Hold up, I’m not saying i’m superior to the theologians. "
Tom,
A few posts back you made a statement that is false. You said love is an emotion.
You can feel love emotionally, but it is not a feeling or emotion. You can feel heat but heat is not a feeling. Heat is a physical phenomenon. Love is a spiritual phenomenon. You can measure heat and observe and measure its effects with instruments. There are no instruments that can measure, weigh or hold love. I can move heat or temperature, the physical phenomenon, from one container into another and store it in a heat sink. I can take heat out of my house and push it outdoors with an air conditioner, a machine. No machine can do this with love.
We take in information or data from the physical universe with our five physical senses and instruments that are extensions of our physical senses, to examine it, and using our minds try to explain and understand the things that exist in the physical universe. The natural sciences do this.
If a thing is real and it is not of or in the physical universe then it is a spiritual thing. If something is real and it can not be measured, weighed, touched, held, moved from one place to another, it is not physical. If it is not physical, but still real, it is spiritual.
Love is a spiritual reality.
Which of your five senses do you use to feel love? Which of them measure it or touch or hold it, see it, taste it, smell it, hear it? I can see someone I love with my eyes. But my eyes can not see the love. You made the mistake of thinking it is an emotion, because it can be felt. Where is it? Is it in me? Is it in my wife? Is it between us? Explain it to me. With what faculty do you feel or know love? Where is it in you if you have some? Is it in your mind, your liver, your bones?
It is in your soul, which you are unaware of having. In Latin the word for heart is cor. Love is in the core of your being, if you have it. Love can be in us, but it can also not be in us. Some have it and some lack it. We can know it, or if it is not in us, we do not know it. If I never knew it I could easily say I do not believe it exists. Those who do know or have love also know that it comes in degrees. It is something that is good to have, but more is always better. It is something that we can be richer or poorer in. Those who lack it are starved. Since it can not be measured we never know if we have a lot of it or a little. We can think a little, or a little taste of it is enough, because no matter how much we have it comforts us. Some people experience so much of it that they call it spiritual ecstasy.
So there is something many of these posters is telling you they have experienced and it is in them. They would like you to also know this thing, because they think it is good and want to share something with others they think is good that they have found. To them it makes life worth living, gives life meaning and without it they suffer. They also use the term love to describe this thing. You are saying you don’t believe it, because you have not experienced it yourself and you do not know it.
One of the things we humans do is share our experiences. We use words to try to explain what we encounter in our individual lives. I experienced such and such. You should try it. There is a great place to watch the sunset. Check it out. We try to help one another in this way. We share knowledge. If someone has a sick child we try to help them find a doctor, or medicine, or a cure. We tell them what we know, but we can not make them take the medicine.
Doing evil is a spiritual sickness. Everyone is sick with this illness, but some deny they are sick. There is a cure for it and it can not be had until one admits sickness. Some people say they have found the cure. Others simply don’t get it and think these religious people are crazy. They wonder how anyone could believe medieval nonsense when they see no evidence for it.
Some people feel very burdened by their consciences over the evil they have done and do. They want to change. Others who do the same things don’t seem bothered. They are willing to remain as they are. It is this desire to be purged of evil and seeking a way to be free of it that leads people to Jesus. You apparently lack this. You see no need.
Jesus said to the pharisees that He came for sinners, but they said they had no sin so they had no need of Him. Those who find Him say everyone needs what He gives them.
Logic says either they are right or wrong. If they are wrong they are living a fantasy. If they are right where does that leave you?
