The Greatest Commandment

Discuss arguments for existence of God and faith in general. Any aspect of any orientation toward religion/spirituality, as long as it is based upon a positive open to other people attitude.

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The Pixie
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The Greatest Commandment

Post by The Pixie » Thu Mar 02, 2017 4:46 pm

Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
This follows a discussion with Metacrock on CADRE. Is this greatest commandment a moral truth? That is, is it immoral to not love God with all your heart, and indeed is not God with all your heart the most immoral thing a person can do?

Can anyone explain why failing to love the ground of being is so evil?

Also, did the ground of being decide that not loving him would be the most awful act imaginable?

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Metacrock
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Re: The Greatest Commandment

Post by Metacrock » Fri Mar 03, 2017 5:41 am

The Pixie wrote:
Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
This follows a discussion with Metacrock on CADRE. Is this greatest commandment a moral truth? That is, is it immoral to not love God with all your heart, and indeed is not God with all your heart the most immoral thing a person can do?

Can anyone explain why failing to love the ground of being is so evil?

Also, did the ground of being decide that not loving him would be the most awful act imaginable?
I told you i was going to post on that on Monday. Let me ask you a question before I try to answer your question. Is it really hard for you see why God would be the most important thing and why the source of all things would be the highest thing to value?

If you can't understand such an obvious idea how can you understand my answer?
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Jim B.
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Re: The Greatest Commandment

Post by Jim B. » Sat Mar 04, 2017 1:44 pm

The Pixie wrote:
Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
This follows a discussion with Metacrock on CADRE. Is this greatest commandment a moral truth? That is, is it immoral to not love God with all your heart, and indeed is not God with all your heart the most immoral thing a person can do?

Can anyone explain why failing to love the ground of being is so evil?

Also, did the ground of being decide that not loving him would be the most awful act imaginable?
There are all kinds of moral truths. If loving God to the utmost of one's ability is the highest moral good for humans, it doesn't necessarily mean that failing to do so would be the greatest moral evil. Otherwise, loving God with only 99.9999% of my heart soul and mind would be the greatest moral evil. Not murdering isn't that great of a moral good even though murder is a great moral evil. The relationship isn't always perfectly symmetrical.

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met
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Re: The Greatest Commandment

Post by met » Sat Mar 04, 2017 4:38 pm

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

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.....

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....)
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The Pixie
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Re: The Greatest Commandment

Post by The Pixie » Mon Mar 06, 2017 8:11 am

Metacrock wrote:I told you i was going to post on that on Monday. Let me ask you a question before I try to answer your question. Is it really hard for you see why God would be the most important thing and why the source of all things would be the highest thing to value?

If you can't understand such an obvious idea how can you understand my answer?
I had not read that you intend to pot when I started this thread.

What is difficult for me to understand is why valuing the source of all things would be a moral obligation. Hopefully that will be fully addressed.

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