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Date Posted: 06:04:14 07/02/04 Fri
Author: Methuselah
Subject: Love and its relationship to religion

Let me talk a minute on the nature of love and its relationship to religion.

For love to be authentic, love should be a thing which isn't forced or brought on by feelings of guilt or 'shoulds'. Otherwise, love is no longer love, but is much like Capitalism - where there is some sort of alterior motive for it.

When two Mormans approach, the natural impulse is to cringe. Why? Because everybody knows that there's an alterior motive to the supposed friendship and smiles that are approaching.

Any conversation that ensues that seems 'natural' isn't at all natural because, to the two Mormans, any conversation is, in the end, just a trick in an attempt to lead in to selling their product just as with any Capitalist and their product. The approached person quickly learns the feeling of dread at their approch because they know there will always be that feeling of salesmanship, which always implies a fake relationship rather than a real one. It isn't real because it is forced, and thus doesn't come from a healthy source, but an unhealthy one. Particularly, you learn that if two people with white dress shirts approach you, don't trust them and don't listen to anything they have to say because they feel much like a serpent with two fangs who have a stinger in their tale.

Everybody recognizes this except the two Mormans, of course, who are blinded by their book into thinking that they are doing something good, when in reality they have lost that beautiful feeling that should have been freely felt where one wishes friendship with another just because it feels good to do it. When one talks with another just because it is a natural and healthy thing to do.

Everybody knows the natural and healthy response, "Oh God, there's a Jehovah's Witness at the door." and everybody knows why that is a repulsive feeling to feel.

These forced encounters, over time, teach a person that all strangers who approach you will carry with them some alterior motive, which cuts the desire to talk with strangers, thus drops the ability to freely love others because suspicion has replaced trust.

Religious love, also, always holds a stinger in its tale. "Let me tell you good news," is always followed by threats and curses. It isn't love to say "You are loved" and then say, "If you don't come to God, something horrible will happen to you." This is a wolf in sheep's clothing. It is a sheep with a large set of teeth behind it. It is the nature of the asp. It is the nature of the scorpion. It is coersion. Coersion is not a holy thing, but a thing which mobsters and gangsters practice.

Now, these methods aren't just practiced by Mormons, they are methods which all Christians are taught are correct methods to use. Christianity, across the board, uses coersive tactics in a supposed attempt to spread love. Coersion is never love, and a healthy person knows that tactics like this should NEVER be trusted. It is my conjecture that those who have been abused before will allow such tactics to be used on them because they don't know any better. After all, if their own parents used coersive tactics on them, then certainly they must be OK tactics to use. So, it is my thought that children who have a history of abuse are more prone to accept such tactics as being just and right than healthy people might.

Any way you look at it, these methods decrease trust in the world. They decrease the ability to freely love other people and meet them with a feeling of trust in your heart. They increase the feeling that others shouldn't be trusted, when they approach you - and that love is not a thing which should be given freely, but is a thing which always carries with it an alterior motive.

When people have alterior motives, they have lost the ability to love, for love should be a freely given thing. If a person feels they 'should' do something, or if the ability to love becomes separated into a process where you are thinking about loving, then the freedom to love disappears and others will be able to sense that, and their natural ability to pick up the true sense of things will tell them not to trust this relationship. After all, we know what the truth is at all times. It is easy to sense, not difficult just as it is an easy thing to love, not a difficult thing.

A five month old baby knows how to love instinctively. Therefore, if a person replaces this natural ability with a false ablity later in life, and this becomes habit... then false love replaces true love. However, just as people can detect the difference between a real smile and a false one, people can detect the difference between an alterior motive and real emotions.

When one puts oneself above others as if they have something to teach another, that piousness creates a separation. The 'Chosen One' status of those who denote themselves as 'saved' removes them from the ability to see others as friends, and places them above others in a lofty and separate position. The idea that others are 'of the devil' sets up a separation of contempt and sets up a false smile on the face because of the hidden contempt. This contempt is easily sensed by the other people, and it raises anger in them because it is natural to become angry when others place themselves in a lofty position above others.

The bad habit called 'pity' in a human is like this. Pity does people no good. The person who feels pity for others raises the thought in others that they are lacking something rather than that they have something to give, which lowers their feelings of self esteem rather than raising it. People in a position where they have lost something need to know they have lost nothing, not that they should be pitied. Thus, those who feel pity are doing damage to those who seem to have lost something for they aren't supporting the thought that the person has lost nothing, but that the person HAS lost something and isn't it a pity, isn't that sad.

These are things that religion envokes in the spirit. These are not good things to raise in people.

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