Love your enemies.

[ZombieHorde]

Have more profound words ever been written?

I wonder.

I have no enemies. Peace to all beings.

I love you, dear reader.

[tama]

1. <3

[Tyrs WolfDaemon]

2. But...But...What about the famous words of Conan?

Mongol General: Hao! Dai ye! We won again! This is good, but what is best in life?
Mongol: The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.
Mongol General: Wrong! Conan! What is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.
Mongol General: That is good! That is good.

[rug]

3. Pax tecum.

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will proclaim the rule of the land. "And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid." I still believe that We Shall Overcome!

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-acceptance.html

[Tigress DEM]

14. Music to MY ears!

[cbayer]

4. Or at least be neutral towards them.

Sometimes it is very hard to love your enemies, but doing whatever you can to not be hateful back towards them is a good start.

This is a really tough one, but sometimes the best love you can give is to just leave someone who hates you alone.

I am glad you don't have any enemies. I have virtually none IRL, though I have developed some on the internet.

[trotsky]

9. I think it's important to keep lines of dialog open.

And when someone tells you that you have said hurtful things, acknowledge that, apologize, and keep discussing rather than passive-aggressively insulting those whom you hate.

[rexcat]

12. Your last line is interesting...

if not a little paranoid.

Also hate is a very strong word that is overused but some people see the world in black and white.

[Tigress DEM]

15. My worst challenge is *ush.

Somedays I still don't know if I could bring myself to save his life if he were on fire in the middle of the street in front of me. Somedays I think I wouldn't even piss on him to put out the fire, other days I know I'd put out the fire with an approved method and kick myself later.

I DID pray jokingly for God to help us with Chenney - ONE GOOD lightening strike, Lord. That is all it would take. BUT apparently he's protected by someone else.

[cbayer]

19. Lol. Much as I despise both of them, I can't wish them dead.

I tend to lean on the concept of karma for these kinds of people. I don't believe in it as a strict principle, but I do think you get back what you put out.

[trotsky]

25. "you get back what you put out"

One sure does, cbayer. Something I've been telling your father for a long time.

[jeepnstein]

18. He didn't say "just ignore them".

Nope, that's not how it works. We're constantly called on to go that extra mile, to love people who don't love us, to forgive any and all wrongs. That's really hard. And I fall down at it quite often. But that's the standard that was set for us so I just keep trying. That's how this Christianity thing is supposed to work.

Matthew 5:38-48

Eye for Eye

38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[h] 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

Love for Enemies

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

[cbayer]

20. I know, but there is just so much a person can take.

Do you think this applies to bullies? Should you keep letting them slap you down?

The passages are good and worth the reminder, but I think there are times when one has to protect themselves and times when one has to recognize that you are simply not going to make a difference with some individuals and that their wish to destroy you can not be countered.

[Tigress DEM]

43. Yeah, but it's like practising the violin. Initial attempts don't resemble desired result.

When making amends, ie forgiving people in your life who have hurt you deeply, releasing the resentment in order to live more fully and closer to God, I've found it good to have a 3 list system.

A) Those I KNOW I can forgive or people I KNOW I've wronged and am ready to deal with as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

B) A "maybe" list - people who I'm sure I should forgive, but don't know if I'm ready to yet or people I know I've hurt, but they hurt me too, so it's complicated.

C) The no way in hell list.


Working through the A list gives me the confidence, courage etc to move the B list over and eventually get to the C list.


All this lovely forgiveness does not equate to letting people hurt me again, though.

Hate the sin, love the sinner.

[Jim__]

5. That's a beautiful sentiment.

I'm not sure exactly what love is. But, I don't think it's what I feel for John Boehner, Eric Cantor, or Mitch McConnell. Nor for Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan. And when I think that the Koch brothers would gladly see all the middle class children in America die if it put a few more dollars in their pocket; I know what I feel towards them is not love. I don't want to feel love for them either.

Love is a good thing. I don't think everyone deserves to be loved.

[ZombieHorde]

6. Loving other people is for your own benefit.

Love will make you a happier person.

[Jim__]

7. I agree that love is a good thing, and necessary for happiness.

However, it does not follow from that, that we should love everyone.

Vision is a good thing and light is necessary for vision. Staring at the sun is not a good thing. It will permanently damage your vision. Loving your enemies is like that. It can be used against you. Say person A knows the Koch brothers are his enemy, but he decides to love them anyway. Given the opportunity, they will use that love against A.

I'm not at all sure that love your enemies is good advice.

[ZombieHorde]

8. If you found out your brother was a child kidnapper,

you would probably turn him in, even though you love very much. (I don't know if you have a brother, but you get my point.)

Even though you have love for someone, you can still try to stop them from causing harm.

[cbayer]

10. Some of the toughest love I ever had to exercise was letting my

son sit in jail.

After rescuing him too many times, it became crystal clear to me that I had to stop.

This decision was not well received by some of my other family members, my friends, his friends and particularly by him, but I stood by it.

Love is not always easy.

Fwiw, in retrospect and very happily, it turned out to be the absolute right thing to do.

But it was freaking hard.

[ZombieHorde]

11. I am sorry you had to do that.

Fwiw, in retrospect and very happily, it turned out to be the absolute right thing to do.

I am very glad to read this.

[Jim__]

23. Loving my brother and loving my enemy are 2 very different things.

It is all but biologically determined that my brother is part of my in-group. Sure, he can engage in behaviors that I don't like and I can try to change those behaviors. That doesn't make him my enemy.

My enemy is someone who wants me, my family, my entire group out of his way, and he's more than willing to kill us to achieve that. Billions of years of evolution have honed our reaction to such people. We react with fear and revulsion in their presence. Our skin crawls. When faced with these dangers, putting aside any of the defensive tools that evolution has provided us, is to put our entire group at risk of annihilation.

For an example of such an enemy, as I said before, look at the Koch brothers.

[Tigress DEM]

17. Personally, I find myself more incapacitated when blinded by hatred.

"Loving my enemies" releases the hook that is hatred from me, enabling me to make clear decisions based on their actions rather than making it a "personal" battle.

Some people, the Koch's in particular will use anything against a person. You are right.

Still, the kind of "love" that is for one's enemies is in the realm of a non-partisan judge who simply follows the law and gives everyone equal treatment under the law no matter how vile and foul that person is to them.

Ironically, if I pray for my enemies, it's often for their own salvation which would require that they see the light and turn from their wicked ways. Time in prison to think about their crimes would be a path for them toward enlightenment. Unlikely that it would work in that way, but upon occasion people have changed their ways. Others are just too damaged.

I think I "forgave" *ush when I heard his mother go on about how the "poor people from Louisiana" had actually 'improved their station" or some other non-sense and I realized *ush was screwed from the start growing up with someone like that. I'd still like to see him tried for war crimes and the rest of the lot as well, but I think of him as a truly screwed up person who never should have had the kind of power he wielded to be in position to destroy the lives of so many.

I hold those that voted for him and cheated for him equally culpable, but I try very hard not to let myself hate them (unsuccessfully some days) because of how the hating changes ME as a person. Maybe hating someone doesn't cause YOU to yell at the TV when their face shows up on it or make you want to see them dead. I'm a very passionate person and hatred does more damage to me than I can allow and I don't (like some I've known) have the capacity to drink it into submission. ; )

[Jim__]

24. "Love your enemies" or "be blinded by hatred" is a false dichotomy. - n/t

[Tigress DEM]

41. It's not like there isn't some where in the middle and I guess that works for some people.

But I'm trying to explain how I understand the discipline of "love your enemies" and it's about being on a path that goes away from hatred and toward being loving toward everyone as a way of keeping your own stress down, your own conscience clear and being a better person to be around in general.

It doesn't work for you, you don't see it that way fine. Everyone is wired differently or it would be a boring world.

Just offering up how it's been taught to me. Don't knock it if you haven't made a sincere effort to live it though, because it works for a lot of people.

[Tigress DEM]

42. Maybe it also helps that the hardest person to practise this on was my Ex-husband.

He had a few addictions and they turned out to be stronger than any love I had, so I let him go.

However, as those situations go he did a lot of cruel things. Tried to kill me for one. I grew up very tough and I was the one thing between him and my child. Honestly, I could have ended his miserable life that night. But I was sober and in a split second I knew I didn't want to be that kind of person. He saw me hesitate and it nearly went the other way.

Years of him pulling every dirty trick in the book, beating me when I went to pick up my son from visitation and then calling the police on me saying I hadn't fed the kid all day just to get them to harrass me.

I"d promised him I wouldn't be like his previous wives and keep his kid from him, but A) I wasn't all that certain of my son's safety (had no evidence though) and B) I was getting pretty dammed tired of having these games played on me. I'd quit participating, but in a way that made it worse. He tried all the harder to get a response out of me.

In desperation I prayed that God would just "bless him" "maybe even find him someone ELSE to love so he'd leave me alone." It happened just like that shortly after, but the best part was I quit feeling so angry that he was doing all this crap to me and our kid. I still didn't like the behavior any better, but I was able to not be that crazy lady getting divorced from that abusive man. I was just me, wishing him well and moving on with my life.

So I've really lived this stuff and I find it slightly offensive that people get all esoteric and judgemental about it because there is a "God" component to it.

I guess I'm glad it works for me because the flip side is I have a whole lot of people in my life who love me as much as I love them and I think the internal work a person does on their own stuff is the only way to bring that about.

Other people may not have been pressed as hard as I was and didn't need this kind of skill set, but I did and I'm glad I spent the time, took the effort to cultivate it.

I was happy that my ex made it 9 years sober, found the most happiness he'd ever had with wife number 6 (2 after me). But I was not surprised when he took all that and threw it away either. Still, if my prayers helped at all for any portion of that time, I'm glad.

[QuantumOfPeace]

46. What is the apt dichotomy then?

This is the problem, isn't it?

If you allow yourself to think, "I don't love them", you invite yourself to start to dehumanize someone.

This is the precursor to hatred and violence.

Now, if you say, I disagree with this person's objectives or even this person's means, that's consistent with not dehumanizing them.

[Jim__]

49. Why do you assume that there is an apt dichotomy?

The world is far too complex to assume that we can always break it down into such simple categories. Just think about the ambiguities in the words "love" and "enemies."

[QuantumOfPeace]

50. Spiritual teachings

Could be a lot of ways to approach this.

One is that we are just analytical. It suits us to create categories, in order to elucidate things.

Another is that we are human. We fall into the "traps" of making categories for people.

Yet another might be the core of this Christian teaching. Briefly, don't let your spirit be dominated by hate, whether dealing with things like tax collectors, people outside your "tribe" or social group, or, perhaps, even things as monstrous as sociopathy (which we are understanding more and more scientifically).

[Tigress DEM]

16. The "love your enemies" type of love isn't "FOR" the enemy exactly.

It's a way to detach from hating them in order to remain a calm and loving person.

It's a way to stay true to one's own principals and not be dragged down to the level of the "haters" by hating them back.

It's taking a higher level viewpoint and seeing even someone like Mitt or Paul as "children at some point in their lives" who still continue their childish ways of selfishness and harming others by their lack of understanding.

Same as I'd put a kid on time out I'd send a grown up who acts like a spiteful disobedient child to prison, or at least not elect him/her to the highest office of the land. But I care MORE about the people that have been hurt and healing them than I want to spend my energy by investing in hating someone when my hatred of them doesn't harm them a bit.

ACTION against what awful people do doesn't have to be personal, it's just the left thing to do and must be done to keep our planet alive and prosperous.

[cbayer]

21. This is lovely and resonates.

I think it is consistent with what I said above about at least remaining neutral.

When you give up the urge to strike back, to get revenge, to hurt them more than they have hurt you, it is a very good feeling.

When you stop keeping score and drop the need to win, it is liberating.

There are those you can engage and those you can not. As I said, loving your enemies may mean ignoring them.

[Richard D]

26. It says "Love" . . .

not "Like". Love is a state of being that need not be dependent on a "whom".

[cbayer]

27. Good point. Love means something quite different.

You don't have to like your enemies.

[Rowdyboy]

13. In the Episcopal church during "Prayers of the People" love is often offered to those who hate us...

I've always found it very moving to try to understand why we're so often despised, sometimes with good reason.

[cbayer]

22. Excellent point. Loving your enemy may be taking the time to try and understand

why they are your enemy and asking if you hold some responsibility for that.

[intaglio]

28. More profound words written?

Of course, and I notice you disqualify yourself from having these "profound" words apply to yourself as you "... have no enemies"

What do these words mean in any case? X may consider you a friend or regard you neutrally or even think there is enmity between you and them, but how is it you consider X to be your enemy? Do you think that all those who carry animosity towards you are enemies? If that is the case then surely you need to "love your enemies," because you will have misjudged many of those people.

It is notable that the words you choose to delight in are, Biblically, originally from Leviticus (Ch 19: v 18) and so are not exactly original. The actual profound words come later in the passage (v.31) when the pro-Paul scribe who wrote Luke restates the Golden Rule; "Do to others ans you would have them do to you." The Golden Rule, of course, pre-dates Christianity by many hundreds of years.

[ZombieHorde]

29. I was pretty drunk when I wrote the OP.

It is an emotional post.

[cbayer]

30. It has led to some interesting conversation,

as some liquor led thoughts sometimes do.

[ZombieHorde]

34. Yea, Southern Comfort can be pretty sweet. nt

[intaglio]

31. It's all right - I love you

and never post drunk. I've done it myself a long time ago on an MB far away

Have a good day and think how helpful you were to everyone.

[struggle4progress]

32. If you don't have enemies, maybe you're not speaking enough truth from time to time

[ZombieHorde]

33. I have some close friends who are libertarians,

and I speak my version of the truth to them often. We have political debates, but they don't get heated because I try to validate their feelings, and I try to keep a respectful tone.

You can say almost anything to someone if you're respectful and validate their feelings.

Example of validating someone's feelings:

Them: Why should my money go to lazy men in their 20's who just refuse to work?

Me: Sure, you work hard and you want to keep the money you earned. No doubt some people abuse the system, but most people who receive benefits really do need the help, and strong social programs help reduce crime, and that benefits everyone. The police cannot be everywhere at once, and we don't want them everywhere at once, so crime prevention is a smart way to go.

[struggle4progress]

37. There's nothing at all wrong with being respectful to people, and certainly there's nothing wrong

with being able to be friends with people whose views are different from your own

[cbayer]

35. I don't necessarily agree with this.

I have no trouble speaking what I believe is the truth and I have had many people in my life who vociferously disagreed with me and were true adversaries.

But enemies? Not really.

Enemies to me means that they are invested in destroying you personally. To me, it's not the natural result of speaking your mind.

[struggle4progress]

38. People invested in your personal destruction shouldn't be the natural result of speaking your mind,

but it can nevertheless be the result, no matter how courteous and thoughtful you are

[dimbear]

36. The caliber of your enemies is an excellent gauge of your own character.

IMHO. "Love your enemies" is another idle phrase in the scriptures not intended for practical application. Try running a holy war with that in play.

[struggle4progress]

39. It is absolutely intended for practical application

[dimbear]

40. Plenty of room for disagreement. No harm filing that with other adages that are

just not practical pieces of advice. It's like the Old Testament's concept of a Jubilee Year. It sounded good, but probably never happened. (You can't run businesses that way.)

Clearly you cannot run wars while loving your enemies.

[Tigress DEM]

44. Maybe the person they call the "Prince of Peace" was not advocating war.

AND as much awful stuff that is said about Muslims and the Koran, part of what was attempted by Mohamed was to treat your enemies with honor and even during war to have certain standards of behavior. How many years before the Geneva Convention was he working on this? And it has been said he was inspired by what Jesus preached to some degree.

I understand the Crusades, the Inquisition and the way religion is being used by the RW to blow up the Middle East are prime examples of the Church being involved in running after their enemies with a vengence that makes simple aggression between countries seem pale in comparison, but I personally don't see that the Church was/is being true to the teachings of Christ in those situations.

A Church just like a Government is made up of people who can be swayed to abuse their power. I think when Church and State try to mix is when the Church is more tempted to go against the peaceful teachings of Jesus.

[dimbear]

45. I'm particularly interested in the history of the first few Christian centuries.

How what we now call the New Testament came to be collected, for instance. I see very little evidence that any folk were actively loving their enemies during that stretch of time.

The statements that are in the New Testament are there for specific reasons, reasons which don't seem to have much to do with what Jesus may actually have said. Of course that is just my humble opinion. To support it, tho, consider that the folks who picked out the books which were allowed in had probably a hundred or so to chose from.

It's very much worth anyone's time to know why, for instance, the Gospel of Peter was rejected, and likewise the Gospel of Thomas, while a plain forgery like Timothy made it in. Those must have been very interesting times, but times that didn't involve much loving of enemies. At least I'm pretty sure Marcion, which see, didn't feel the love.

[QuantumOfPeace]

47. Yes

I agree: treat your enemies ... even during war

[QuantumOfPeace]

48. We should bring back the idea of a Jubilee Year

Might help with the fiscal deadlock in Washington.

We lose our religious touchstones at our own peril...

[Lint Head]

51. It's hard for me to love Hitler and Mussolini.

[ZombieHorde]

52. Their current form is no longer an issue. nt

[Marrah_G]

53. I think when people say they love people they don't know, it cheapens the meaning of the word

What I feel for my children, my family, my partners, my friends is not the same as what I feel for strangers. It is a special bond. It is a special emotion.

Just my two cents.

[ZombieHorde]

54. Some languages have different words for different types of love.

Unfortunately, English is more limited.

I experience many different types of love for different people. I love all of humanity, but I do not love all of humanity in the same way I love children, and I do not love my children in the same way I love my parents, etc.

[Marrah_G]

55. That's what I was trying to convey

I drove home from work thinking I probably came across as uncaring about the world around me.