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Bent Love; (sermon 10/7/12)
Topic Started: Oct 3 2012, 02:13 PM (900 Views)
ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Dewey
Oct 4 2012, 02:40 PM
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Still, for me it is hard to reconcile with intentional actions of moving away from God's ideal.


This, I think, is the crux of where we differ.

Adultery, of any type, is contrary to God's ideal. But I do not believe that ending a marriage which is devoid of love - the kind of love that God desires for us - and entering into a second marriage where there is that kind of love, is moving away from God's ideal. On the contrary, I believe it is moving *closer to* God's ideal. Love is the ultimate ideal: if what you're doing increases and facilitates love, it is moving closer to God's ideal and Christ's example. If what you're doing prevents or obstructs or is absent of love, you're moving away from God's ideal and Christ's example. It may sound simplistic, but I firmly believe it's true, and what Christ reveals to us as the mind and will of God for us in our broken state. If that's true - and I believe it is - then we can go on living our lives, assured of God's love, forgiveness and acceptance, even in our imperfection, and we need not beat ourselves up with the guilt and shame of a lifetime of "Yes, but"s.
I have no idea how one can possibly distinguish that the marriage is devoid of love -- on the face of it that is a wrongheaded formulation: the persons are devoid of love, not the marriage -- and think that entering another marriage is moving toward "love". Love is the commitment to the good of the other. No couple who is intent on caring for the good of the other can possibly be devoid of love.

Moving to another relationship with some claim that this is moving closer to God's ideal and Christ's example (REALLY???? Where does Christ give us the example of divorcing one person and taking up with another?) is a mockery of love. I get that we are all broken and trying the best we can, and that God forgives and accepts and even uses these painful experiences to continue to heal us and occasionally gives us some consolations. But you are preaching what Bonhoeffer would call "cheap grace".
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
ivorythumper
Oct 4 2012, 06:25 PM
You're in my thoughts and prayers as well, Frank.
+1, man. I hope everything's alright. :(
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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Frank_W
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Resident Misanthrope
Thanks.... Lots of balls in the air right now, but things are good. :)
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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jon-nyc
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Cheers
ivorythumper
Oct 4 2012, 10:58 AM
Forget any call to virtue, or self sacrifice, or holiness, or diminishing the ego, or really getting out of your own bad self and trying to radically love the person you vowed to love -- God doesn't oppose you dumping those vows and that other person (made also in the image and likeness, etc) and moving on down the road to inflict your brokenness on the next victim.
But doesn't he require an annulment first?
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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jon-nyc
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Cheers
Frank - I hope it all works out for the best for you and those involved.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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Frank_W
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Resident Misanthrope
Thanks. I appreciate it.
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
jon-nyc
Oct 5 2012, 11:28 AM
Frank - I hope it all works out for the best for you and those involved.
+1.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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Frank_W
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Thanks. :)
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
jon-nyc
Oct 5 2012, 11:27 AM
ivorythumper
Oct 4 2012, 10:58 AM
Forget any call to virtue, or self sacrifice, or holiness, or diminishing the ego, or really getting out of your own bad self and trying to radically love the person you vowed to love -- God doesn't oppose you dumping those vows and that other person (made also in the image and likeness, etc) and moving on down the road to inflict your brokenness on the next victim.
But doesn't he require an annulment first?
Who is he?

Do you know what an annulment is?
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
ivorythumper
Oct 5 2012, 12:01 PM
Do you know what an annulment is?
It's what Henry VIII got as an alternative to chopping their heads off when they wouldn't shut up. F*cking namby-pamby liberalism at work once again.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
John D'Oh
Oct 5 2012, 12:05 PM
ivorythumper
Oct 5 2012, 12:01 PM
Do you know what an annulment is?
It's what Henry VIII got as an alternative to chopping their heads off when they wouldn't shut up. F*cking namby-pamby liberalism at work once again.
No, he actually just accelerated that "until death do us part" thing by royal decree.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Klaus
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HOLY CARP!!!
ivorythumper
Oct 4 2012, 06:36 PM
Love is the commitment to the good of the other. No couple who is intent on caring for the good of the other can possibly be devoid of love.
That's a rather strange definition of love.

Love is an emotional state of strong affection to somebody else. You cannot "want" or "try" to love somebody. Either you do, or you don't.
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Klaus
Oct 5 2012, 12:11 PM
ivorythumper
Oct 4 2012, 06:36 PM
Love is the commitment to the good of the other. No couple who is intent on caring for the good of the other can possibly be devoid of love.
That's a rather strange definition of love.

Love is an emotional state of strong affection to somebody else. You cannot "want" or "try" to love somebody. Either you do, or you don't.
Nothing strange about it. Your definition only reduces love to the modern romantic notion of feeling (what some psychologists term limerence) -- once the feeling is gone so is the love.

Furthermore, it is not infrequent that people really do have to work and try and learn to love others -- even mothers are not always immediately in love with their own children, which can be a source of guilt or confusion.

Love can properly be considered under different aspects of the human person: spiritual (agape), intellectual (friendship, companionship), will/volition (benevolence), emotions (feelings, being in love, limerance), physical (erotic, genitally expressed, physical affection, touch, sexual). The nature of the relationship determines which of these and in what measure are part of the expression of "love". The more important the relationship and the more exclusive it is, the more aspects are generally incorporated for healthy patterns, proper to the persons themselves. (e.g., a child needs physical expression of love from the parent, but this is not sexual expression).
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Klaus
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HOLY CARP!!!
It is not very productive to argue about stipulative definitions. You are free to use the term 'love' in any way you want.

But you do not really seem to stick to your own definition.

You say that love is a "commitment to the good of the other". This means that one can decide to love somebody. But if it is a decision, then why would it be necessary to "try" or "learn" to love somebody?

That's why I said your definition is strange. I could decide to "love" Joseph Stalin, according to your definition.

I think a definition that does not involve what one feels does not capture what most people associate with the term 'love'. It is an interesting question whether a human can deliberately manipulate his or her own feelings or beliefs (e.g. could you force yourself to believe that 2+2=5?). But I am not so sure whether you really want to advocate such a kind of self-manipulation.
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
Sermon slightly tweaked here and there, mostly as a result of conversation here. Most significant change is in the final paragraph.
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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Kincaid
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HOLY CARP!!!
Cool - I would love to see the final paragraph if you would like to print it here.
Kincaid - disgusted Republican Partisan since 2006.
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
I just edited the entire original post to the new version, Kinaid.
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Klaus
Oct 5 2012, 01:19 PM
It is not very productive to argue about stipulative definitions. You are free to use the term 'love' in any way you want.
You say it's not very productive to argue about stipulative definitions, although you first argued about my definition, and then you proceed to continue to argue about stipulative definitions? OK. :)
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But you do not really seem to stick to your own definition.
Of course I do -- I took the most broad and basic one -- which is benevolence, or willing the good of another -- within the specific context of a discussion on marriage and the failure of marriage.

You didn't seem to get it and so I placed that definition within a more comprehensive discussion on the various aspects of "love" as related to the various aspects of the human person. You seem to think that love is only about this feeling that no one can control, which seems to be a deficient view of love based on a reductionistic anthropology. A more multifaceted view of the human person can open the discussion to show how these various aspects of love (spiritual, friendship, benevolence, emotional, physical) are necessary for healthy human interaction.

It is clear that people learn to love each other, and often do on a deeper level, once the feeling of "being in love" is gone. There is little doubt that the person is ever changing psychologically and emotionally in subtle ways, which aggregate over time: the person you fell in love with and married is not a stable, measurable, constant object -- so it requires continued effort to keep learning about and loving that person anew -- with a constant effort to understand them in their subjectivity as they change.

The key component here is the *will* -- benevolence -- such that you both work to keep your friendship alive and growing together, that you both continue to cultivate feelings of affirmation, acceptance, shared experiences, etc., and that you both continue to learn each others patterns and needs for physical expressions. In short -- that you both work to really care for the other, rather than caring about the way the other makes you feel.
Quote:
 

You say that love is a "commitment to the good of the other". This means that one can decide to love somebody. But if it is a decision, then why would it be necessary to "try" or "learn" to love somebody?
Because the object first presented to your senses that you "fall in love with" is not the depth of the subject to be loved. People get together for the most superficial reasons -- the smile in the eyes, the shape of the breasts, they laugh at your jokes, a common love for Milton, a commitment to end global warming, etc -- but whatever the basis of that first attraction is not the extent of their being. And their being is revealed over time.

So you either decide to continue getting to know them, and in knowing them loving them more, or you find things that are unacceptable or too difficult or you learn that the transient feeling has gone before the relationship has matured to a deeper level of benevolence and friendship etc. If you choose to continue to try to learn to know them more, you will find that is an endless task of discovery, and a continuous development in love.
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That's why I said your definition is strange. I could decide to "love" Joseph Stalin, according to your definition.

Yes, you could decide to love Stalin (assuming you were in a relationship with him) and want the best for him. That might well include wanting that he become a morally good person and stop being a mass murderer and enslaver of a nation. I don't see that as a particular challenge to my definition of love as benevolence. It depends on how you think about the "good" of another, which also includes moral goods, eudaemonia, peace and well being. I suspect that even the mothers of mass murderers still love their children wanting the very best for them, such as not being mass murderers.
Quote:
 

I think a definition that does not involve what one feels does not capture what most people associate with the term 'love'. It is an interesting question whether a human can deliberately manipulate his or her own feelings or beliefs (e.g. could you force yourself to believe that 2+2=5?). But I am not so sure whether you really want to advocate such a kind of self-manipulation.
Where did I say it does not involve what one feels? That fact that people have truncated and immature and self centered views of love that reduce love to feelings is probably a massive reason for spiraling divorce rates and serial monogamy. Expecting another dynamic person to continue to satisfy your emotional need without effort to keep loving them and understanding them (friendship) seems a recipe for disaster. No doubt the way most people associate love is based on what is told them by movies and the media -- romance and sex sells, but it cannot be sustained as the only basis of relationship. No doubt either that this association is completely predictable to always fail to produce a mutually beneficial, long term, permanent love relationship.

As for math, that just does not work. Math has to do with knowledge of things as objects, love with the knowledge of persons as subjects. This is another way of thinking about the difference I tried to explain to Moonbat between scientific knowledge and poetic knowledge.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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jon-nyc
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Cheers
ivorythumper
Oct 5 2012, 12:01 PM
jon-nyc
Oct 5 2012, 11:27 AM
ivorythumper
Oct 4 2012, 10:58 AM
Forget any call to virtue, or self sacrifice, or holiness, or diminishing the ego, or really getting out of your own bad self and trying to radically love the person you vowed to love -- God doesn't oppose you dumping those vows and that other person (made also in the image and likeness, etc) and moving on down the road to inflict your brokenness on the next victim.
But doesn't he require an annulment first?
Who is he?

Do you know what an annulment is?
The post was meant to be a funny, since you were being sarcastic and I answered as if you were serious.

But to answer your questions, (1) he: god; (2) annulment: a semantic bob whereby the church can grant divorces while pretending it doesn't do so. Yes, I know we disagree on this, we've hashed it out before.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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bachophile
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HOLY CARP!!!
annulment? first thing that comes to my mind is princess Caroline of Monaco.
"I don't know much about classical music. For years I thought the Goldberg Variations were something Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg did on their wedding night." Woody Allen
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
So an annulment is what they call it when rich Catholics get divorced?
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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bachophile
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HOLY CARP!!!
no u dummy.

Catholics can't divorce.

sheesh.
"I don't know much about classical music. For years I thought the Goldberg Variations were something Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg did on their wedding night." Woody Allen
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Klaus
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HOLY CARP!!!
ivorythumper
Oct 5 2012, 04:57 PM
It is clear that people learn to love each other, and often do on a deeper level, once the feeling of "being in love" is gone. There is little doubt that the person is ever changing psychologically and emotionally in subtle ways, which aggregate over time: the person you fell in love with and married is not a stable, measurable, constant object -- so it requires continued effort to keep learning about and loving that person anew -- with a constant effort to understand them in their subjectivity as they change.
IT, I think most of our dissent is merely due to a different use of terminology. If we align our terminology we are not that far apart anymore.

When I say "feeling" I mean this in a much more encompassing way than you do. You seem to interpret my usage of the word as "butterflies in one's stomach" kinds of feeling only. I agree that love is much more than that; otherwise partnerships would become a very transient arrangement indeed. Many aspects of what you call "love" I would call "loyalty". It is true that each partner in a love relationship has to invest "work" in order to keep the relation intact, but I'd still submit that love is a predicate of how one feels about another person. It is the knowledge of the value of this feeling that makes people benevolent and all the other things you mention.
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Klaus
Oct 6 2012, 11:18 AM
ivorythumper
Oct 5 2012, 04:57 PM
It is clear that people learn to love each other, and often do on a deeper level, once the feeling of "being in love" is gone. There is little doubt that the person is ever changing psychologically and emotionally in subtle ways, which aggregate over time: the person you fell in love with and married is not a stable, measurable, constant object -- so it requires continued effort to keep learning about and loving that person anew -- with a constant effort to understand them in their subjectivity as they change.
IT, I think most of our dissent is merely due to a different use of terminology. If we align our terminology we are not that far apart anymore.

When I say "feeling" I mean this in a much more encompassing way than you do. You seem to interpret my usage of the word as "butterflies in one's stomach" kinds of feeling only. I agree that love is much more than that; otherwise partnerships would become a very transient arrangement indeed. Many aspects of what you call "love" I would call "loyalty". It is true that each partner in a love relationship has to invest "work" in order to keep the relation intact, but I'd still submit that love is a predicate of how one feels about another person. It is the knowledge of the value of this feeling that makes people benevolent and all the other things you mention.
I actually use feelings to encompass the whole emotional/affective realm, not just the "being in love", for two reasons: 1) not all feelings of love are being in love (with a best friend, with a close family member). But in the context of intimate relationships and marriage, these do tend to start with that feeling of being in love so I understand your concern that it not be limited to this; and 2) there are a whole host of other feelings and emotions that accompany "love", whether intimate or not, such as joy, a sense of wellbeing in the presence of the other, anticipation in being reunited, comfortableness, etc.

I like the idea of loyalty -- which is in classical psychology a commitment as part of *fidelity*, and optimally a virtue, a habit, which is an act of the will. I'd place loyalty under benevolence, not feelings -- since part of loyalty is being faithful regardless of feelings, and even a personal expense or peril. Loyalty cannot be the feeling of wanting to be loyal, or loyal only when one feels like being loyal, but is faithfulness despite emotional or calculated reasons to be disloyal.

I don't quite think it is "a predicate of how one feels about another person" but you are much closer to my understanding when you speak of value -- which is a judgment of the intellect. This is what is properly called "friendship" (and there are several types per Aristotle, or Aelred of Rievaulx) -- the person is judged valuable in the intellect (by which we know "being" and truth), and the will (by which we seek the good) is engaged toward that person in commitment. Obviously this involves feelings (emotions, appetites, passions) since no one commits to anything without some passion for it. Your academic work, my architecture work, piano playing, relationships -- they are all engagements that involve feelings, but the feelings are somewhat secondary or tertiary to what we are doing, though they help fuel the soul so that we want to and enjoy doing these things. (I write, of course, from a particular anthropological tradition).


The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
As a follow-up to all this, if anyone's interested, here's audio of the sermon as it actually ended up being delivered. There's a bit more variance between "as-delivered" and "as written" than usual, but if you listened to it while following along with the manuscript, you'd see it's still pretty close. This was a bit of a roller coaster sermon. It started out with people laughing, and then at one point, several people crying, and ultimately, the congregation getting quieter and quieter as the sermon progressed. from about the midpoint of the sermon you could have heard a pin drop; this was quiet even by Presbyterian standards.

I have a "standard" clip of this sermon, ending at my usual "Thanks be to God" tag. But as some of you know, I always follow up my sermons with an "open mic time," where the congregation has an opportunity to offer immediate feedback, ask questions, etc. The first comment of this sermon was funny and heartwarming, so I also cut a clip that includes the comment. It was made by a woman who was sitting just two pews back from the pulpit, and the pulpit mic just barely picked up what she said. Listen carefully and see if you can make out what her comment was...

Posted Image

"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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