At this current moment - in
addition to myself,. my daughter Tina and a friend (Crystal) are dealing with
issues revolving around 'love' and the perception of it.  In an odd 'co-incidence'
(in which I don't believe btw) a friend sent me a discussion thread about the
subject and although it deals with Christian love it seems appropriate to post
it below.

From: "Vicente"

Subject: Love?

Most Christians believe the
God they invoke while spreading their faith, is love. However, in the whole of
their Holy Book, the Bible, it only suggests the idea that their God is love at
the very end, in the late 2nd Century apology 1John. In fact, when viewing the
full length and breadth of the
Bible, their Patriarch is clearly a murderous, pro-slavery, vacillant, petty,
racist, conditional God. And amazingly, a God who is so insecure, that it
demands to be worshiped, obeyed and prayed to.

Christian love, like the
love of their God, what they often call agape, is merely a conditional love. To
better understand this type of love, simply consider the Great Love Chapter of
Christendom, Corinthians 13; for example, "love bears all things, believes
all things, hopes all things,
endures all things", 1 Cor 13:7. Although this form of love, that is,
bearing, believing, hoping and enduring is more compassionate then passionate,
more commitment orientated then fleeting, it isn't Unconditional Love, but the
submission, devotion, expectation and
suffering to the conditions of their religions brewed beliefs. Ontosophy on the
other hand, understands that no matter how one perceives it, experience born of
belief can only be experienced through the condition of that belief. And thus reject
Christianity's conditional self-perpetuating delusions.

Passionate or emotional
love, is another type of conditional love. This is the love of solicitudal
desire and enthralled obsession. Such love is usually, but not necessarily,
accompanied by biological, chemical or instinctual love, which manifests a
yearning for the welfare, possession and companionship of another. Ordinarily, emotional
love is based on something received through physiological or psychological
arousal, and commonly includes, as in Christian love, an attached expectation.

IMO, the highest love a
human can awaken to, is the amoral intimacy of Conscious Love. This is the Love
of the Bodhisattva; the wish for the well being and liberation of all; without
predisposition, and indifferent towards the consequences to the lover. In other
words, as Alfred Orage said, "so she becomes perfectly herself, what
matter I?" In regards to Buddhist, most Christians are surprised that they
do not believe in a God; but they do recognize Love.

http://www.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/beyond/beyond03.htm

http://www.buddhanet.net/ans73.htm

A wish, in the above
context, is not synonymous with hope or desire. Hope and desire belong to an
anticipation and expectation of the future. Hope and desire ensues from the
thought of lack; that things should be other than they are. A wish on the other
hand, is an intention, unencumbered by
predisposition; to allow Love to flow, and arrive at its own harmonium.

Individuality is incessantly
convinced of its separateness; it bears, believes, hopes, and endures within a
perceived encapsulated form, manifesting conditions that perpetually repeat
themselves. A wish arises from the Heart of ones Essence. There is no absence
of Love, anywhere; only an enshrouding by religions brewed beliefs that have been
built against it. Thus, to realize the love that we are, complete and without
lack, we simply bring love to another. A Christian cannot do that, because
their love is arises from conditions.

The fragrance of
open-hearted love is as a tremendum uncovered by surrendering expectation, and
through that immediacy, witness a grand preferenceless reality. A reality of
Love's own flow; unveiled of what belief and predisposition think it should be.

Many Freethinkers understand
that belief implies doubt. It is merely a concept we use to make the unknown
palatable. To trust in a monotheistic god, or any belief, is committing ones
reliance, dependence, certitude, allegiance and potential transcendence to something
that is not ratiocinatively known to be true. If a belief were true, we
wouldn't have to believe it. Failure to recognize the false as false, or a
belief as that which suppresses, denies, disempowers and disconnects, is the
ruination of destiny's and self-sabotage of the full expression of ones
inherent talents.

If we are to trust, why not
let our trust be with something we can never leave and that can never leave us.
Let our trust be in love. We do not need to understand it fully. Love is not
something that has been canonized, or whose definition has been closed to
change,

like Christian scripture. To
trust in old myths, is not love, but blind faith perpetuated by our ancestors;
a behavior no less than insane. Simply consider the hundreds of conditions that
the Judaeo-Christian-Muslem Gods put on their faithful. Of course, to divert the
truth and preserve the belief, their faithful insist on playing pick-n-choose
with what the Bible actually says. Is it really a wonder why Christian
conservatives understand the dynamics of truth suppression so well? 

Thomas Paine wrote, "It
has often been said that anything may be proved from the Bible; but before
anything can be admitted as proved by the Bible, the Bible itself must be
proved to be true; for if the Bible be not true, or the truth of it be
doubtful, it ceases to have authority, and cannot be admitted as proof of
anything." Considering that, just imagine if lying was crime. If it was,
the Abrahamic religions would be no more than a few artifacts on the back walls
of our local museums.

From my observations, love
is inherent to all our natures,...the essence beneath the belief laden veils of
our Human Beingness; and not determined by religious affiliation. To me, Love
is the dharma of America.
A Nation intended to be both free from, and free to, practice the religious
delusion of their choice; although I'd rather see a NC-17 (no children under
17)clause attached.

When we evict the
faith-based politicians, who have been making illegality legal, from our
Country, and dispose of the unconstitutional Christian Motto "In (their)
God We Trust", perhaps we could embrace the Motto 'In Love We Trust' to
encourage us to fulfill the dream of America's Founding Fathers,...Of many,
One.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/nat_mott.htm