AfterDawn.com: User profiles: Deepskystarlight: Blog archive

something to think about

(26 Jan 2006 19:28)

I don't know that I necessarily love writing, myself, although
I have been told by many that I am quite good at it. Perhaps
it is because I don't tend to do all that much of it unless it's
about something I feel pretty strongly about. In those cases, I
have spent a lot of time analyzing and reasoning it out in my
head so that by the time my words are being written down,
they have reached a very thoroughly polished structured form.
Or maybe it was just too many years in honors classes, college
and my nasty habit of reading prodigiously all my life. (lol) For
whatever reason, I also love to save quotes that I have come
across ...the kind of quote that expresses so well something you
think and that makes you wish you had thought to say that.

Here, then, is one of the best quotes I have ever come across
on this subject:

"I do understand what love is, and that is one of the reasons I can never again be a Christian. Love is not self denial. Love is not blood and suffering. Love is not murdering your son to appease your own vanity. Love is not hatred or wrath, consigning billions of people to eternal torture because they have offended your ego or disobeyed your rules. Love is not obedience, conformity, or submission. It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority, punishment, or reward. True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being."
Dan Barker, Losing Faith in Faith

When I read this I felt very much that he had really gone to the heart of the matter. I have seen this over and over so much. Love is a word that is so misused. I feel like I could go two different ways from this quote and may be I need to write two entries, really, the first one following the main point of the author here about my idea of what constitutes a moral life, because I do have a very strong sense of right and wrong, it just does not conform to the standard fear driven, blind rule following hypocrisy so often advocated by the so called "Christians" and others and so little followed. The other would be my rant about the misuse of the word "love" in general by people who use it only to crush, demand obedience from and tear down the very people they should care the most about. It's late enough now that I'm not going to write more now but will be adding to this in the next few days. It really distresses me to see just how much work it can take to rebuild a person's self esteem and self confidence after it has been systematically smashed over years and years of so called "love"

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January 2006

something to think about

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