Alternatively we could say we are all adoptive entities [as we don’t participate in the making of our bodies], and your daughter does not belong to you or the mother, ever. so you should love whomsoever comes into your life in the manner of a daughter e.g. same for an orphan as for ‘your own’ daughter. I wouldn’t expect that of people of course.
I can get past a lot of aesthetic flaws in a woman if I loved her, but I have limits. Perhaps your concern is a matter of adaptation, we kinda freeze-frame people in the minds eye, and we have ideals and standards before we even met them. So we have a kind of distilled manakin of them and how they should be. Thus when they change beyond that mental model, you think they have changed or they are not the thing you loved. That’s just the aesthetics, personalities are more ambiguous and at no time set, you meet a new situation and you must react differently such to engage it. So how do we know how we are going to act, and hence how can we know what we or others are in any singular sense? People often decide someone has changed, when in reality an event has made them act differently.
Well, that might be what we “should” do, but a parent’s love for his children hinges heavily on genetics.
I was asking myself the question: why do I love my daughter unconditionally? And the answer verily seemed to be: because she’s my daughter. Then of course, the test for unconditionality came to mind: so what if she wasn’t my daughter? ← It was a test to see if a parent’s love for their children could match God’s love.
Then what does it mean to love a person unconditionally? To love a person no matter what? Who can tell me they’d love a person literally no matter what–like the person became violent and abusive–say they suffered a brain injury and lost the ability to act appropriately–suppose they became a serial killer.
I’m speaking as a pantheist. Also, I don’t think of the separation of life from God at the level of individual bacteria or insects, etc… I think of it as life in general, and life as a part of God trying to escape the rest.
So Pilgrim, if I can tie this back into the current line of thoughts:
The “escape” from the unification with God might be thought as more of a perilous journey, a great adventure, the purpose of which would be to gain something, some enrichment of experience, some deeper knowledge, a better understanding of things… but it is a precarious and uncertain journey, one that both the son and the father dread, and this is precisely why the father awaits the son with open arms, ready to welcome him home.
Well, what have we learned as a species? We’ve learned what the universe looks like from a scientific perspective–and we’ve penetrated the universe with those visors quite far–maybe if I’m right, that we are little bits of the universe separated off from the greater whole, and we will reunite with it in death, then is it possible this perspective of the universe from the point of view of 21st century man will be brought back with us? Like the son bringing back gift for the father? Will God be able to look at it and say: Hmm… interesting!
Phyllo … I suggest life is a voluntary … self imposed … exile from God. It is the first and truest instance of “freewill”. The return to God is akin to the prodigal son … the "gift’ to God on the return is the ‘son’ himself to the ‘father’ in the parable.
I suggest so many people confuse the notions of religion and spirituality … and very very few truly understand either one.
Let me try to illustrate.
Many tribes of the indigenous North Americans practiced a very sophisticated type of spirituality … long before the “white man” came with their “God”.
For example … some tribes sent their young boys out into the wilderness … all alone. On the surface this sounds like a cruel act. The boys were instructed/taught the parameters of a “vision quest” … and were sent out into the wilderness to seek their life’s purpose … ergo vision quest.
Seems logical that the boys who were successful had some form of communication with the “universe” … with what the “white man” calls God.
Let me share my understanding of the words ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’.
Religion … The etymology of the word “religion” is indeed disputed. I prefer re-eligere, “to choose again,” religion being the recovery of the link with God. Every religion … with all it’s worts, blind spots, contradictions and so on … has the underlying intention … recovery of the link with God … is honorable/noble.
Spirituality … spirit is substance … not matter … not visible … indescribable … yet substance nonetheless. Embodied in spirit is what we call ‘consciousness’ with spirit being an integral part of what it means to be human … as well as all other life forms and inanimate objects. Spirituality is humanity’s attempt to understand the notion(s) underpinning the word spirit … with the sole purpose of cooperating with it … being very careful to avoid attempts to control … or exploit for personal benefit(s) … spirit.
That must mean that you had free-will and chose to live before you were conceived (or born). IOW, you existed before you were born in the physical world.
It also means that God is not in this world, because if He was, then you would not be separate from Him while living.
I don’t think the prodigal son story is that complicated.
I put them together because both consider the physical world to be inferior to some other realm. Therefore, the goal is to get out of this life and into an ideal (which may not even exist).
Let me again apply Moreno’s good counsel … move from the abstract to the concrete … Stuhhmeeller’s comments are abstract … let me share a personal experience.
The thought that arose in my mind … “take a piece of paper and a pen in with you” … was not the result of “reason’”
My acceptance of the Spirit’s wish has certainly cost me big time …
When a word accumulates enough negative connotations then people start using another word which does not have that baggage. ‘Spirituality’ is the ‘word-of-the-day’ but it’s the same as religion. At the core, both refer to a person’s relationship to what can be described as the non-physical. Although you cannot put your fingers on it in the same way as you would an object made of atoms, it is part of the world. It is not better than the physical or worse than the physical. It is inseparable from the physical.
