love our enemies, but I'm not sure it's a great example of love all the time.
I have trouble believing that the God who loves me would allow me to go to Hell because I'm not part of his religion.
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