The Greatest Commandment

[The Pixie]

moral is defined by the good What is good is moral what is moral is good, The source of all things is the good, That's where good comes from.

Now explain why we have a moral obligation to love God, and whether it is therefore immoral to not love God.

[The Pixie]

it says it in the bible because God revealed it. Jesus made the statement since he is incarnate logos we can just consider his words revelation.

Well, duh!

As with the Euthephro dilemma we can assume the good is synonymous with God's nature. So love is the good, The good is based upon love.

All love is good? Loving God is good? What exactly?

The issue here is whether not loving God is immoral. You seem dtermined to hide behind a wall of impenetrable vagueness.

Pixie the reason I did not do a post on this on cadre is because it's too basic. you are just trying to work up knit picks and making it way more complex then it has to be,. this is like really basic.

So stop the vagueness, and be clear.

Is it immoral to not love God?

[The Pixie]

Then you're applying your Biblical moral absolutism selectively. If a commandment reads "You shall do X with all of your heart mind and soul," then failing to do that would be a violation of that commandment. According to your absolutism, if I don't love my neighbor as I love myself, that's a greater moral evil than murdering my neighbor.

So let us concentrate o the first question; is it immoral to not love God? And as you brought it up, is it immoral if I don't love my neighbor as I love myself. Forget about how it compares to murder.

You say:

"If a commandment reads "You shall do X with all of your heart mind and soul," then failing to do that would be a violation of that commandment."

Failing a commandment is morally wrong, would you say?

No, I wouldn't. A person might lack the mental or emotional capacity for loving God, for instance.

Sure, but in any moral discussion, we are talking about moral agents capable of making moral decisions. Let us assume that here we also are talking about someone with the mental and emotional capacity for loving God. We are talking about intelligent adults here, not babes in arms or chimpanzees.

Supposing someone has the capacity to, but does not believe God exists, is it then moral not to love God?

[met]

The point in context is prob'ly about covenant, no?

Oh, right. The usual Christian cherry-picking. Morality is whatever it says in the Bible as long as Christianity has decided it wants to keep it.

In the ancient Jewish context, Law is more importantly a social binding than an way for an individual to redemption by keeping Law to try to "be good". So the convo with the Pharisee is about "how to be one of the people who know and uphold the Law" - i.e. being one of those who are in the covenant of Moses with God - rather than setting up rationalistic and individualistic "moral standards" for personal behavior in a modern Western sense.....

Yes, I am familiar with how Christianity rationalises ignoring the morality of the Bible. We'll have the "thou shalt not murder", because we don't want to be murdered, but we do want to eat prawns and lobsters, so obviously shellfish are only an abomination to God when Jews eat them, right?

So the first command, about loving God, that was only for the Jews?

In this sense, what's implied is that the inner quality of "loving God best" might be the premiere thing that could put someone in that group? (And it might be read as part of Christ's general internalization and intensification of concepts of "Law" throughout the Synoptics - "behold the Kingdom is at hand", "if your eye offends you, pluck it out", & so on....)

So loving God was not meant as a moral instruction, but just a means to an end? I can see how that would work, but if you throw out this command, what morality do you have besides the Golden Rule? I appreciate the Golden Rule is enough, but now your moral code is no different to mine and all claims of an objective standard disappear (which most Christians claim; perhaps you do not).

Well, we've discussed this before. And it seems like you're just throwing the contradiction you already pointed out -- the impossibility of 'commanding" love -- back at me, continuing to insist it is irreconciliable and that any effort to reconcile can be nothing but "cherry-picking" because that's what you've already decided. But on this particular point, neither the texts nor Xian tradition are particularly unclear nor paradoxical nor real difficult.

The last several times we've talked about this the point I made was - and still is -- that the "commandment" to love is really more demanding than a mere written law or morality. Not only should you not do wrong, you shouldn't even want to .... like, if you truly love you wife with all your heart & soul, not only will you not cheat or leave, but no pretty young thing will be able to turn your head for even a second...

[The Pixie]

Well, we've discussed this before. And it seems like you're just throwing the contradiction you already pointed out -- the impossibility of 'commanding" love -- back at me, continuing to insist it is irreconciliable and that any effort to reconcile can be nothing but "cherry-picking" because that's what you've already decided. But on this particular point, neither the texts nor Xian tradition are particularly unclear nor paradoxical nor real difficult.

Great. So it is really easy for you to answer the question: Is it morally wrong to not love God?

The last several times we've talked about this the point I made was - and still is -- that the "commandment" to love is really more demanding than a mere written law or morality. Not only should you not do wrong, you shouldn't even want to .... like, if you truly love you wife with all your heart & soul, not only will you not cheat or leave, but no pretty young thing will be able to turn your head for even a second...

Okay... So is it morally wrong to not love God?