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The meaning of the word love is more restricted in Greek than in English. Barclay notes that Greek had four different words that are normally translated as love. The Greek words for love for a family member, stergein; sexual love, eros; and deep affection, philia; are not used in this verse. Rather the author of Matthew uses agapan, which Barclay translates as continued benevolence. This term occurs seven more times in Matthew, and 140 times in the NT.[10]
This is the Wikipedia entry for Jesus’ instruction to “love your enemies” in the Gospel of Matthew.
The English word, love, is like a blunt instrument, which is used for all of the Greek words listed above. Surely you have heard the term, agape, which we use today to designate Christian love. Agape is an attitude, not an action. At least that is how I see it. I do not need to love the retail clerk who is waiting on me the way I love my husband. I do need to have an attitude of acceptance, or benevolence. This attitude would be translated into kind actions.
There is a magnificent essay about love in I Corinthians 13, if you care to look it up and read it.
None of us can practice total kindness to everyone all the time. We are imperfect. But just imagine how much better the world would be if we all tried it!
The meaning of the word love is more restricted in Greek than in English. Barclay notes that Greek had four different words that are normally translated as love. The Greek words for love for a family member, stergein; sexual love, eros; and deep affection, philia; are not used in this verse. Rather the author of Matthew uses agapan, which Barclay translates as continued benevolence. This term occurs seven more times in Matthew, and 140 times in the NT.[10]
This is the Wikipedia entry for Jesus’ instruction to “love your enemies” in the Gospel of Matthew.
The English word, love, is like a blunt instrument, which is used for all of the Greek words listed above. Surely you have heard the term, agape, which we use today to designate Christian love. Agape is an attitude, not an action. At least that is how I see it. I do not need to love the retail clerk who is waiting on me the way I love my husband. I do need to have an attitude of acceptance, or benevolence. This attitude would be translated into kind actions.
There is a magnificent essay about love in I Corinthians 13, if you care to look it up and read it.
None of us can practice total kindness to everyone all the time. We are imperfect. But just imagine how much better the world would be if we all tried it!
I think it's in the non-romantic relationship forums, where a lady is talking about how she's engaged to be married to an African man, and how her parents didn't accept this.
She describes how a German missionary had given her fiancé money, and had gotten him into college, but the fiancé (who wasn't her fiancé at the time, just to be clear) had used the money for partying and drinking. He felt awful about it, and guilty, and all those things.
And the amazing thing is, that Missionary forgave this young man, and helped him again, and payed for his schooling. And this young man knew for sure, that what had been done for him was amazing, and appreciated the second chance.
To me, that is a lovely example of agape love. And a beautiful example of love and forgiveness.
On what do you base your idea that "Our society is very focused on compassion"? The country is barring the door to refugees, cutting food programs, undermining the beginnings of broader health care, and seeing the rise of white supremacists.
There are occasional outbursts of kindness, as likely as not to be directed toward a stray dog, but I don't consider us to be a compassionate society overall.
A rational secular society in a modern advanced civilization has no business applying religious texts or dogma to organizational principles or governance or social policy or anything else within the public domain.
So I think if you unpack the "compassion" stuff, and do so objectively, without any bias or preconceived notions of it as a moral good, I think you'll find its not applicable to anything but individual interactions, in the personal sphere.
Our society is very focused on compassion. I doubt any earlier civilizations were this concerned with it.
It may have started with Jesus, and with Buddha. But they may have gotten the idea from something that came before both of them.
The Old Testament says to love your neighbors (who, exactly, are our neighbors?), but Jesus said to also love your enemies. So that means love everyone. Buddha also wanted compassion for all, no matter how horrible a person might be, everyone has God within, so deserves our respect and love.
Ok, this all sounds great on the surface, but I have been thinking it creates dilemmas and paradoxes, and confusion.
It's a whole lot easier to pretend you love everyone than it is to actually love everyone. And the word "love" gets so diluted it becomes impossible to know what it really means.
And then, the people who "love everyone" wind up hating everyone who doesn't love everyone. And our nature, which is similar to all other social animals on earth, really does not accept the idea that everyone deserves our love and respect.
We are built to judge each thing, person, creature, that comes along, as friend or enemy. That is necessary for basic survival. We can't simply turn that off.
So, this is just I thought I am starting to get -- is the current political divisiveness somehow related to our impossible goal of universal compassion?
I know this is vague. This is not the introduction to a formal dissertation. Just thoughts I have had for a long time but never really tried to express.
I personally would like to see less fake compassion, more honest acceptance of nature and our place in it. I know it doesn't feel like it most of the time, but life is a constant fight to survive. We are constantly seeking love and avoiding hate. Going towards whatever we feel is good, running from whatever we feel is bad.
So compassion for everyone would make us go towards everyone and everything, without discriminating.
Of course there is a common sense middle ground, where we prevent ourselves from hating a person because they are gay or black, or whatever is not their fault. But we simply can't, and shouldn't, force ourselves to love every creature, human or non-human.
But if you are Christian, you are supposed to. If you believe Jesus actually said everything he supposedly said.
Political liberals have soaked up a lot of this idea from Christianity and Buddhism. Even the ones who are not religious at all, usually advocate universal compassion, or at least the superficial appearance of it.
I think your assumption that others are faking compassion, or are offering it insincerely, is flawed.
Compassion does not stand alone. It works well with cooperation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hotzcatz
This borders on getting tangled up in living your life according to other people's ideas. First off, if you're going to use their various belief systems as a guide for yourself, find out exactly what those are and validate the sources.
Define your terms. Key words to define would be: love (and there's a variety of different ones), compassion and respect.
If you actually read the Bible and Koran, you'll notice that what's written in there is usually a lot different from what most folks are saying is in there. There's some amazingly huge differences between the written and spoken versions. Frequently, small portions will be taken to mean a lot more than they were probably intended to mean as well. Also, take in context what and when and to whom it was written. When you toss in 'why' it was written, it gets even more interesting. Also, who did the translations and for whom? So, once you've sorted out what the books actually have written in them, and may have figured out what you think you should be doing if you follow those tenets, then you get the task of trying to make it fit in modern times.
It can get pretty complicated. But my advice would be: when in doubt, listen to your mother. Don't bite the neighbors, share your toys and play nice. When given a choice, choose kindness.
Yes. This. Listen to your mother especially if she was nice but still got what she wanted.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lodestar
I much prefer the idea of empathy or understanding. I may not approve of a person's actions but sometimes I can understand them.
This stance helps me not to reward bad behavior but leaves room for the other to change without condemnation. And I hope for the same myself.
I think this is the route I take.
I keep the vast majority of people at a distance intentionally through language so it is actually more difficult for them to ask for specific help. In other words, I let my expectations be known early on.
Those that do ask for help are usually ready to accept my conditions.
Location: Huntersville/Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Good4Nothin
Our society is very focused on compassion. I doubt any earlier civilizations were this concerned with it.
It may have started with Jesus, and with Buddha. But they may have gotten the idea from something that came before both of them.
The Old Testament says to love your neighbors (who, exactly, are our neighbors?), but Jesus said to also love your enemies. So that means love everyone. Buddha also wanted compassion for all, no matter how horrible a person might be, everyone has God within, so deserves our respect and love.
Ok, this all sounds great on the surface, but I have been thinking it creates dilemmas and paradoxes, and confusion.
It's a whole lot easier to pretend you love everyone than it is to actually love everyone. And the word "love" gets so diluted it becomes impossible to know what it really means.
And then, the people who "love everyone" wind up hating everyone who doesn't love everyone. And our nature, which is similar to all other social animals on earth, really does not accept the idea that everyone deserves our love and respect.
We are built to judge each thing, person, creature, that comes along, as friend or enemy. That is necessary for basic survival. We can't simply turn that off.
So, this is just I thought I am starting to get -- is the current political divisiveness somehow related to our impossible goal of universal compassion?
I know this is vague. This is not the introduction to a formal dissertation. Just thoughts I have had for a long time but never really tried to express.
I personally would like to see less fake compassion, more honest acceptance of nature and our place in it. I know it doesn't feel like it most of the time, but life is a constant fight to survive. We are constantly seeking love and avoiding hate. Going towards whatever we feel is good, running from whatever we feel is bad.
So compassion for everyone would make us go towards everyone and everything, without discriminating.
Of course there is a common sense middle ground, where we prevent ourselves from hating a person because they are gay or black, or whatever is not their fault. But we simply can't, and shouldn't, force ourselves to love every creature, human or non-human.
But if you are Christian, you are supposed to. If you believe Jesus actually said everything he supposedly said.
Political liberals have soaked up a lot of this idea from Christianity and Buddhism. Even the ones who are not religious at all, usually advocate universal compassion, or at least the superficial appearance of it.
The part I bolded really got me thinking. I admit regularly that I’m not a compassionate human being and I’m indifferent to most people. The most side eyes I get are from people who claim they have such a compassion for humanity at large and who everyone likes. I would think the ones you have the most “compassion” are the ones who see the least need for compassion because they are the ones “in most need” for someone to model compassion.
Our society is very focused on compassion. I doubt any earlier civilizations were this concerned with it.
It may have started with Jesus, and with Buddha. But they may have gotten the idea from something that came before both of them.
The Old Testament says to love your neighbors (who, exactly, are our neighbors?), but Jesus said to also love your enemies. So that means love everyone. Buddha also wanted compassion for all, no matter how horrible a person might be, everyone has God within, so deserves our respect and love.
Ok, this all sounds great on the surface, but I have been thinking it creates dilemmas and paradoxes, and confusion.
It's a whole lot easier to pretend you love everyone than it is to actually love everyone. And the word "love" gets so diluted it becomes impossible to know what it really means.
And then, the people who "love everyone" wind up hating everyone who doesn't love everyone. And our nature, which is similar to all other social animals on earth, really does not accept the idea that everyone deserves our love and respect.
A lot of it boils down to language differences. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, which is the language Jesus knew, along with Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Greek, centuries after its events occurred.
The Greek language, both ancient and modern, has 7 words for love:
Eros -- intense sexual attraction or lust
Phillia -- close friendship with an equal
Storge -- familial love toward a child or pet
Ludus -- playful/puppy love or infatuation
Pragma -- comfortable long-term relationship
Agape -- devotional love (usually, but not exclusively, toward god)
Philautia -- what we now call "self-esteem"
Not much is known about everyday pragmatics of Biblical Hebrew or Aramaic. Hebrew was a dead language for 2000 years, not properly revived until Israel's (re)establishment in 1948. It was already moribund in Jesus's lifetime, relegated mostly to Temple services, with everyday lingua franca supplanted by Aramaic. So it wasn't clear if these languages had just one word for "love", or made a distinction like in Greek. But when the New Testament was written down, I'm sure a specific Greek word for "love" was used. The specific meaning was lost when the Bible was translated into English, which does not make the same distinction.
Given Jesus's mindset in the Gospels or Apostle Paul's mindset in the Epistles, when they said "love your enemies", they probably meant storge. That is, showing compassion or giving a benefit of doubt, but also pushing them on a righteous path---like we would with a misbehaving child; as well as using force if need be, like "spare the rod, spoil the child". (As opposed to, say, killing your enemies on sight.) It's highly unlikely that they meant phillia---befriending our enemies and/or treating them as equals. Or worse, agape---submitting ourselves to them. But without the linguistic precision of Greek, "love your enemies" can come off as letting them walk all over you.
Old Testament's "love your neighbors", on the other hand, was most likely phillia---with "neighbors" being a poetic or poorly translated term for "equals"---and better translated by the word "respect"; but then it doesn't sounds as poetic. I'm sure the Bible translators wanted their work to sound "elevated" and inspiring, as opposed to sounding like a morality and history textbook. And let's face it: "love" does sound more poetic than "respect". Also, when the King James Bible was written down 1611, these words may have had a different connotation than they do today.
Last edited by MillennialUrbanist; 09-22-2018 at 08:58 AM..
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