Jeromeo wrote:

Things That Love Is

15 Coming now to the positive side, the things that love is, Paul begins: “Love is long-suffering.” It has been said that there can be no such thing as Christian fellowship without long-suffering, that is, without patiently putting up with one another. That is so because all of us are imperfect, and our imperfections and shortcomings try others. No wonder the apostle Paul lists this aspect first as to what love is!

16 Paul states that love is also “kind.” That is, love is helpful, thoughtful, considerate of others. Kindness manifests itself in things big and little. The neighborly Samaritan was certainly showing kindness to the man waylaid by robbers. (Luke 10:30-37) Love delights in saying “please.” To say, “Pass the bread” is a command. To preface that with “please” makes it a request. Husbands are kind to their wives when they heed the counsel at 1 Peter 3:7: “You husbands, continue dwelling in like manner with them according to knowledge, assigning them honor as to a weaker vessel, the feminine one, since you are also heirs with them of the undeserved favor of life, in order for your prayers not to be hindered.” Wives are kind to their husbands when they show them “deep respect.” (Ephesians 5:33) Fathers are kind to their children when they follow the counsel at Ephesians 6:4: “Fathers, do not be irritating your children, but go on bringing them up in the discipline and mental-regulating of Jehovah.”

17 Love does not rejoice over unrighteousness but “rejoices with the truth.” Love and truth go hand in hand—God is love, and at the same time, he is “the God of truth.” (Psalm 31:5) Love rejoices at seeing truth triumph over and expose falsehood; this accounts in part for the great increase taking place in the number of Jehovah’s worshipers today. However, since truth is contrasted with unrighteousness, the thought may also be that love rejoices with righteousness. Love rejoices at the triumph of righteousness, as Jehovah’s worshipers are commanded to do at the fall of Babylon the Great.—Revelation 18:20.

18 Paul also tells us that love “bears all things.” As the Kingdom Interlinear shows, the thought is that love covers over all things. It does not “give away a fault” of a brother, as the wicked are prone to do. (Psalm 50:20; Proverbs 10:12; 17:9) Yes, the thought here is the same as at 1 Peter 4:8: “Love covers a multitude of sins.” Of course, loyalty would keep one from covering over gross sins against Jehovah and against the Christian congregation.

19 Love “believes all things.” Love is positive, not negative. This does not mean that love is gullible. It is not quick to believe sensational statements. But for one to come to have faith in God, one must have the will to believe. So love is not skeptical, unduly critical. It does not resist believing as does the atheist, who dogmatically states that there is no God, nor is it like the agnostic, who dogmatically asserts that it is simply impossible to know where we came from, why we are here, and what the future will be like. God’s Word gives us assurance in regard to all these things. Love is also ready to believe because it is trusting, not being unduly suspicious.

20 The apostle Paul assures us further that love “hopes all things.” Since love is positive, not negative, it has strong hope in all that is promised in God’s Word. We are told: “The man who plows ought to plow in hope and the man who threshes ought to do so in hope of being a partaker.” (1 Corinthians 9:10) Even as love is trustful, it is also hopeful, always hoping for the best.

21 Finally, we are assured that love “endures all things.” It is able to do so because of what the apostle Paul tells us at 1 Corinthians 10:13: “No temptation has taken you except what is common to men. But God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but along with the temptation he will also make the way out in order for you to be able to endure it.” Love will cause us to look to the many examples in the Scriptures of God’s servants who have endured, chief of whom is Jesus Christ, as we are reminded at Hebrews 12:2, 3.

Facinating!  This is probabaly the most compelling thing you have said, that I know of anyways.  Anyways, I can't get into my email cause hotmail is down or something. So if you see something from Morganbutterfly, that would be me using another account. 

ttyl,ffl
l

Jeromeo wrote:

Things That Love Is

15 Coming now to the positive side, the things that love is, Paul begins: “Love is long-suffering.” It has been said that there can be no such thing as Christian fellowship without long-suffering, that is, without patiently putting up with one another. That is so because all of us are imperfect, and our imperfections and shortcomings try others. No wonder the apostle Paul lists this aspect first as to what love is!

16 Paul states that love is also “kind.” That is, love is helpful, thoughtful, considerate of others. Kindness manifests itself in things big and little. The neighborly Samaritan was certainly showing kindness to the man waylaid by robbers. (Luke 10:30-37) Love delights in saying “please.” To say, “Pass the bread” is a command. To preface that with “please” makes it a request. Husbands are kind to their wives when they heed the counsel at 1 Peter 3:7: “You husbands, continue dwelling in like manner with them according to knowledge, assigning them honor as to a weaker vessel, the feminine one, since you are also heirs with them of the undeserved favor of life, in order for your prayers not to be hindered.” Wives are kind to their husbands when they show them “deep respect.” (Ephesians 5:33) Fathers are kind to their children when they follow the counsel at Ephesians 6:4: “Fathers, do not be irritating your children, but go on bringing them up in the discipline and mental-regulating of Jehovah.”

17 Love does not rejoice over unrighteousness but “rejoices with the truth.” Love and truth go hand in hand—God is love, and at the same time, he is “the God of truth.” (Psalm 31:5) Love rejoices at seeing truth triumph over and expose falsehood; this accounts in part for the great increase taking place in the number of Jehovah’s worshipers today. However, since truth is contrasted with unrighteousness, the thought may also be that love rejoices with righteousness. Love rejoices at the triumph of righteousness, as Jehovah’s worshipers are commanded to do at the fall of Babylon the Great.—Revelation 18:20.

18 Paul also tells us that love “bears all things.” As the Kingdom Interlinear shows, the thought is that love covers over all things. It does not “give away a fault” of a brother, as the wicked are prone to do. (Psalm 50:20; Proverbs 10:12; 17:9) Yes, the thought here is the same as at 1 Peter 4:8: “Love covers a multitude of sins.” Of course, loyalty would keep one from covering over gross sins against Jehovah and against the Christian congregation.

19 Love “believes all things.” Love is positive, not negative. This does not mean that love is gullible. It is not quick to believe sensational statements. But for one to come to have faith in God, one must have the will to believe. So love is not skeptical, unduly critical. It does not resist believing as does the atheist, who dogmatically states that there is no God, nor is it like the agnostic, who dogmatically asserts that it is simply impossible to know where we came from, why we are here, and what the future will be like. God’s Word gives us assurance in regard to all these things. Love is also ready to believe because it is trusting, not being unduly suspicious.

20 The apostle Paul assures us further that love “hopes all things.” Since love is positive, not negative, it has strong hope in all that is promised in God’s Word. We are told: “The man who plows ought to plow in hope and the man who threshes ought to do so in hope of being a partaker.” (1 Corinthians 9:10) Even as love is trustful, it is also hopeful, always hoping for the best.

21 Finally, we are assured that love “endures all things.” It is able to do so because of what the apostle Paul tells us at 1 Corinthians 10:13: “No temptation has taken you except what is common to men. But God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but along with the temptation he will also make the way out in order for you to be able to endure it.” Love will cause us to look to the many examples in the Scriptures of God’s servants who have endured, chief of whom is Jesus Christ, as we are reminded at Hebrews 12:2, 3.

Thank you for sharing Jeromeo, this is somewhat interesting.

What I find most interesting is that in your view what is important is the will to believe, not the justification so much, just the desire and will to carry it out.

Also, skepticism is not undue criticism, hell, it's not even criticism.  It is a refusal to believe "just because it feels good and I want to".  Skepticism is an attitude that demands something more solid than that and people exercise skepticism everday, they do it for instance when they go to buy a used car and the used car salesman tries to make them feel really good about their purchase by emphasizing the merits and de-emphasizing the demerits.

I choose to be skeptical when people "witness" God to me as well, for as St. Paul said about "faith" being in vain, it is not something to be believed in with insufficient justification.  I cannot help but smile in a somewhat sad amusement at how you cheapen your own faith by implying that really what counts is the desire for faith and the will to keep it, and that understanding needs to come after one already believes and not before (as in faith need not have a logical foundation and the premises need not be self evident).

Hard to carrot and stick people when you talk about hell, that is why the most successful conversion processes shy away from the fire and brimstone until after a convert is made, and instead focus on the love of Jesus.  Carrot and stick them means to get the rabbit to focus on the carrot so much that he fails to notice the stick or the trap he is being led into.  Once he is in the trap then you can tell him about hell, but not before, as he might suspect something.

I don't dogmatically assert anything about God, I simply have yet to hear a version of "God" that is A.  Coherent and that B.  Doesn't rely on some logical fallacy or multiple out to exist.

Martin Luther was quite correct when he stated that Reason is the enemy of Faith.

Quite correct, and at least he was honest about this.  Most people nowadays prefer to be dishonest about this (including the current Pope of the Roman Church).

Let me make it quite clear to you, that skeptics do not put the will to believe into action before belief in God is made intellectually feasible, only after.

God has created two things

One God to love & second woman to have sexual love.

thanks

Patnamohan

Hello there,

What a compelling topic for discussion. I believe that people overrate the complexity of love, and attach so many nuances to this little 4 letter word. To me, love is merely a reaction to a stimulus, and that stimulus is something you either; want to own, or want to owe. I think that people are intrinsically greedy people so the owe/own concept would be fabulous to insert in this definition. An example of the own stimulus would be a romantic partner; you want to own his/her admiration as well. An example of the owe concept is familial love, love for a nation, love for a friend, subscription to a particular deity, because these are things that you feel you owe part of the happiness in your life to. This is not to say that you aren't happy with a romantic partner; you are happy, but in a romantic relationship, there is always a bit of jealousy involved regarding the loyalty of the other side because of the ownership complex. I think that the failure of romantic relationships traces to this owning concept; either too much ownership (domestic abuse, crazy marriage craving internal clock women) or when there is nothing left to own, such as lovestruck women or men who display their attraction too vehemently. These relationship fail because the other side do not see something to chase anymore and get bored. This is why there are waves of novels that states that men love "bitches" aka strong, confident, and independent women, and why many females do not like wishy washy men.

I think that love is an emotion, and like other healthy emotions, are ebbs in and out. You can never fully control the feelings of your partner; heck, divorce happens, and marriage is the closest tangible thing love gets. Thus, I don't buy into the whole unconditional, forever and ever love idea.

Hope this answers your question! This is only my view on love, and I'm probably wrong about it.

'Thus, I don't buy into the whole unconditional, forever and ever love idea.'
People change and are perhaps no longer compatible. If love is conditioned on never changing, then people must not educate themselves. If people change, then unconditional love accepts that. If love is conditioned on static unchanging prerequisites, then there will be conflict and best separation, which is tough with kids.