What it means to be moral

Ah, OK. I have no real way to judge them. But if the topic was organized religion, given my having criticized it as you say above, you can see why I thought it was the church we were talking about. I am sure there have been many wonderful Catholic people.

And with that you prove to every enlightened Christian that in some ways you yourself are deeply corrupted.

Z he certainly casts a few, his brand of word spreading requires a quarry to satiate his gravel needs if it’s to be a lifetime of spreading the salvation and love message.

Well fuck!
What the hell!?

Now it makes sense why everyone around me keeps thinking that I should go to jail.
I mean, I make sure to put them back in their places so they can’t actually get me to jail, the horse rains help with that little bit, but I always did have a sneaky suspicion that none of them saw me as a good person.

Well…now that I know this is how it works, they can’t fool me any longer!

I’ll make sure they pay for their loathing deceit!
I will show them just how persecution is moral, right after I cleanse their souls with their own blood.

hmmm…I’m hungry…I think I’ll get a pop-tart.

Hey Stumps!

Just gotta give you this link. I have to admit that when you mentioned your affiliation with LDS a bit back, it stopped me a bit. You know, the space suit underwear and all that…

But I’ve seen this documentary twice, and it really gives me renewed appreciation about what religion’s role OUGHT to be centered on. I don’t know. Maybe you’ve already seen it (it must be quite the topic of discussion in Mormon circles…)

www.newyorkdollmovie.com

Don’t let the title page distract you. It’s all about love.

Shhh!

We don’t tell everyone about that stuff! If we did there would be no one left to rule. Sheesh…

shrug not that I’ve heard or anything, but then again, LDS don’t really talk about popularity much, and they are also used to having it in their crowd.
For example of this point:
Orson Scott Card
Emily Cushing
Jon Heder
Katherine Heigl
Jared Hess
Gordon Jump (a.k.a. The Maytag Man)

and the list can go and go…but blah…

Also to note, LDS don’t really spend much time, as a church, talking about conversions so this wouldn’t be something that would have been brought up.

But I’ll have to check that out sometime.

What’s love got to do with it?

Love is relevant, but not in the emotional way most people mean it. Love is not an emotion, it is a commitment to another’s well being supported by the emotions of esteem, loyalty, respect, sexual attraction, familial bonds, brotherhood etc. Therefore when we talk about morality it is the same thing as saying we are committed to the equal protection of the rights of all to their life, liberty and property from violation through force or fraud (i.e. The Golden Rule). That commitment, then, is love supported by the emotions mentioned as well as the societal emotional need for good order, the drive to contribute, recognition of that contribution, and above all our genuine personal fulfillment within (preferably) or without that society.

Anything beyond that is not morality but virtue, the emotional drive to adhere to an individual set of standards such as courage, compassion, forbearance or patience. Religion has mucked up and intentionally intermixed virtue and morality over the millennia to the point where that confusion is embedded in our psyche and can only be excised through the torturous process of apostasy.

The English words for that part of Love are devotion, empathy, and compassion.

Which part of Love?

That.

The above is all possible by devotion, empathy, and compassion.
Without emotional pull for any of these three, then none of what you are talking about is possible; or if possible, is fraudulent.

These are the aspects of Love that are attributed in the Bible more than any other use of the word Love.

For instance, probably the most highlighted concept in the Bible is that from Matthew 22:39, being that of, "And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ " (the Golden Rule, you spoke of)

Well, the Greek here is agaphseiv, which means either to welcome or to entertain; to be prefer the company of, to concern dearly for (as in…if they perished, you would attend their funeral), or it means to be pretty pleased with something, or to be contented at, with, or about a thing.

So this is more along the lines of having empathy and compassion for other people, and as such having a devotion to their good and hard times via the shared empathy and compassion.
To remain open, as the word suggests in it’s prefix later used in the English language for “Agape”, meaning “wide open”.

The point of this aspect, in Greek, of Love (of which the Greek have quite a few as most around here know) is to suggest that one should remain unguarded and open so to remain empathetic and compassionate towards the humanity of another person.

This, indeed, is the Golden Rule that you refer to.

Because the English language only recognises one word for Love, then this is what I meant by saying that the English words for this form of Love were devotion, empathy, and compassion

PT could you expand on the intermixing of virtue and morality?

I can’t quite pick it, but that list seems a bit unholy…

G’day mate. How’s things?

shrug
Guess that depends on who’s scale is rating what.

Card’s books, though, if you compare against the Book of Mormon, are heavily populated with LDS content.
For reading of what I mean read this well written review of the Alvin Maker series:
farms.byu.edu/publications/revie … um=1&id=26

Good?

Personally, I’m doing OK. And I’ll take it you are, too.

meh, more or less.

bump

(seems relevant?)

Martyrs of the cross would no doubt find it interesting.

Yeah, blast from the past!