Unconditional Love is BS

[3nigma]

I've always wondered how this worked. Just loving someone with all their flaws? That's not how the social status ladder of humans works. I always see people, even on this forum, telling me the solution to a problem is to just "unconditionally love the other person."

Thanks alot *******, so you're basically critizing ME and telling me I shouldn't hate people (On an obvious condition concerning me as a person) like there's something wrong with that. Contradictions, everywhere.

Lets face it, if someone walks up to you and punches you in the face, you're not going to unconditionally love that person. You're going to get mad and try to fight them, otherwise... well, you're an idiot that accepts abuse. I think the whole unconditional love thing is to control people. "Love this person or that person unconditionally, even if you're getting abused by them, even if they're a violent psychopath, (Insert a bad trait here)" Not in my society.

I always see some thread going as follows:

I have a boyfriend, and I hate the relationship! I want him to change! He's abusive, he gambles alot of our money away! He's got negative habits and he's pulling me into his negativity! Someone Help!

Then some ******* wanders into the thread, thinking they're an enlightened being and says...

"Well, have you ever thought about accepting all his flaws and just loving him for the person he is? You're the problem here, you need to accept that."

What kind of lame, useless advice is that? You basically just told the poor girl that she's the problem! (Even though that doesn't make sense, since you're supposed to "unconditionally love everyone.") Now she gets even more depressed and hopeless, thinking that it's alright for the other person to behave this way, and treat her like this. My ass, tell the girl to get OUT of the relationship, to put a restraining order on the guy, and leave his sorry ass. In my day, if you were bad, your parents disciplined you. You got out of line and did/said something stupid, you got hit. It's a good system, except for if you traumatize the child by beating them senselessly or for no good reason.

It's just another system of control for the masses. Wake up, hasn't high school taught you anything? There are certain people you will just hate, it's a fact of life. If you don't, then you've got some bottled up issues that will eventually explode at your place of employment, shooting the place up with a machine gun.

[Nelson]

AMEN! Preach it!

It's like you took the words out of my mouth

[supertom]

Unconditional Love is all there is, all else is illusion.

No matter how many times i hear people fight this, they always accept it

[3nigma]

Originally Posted by supertom

Unconditional Love is all there is, all else is illusion.

No matter how many times i hear people fight this, they always accept it

Yeah, okay. Didn't unconditional love come from 'God', or Jesus? "Follow my commandments or go to hell." Very unconditional.

[Revolution]

3Enigma,
There are various forms of love. Sometimes going to war might be the most loving thing to do. Sometimes getting a restraining order might be the most loving thing to do.

If you rebuke a person for doing a wrong thing then you ARE loving them for you are teaching them that their behaviour is unnacceptable.
On the other hand if you let abusers run rampant you are not loving them at all because they may not ever even realise that what they are doing is causing hurt to others.

Cannot a policeman love an out-of-control drunkard - even as he straps handcuffs to his wrists?

My point is being a person of unconditional love doesn't necessarily mean that you stand for BS.

[3nigma]

Originally Posted by Revolution

3Enigma,
There are various forms of love. Sometimes going to war might be the most loving thing to do. Sometimes getting a restraining order might be the most loving thing to do.

If you rebuke a person for doing a wrong thing then you ARE loving them for you are teaching them that their behaviour is unnacceptable.
On the other hand if you let abusers run rampant you are not loving them at all because they may not ever even realise that what they are doing is causing hurt to others.

Cannot a policeman love an out-of-control drunkard - even as he straps handcuffs to his wrists?

My point is being a person of unconditional love doesn't necessarily mean that you stand for BS.

I really doubt shooting someone in the face, aka war, is a sign of love. You've got the wrong word in mind. Love is something between a man and a woman. Your family, your pets, your best friends. That's love. Cuffing a fat drunk man isn't love. I think JUSTICE is what you're looking for. Maybe integrity.

[Maguru]

I don't believe unconditional love exists either but you seem angry about it.
If you have freedom to hate others, don't they have freedom not to?

Aren't you advocating 'freedom to be yourself' and yet not accepting others who choose to love unconditionally according to their own definition?

I wonder how you react to those who hate you? They may have just as good a reason as you do for hating them. Is the person who is hated a hateful person or is it judgement?

Originally Posted by 3nigma

I've always wondered how this worked. Just loving someone with all their flaws? That's not how the social status ladder of humans works. I always see people, even on this forum, telling me the solution to a problem is to just "unconditionally love the other person."

Thanks alot *******, so you're basically critizing ME and telling me I shouldn't hate people (On an obvious condition concerning me as a person) like there's something wrong with that. Contradictions, everywhere. Eat it.

Lets face it, if someone walks up to you and punches you in the face, you're not going to unconditionally love that person. You're going to get mad and try to fight them, otherwise... well, you're an idiot that accepts abuse. I think the whole unconditional love thing is to control people. "Love this person or that person unconditionally, even if you're getting abused by them, even if they're a violent psychopath, (Insert a bad trait here)" Not in my society.

I always see some thread going as follows:

I have a boyfriend, and I hate the relationship! I want him to change! He's abusive, he gambles alot of our money away! He's got negative habits and he's pulling me into his negativity! Someone Help!

Then some ******* wanders into the thread, thinking they're an enlightened being and says...

"Well, have you ever thought about accepting all his flaws and just loving him for the person he is? You're the problem here, you need to accept that."

What kind of lame, useless advice is that? You basically just told the poor girl that she's the problem! (Even though that doesn't make sense, since you're supposed to "unconditionally love everyone.") Now she gets even more depressed and hopeless, thinking that it's alright for the other person to behave this way, and treat her like this. My ass, tell the girl to get OUT of the relationship, to put a restraining order on the guy, and leave his sorry ass. In my day, if you were bad, your parents disciplined you. You got out of line and did/said something stupid, you got hit. It's a good system, except for if you traumatize the child by beating them senselessly or for no good reason.

It's just another system of control for the masses. Wake up, hasn't high school taught you anything? There are certain people you will just hate, it's a fact of life. If you don't, then you've got some bottled up issues that will eventually explode at your place of employment, shooting the place up with a machine gun.

[Christian223]

I kind of agree with what Revolution says (except the war thing).

I think Love can be divided into many other categories as compassion, empathy, understanding, mercy, forgiveness, and so on, but, loving someone does not mean to accept their behaviour, it doesnt mean to support their bad actions, it may mean in some cases to have compassion of them, or sometimes it might mean to forgive them, some other times at the same time you have compassion for them you just have to leave them, for the sake of the well beign of both people.

Imagine this, you are a father of two children, you see one of them insulting and hitting his brother, are you going to say "oh ill just love him and forgive him", or what?, if you love both you are going to correct that child in a loving manner, maybe a punishement will be necesary, but because of love, so that the child will not do it anymore. The unloving thing would be to just leave them alone, even if you love them, you would not be doing them any favor, you would be hurting them instead.

You sort of decide on how to apply love in different kind of ways in different kind of situations. But i also agree with you, there are people really confused around this parts...

Didn't unconditional love come from 'God', or Jesus?

The term "unconditional love" is not in the bible, but he does speak about love, and justice, and fraternity, and doing good deeds, etc, the difference in your actions is in what personal maning you give to that invented term ("unconditional love", who invented that term, by the way?, its not on the bible), but, if you want to learn about what the bible teaches about love, there are many verses that explain what it is and how to apply it, along with things like justice, so that there are many things we must apply in our lifes according to the bible, all at the same time, we must apply love, compassion, and justice, and intelligence (that obeys piety), and wisdom all at the same time, not just a love without justice or wisdom.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by 3nigma

I've always wondered how this worked.

Ask your mother. She probably knows. Most mothers do, even if their children do not.

[gwhutton]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

Ask your mother. She probably knows. Most mothers do, even if their children do not.

one could argue that the "unconditional love" that a mother feels for a child is merely an evolutionarily beneficial drive to make sure a kid gets to 4 or 5 years old. and then all "unconditional love" a mother feels after that is merely her doing something for the child that triggers the anchors that were set during that time which she felt "in-tune" with the universe and her "higher power" because she was merely fulfilling her role in the grand scheme of things.

I think the idea of "unconditional love" came from this and a "feeling" that a mother felt that her child felt "unconditional love" for his/her mommy, when in reality that was "unconditional dependency".

Of course this argument is as old as the hills and is based on your faith/beliefs rather than any kind of science or reason.

I do think that the best description of love, other than this, is from the letter of Paul to the Corinthians (?) when he describes love not as an emotion or a feeling, but actions based on a decision. In which case couples that stick together becasue they once upon a time chose to, regardless of the crap that comes up is probably the only place you'll find anything close unconditional love.

then again, I supposed you could chuck the dictionary out the window and reframe everything until your blue in the face so that everything = unconditional love.

or i could be totally wrong, I really don't know.

[metareview]

Originally Posted by 3nigma

Yeah, okay. Didn't unconditional love come from 'God', or Jesus? "Follow my commandments or go to hell." Very unconditional.

A woman attached to an abusive man isn't in love with him, she's looking for validation because she doesn't love her self, if it feels bad it's not love. The emotion there is hate, the opposite of love. Therefore to experience the emotion of love it must always be unconditional or it's just dressed up approval seeking in the form of longing and lust.

There's nothing like that in the bible, for example people will read a passage which is a document of tribal law at the time, take the individual sentences and think the bible is telling them to do this and that, and disregard that bit is intended as historical document. Hating people back who do that probably isn't going to make a right.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by 3nigma

Wake up, hasn't high school taught you anything? There are certain people you will just hate, it's a fact of life.

I can honestly tell you that right now, I cannot think of anyone in my life whom I hate. There are plenty of people whom I'm quite neutral about - I neither like nor dislike them. But there is no one I hate.

If you don't, then you've got some bottled up issues that will eventually explode at your place of employment, shooting the place up with a machine gun.

Nonsense.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by 3nigma

I always see people, even on this forum, telling me the solution to a problem is to just "unconditionally love the other person."

Hmmm, I don't remember ever seeing anyone here saying that the solution to your problem is to just unconditionally love the other person. Would you point one out to me?

I totally agree with you (except for all that anger! ). If someone told me the solution to my problem is to just unconditionally love a person, I would make that wry face I make. like that except more twisted. It's sort of the "buck up!" of the new age. If I'm not generating love, unconditional or otherwise, I'm sure not going to start because someone tells me I *should*!

And -- if I'm feeling bad (angry, lonely, irritable, blaming, irresponsible, hopeless, resentful, ashamed, etc.) and I want to feel better, I know the first thing to do is look for something I could let go of, and something I could generate. There's always something!

Letting go of being right is always effective for me (and not always easy!), and there's plenty of other things that come up that I can let go of and feel better on purpose. Love, I've found, is a GREAT thing to generate if I want to feel better -- one of the most effective things, as a matter of fact!

"Unconditional" love, to me, is love that I generate without regard to the thoughts, actions, and words of others. It really doesn't have anything to do with another person! I don't have unconditional love FOR the person who wants to punch me in the face, I have unconditional love (hopefully!) WITH him. If he's there with me, he's there with love. Doesn't matter what he does; the love is being generated by me, and he has no power over me to stop me from generating love. I'm just being love, even if he does strike me. That love doesn't mean I won't move to avoid being hit, and it doesn't mean I won't summon the police or my big brother. The love is still there, though, because I'm generating.

What I'm trying to say is, unconditional love isn't FOR other people, it's FOR you.

And, as it happens, when you generate love, it exists anew in the world, and you have generated that new love. Generating new love in the world is something that inspires me. If it doesn't inspire you, you don't have to do it. Nobody's gonna punch you in the face for it!

Good luck, and I hope you feel better on purpose.

[jonarmis]

Believe it or not 3nigma, unconditional love does exist. People will love another unconditionally despite the flaw. Some people can truly give and love 'til it hurts. It may not have happened to you but, it's a fact of life!

[sheffy4]

Originally Posted by Angela

What I'm trying to say is, unconditional love isn't FOR other people, it's FOR you.

Amen! Generating love makes me feel great inside, even empowered. But when I think about hating someone, that feeling comes back to me and gnaws at my insides. Why would I want to do that to myself? I would much rather feel the my skin tingling with love than my stomach twisting with hate.

[Joely]

I have to say I agree with Angela. I've never seen any threads where the OP describes outright and obvious abuse. I *have* seen a few posts lately where people describe having a partner with a very negative outlook. In one case, that individual was recommended by one person to leave because it was interpreted as abuse. In both cases, the OP insisted that aside from having a negative attitude their partner was a great person.

I see there being a huge difference between accepting what's happened, or forgiving the act, and condoning abuse. Whenever I've read anything about unconditional love or heard anybody discussing it, when the issue of abuse of any kind is raised, the attitude is that unconditional love should not make you a doormat and permit abuse. That's not unconditional love, not by a very long margin. If somebody posted here describing abuse, my advice would be to get the hell away from that individual as fast as possible. Over time they can deal with forgiveness and moving on, but the priority would be safety.

[oberlee]

3nigma, you have some serious hostility in your post that leads me to believe someone gave this advice to YOU. If they didn't, then why do you care?

Loving someone doesn't mean you're with them, speak to them, or are friends with them. There are ex-boyfriends I love unconditionally--doesn't mean I talk to them all the time, or at all.

And it doesn't mean you don't stand up for yourself, either.

Maybe you should post what you're REALLY pissed about, because your post was nothing more than a hot-headed rant.

Props to Acting like Godot for the mother bit.

[3nigma]

Originally Posted by oberlee

3nigma, you have some serious hostility in your post that leads me to believe someone gave this advice to YOU. If they didn't, then why do you care?

Loving someone doesn't mean you're with them, speak to them, or are friends with them. There are ex-boyfriends I love unconditionally--doesn't mean I talk to them all the time, or at all.

And it doesn't mean you don't stand up for yourself, either.

Maybe you should post what you're REALLY pissed about, because your post was nothing more than a hot-headed rant.

Props to Acting like Godot for the mother bit.

Lol, I'm not pissed. I just like to swear alot to get my point across, and having been on this forum I toned it down a bit because everyone here doesn't seem to swear... but then I thought, why the **** not? I guess some might interpret it as hateful or really angry.

What happened was, I got into an argument with my friend and it made me realize we were conditionally 'loving' each other as friends. Otherwise, there wouldn't be arguments at all. What I'm saying is, there might be unconditional love between some people... but it's fake from the outside! The condition they like each other is on... being themselves! I'm not bringing hate into the equation, don't take that extreme. Just because I said unconditional love doesn't exist, doesn't mean you automatically switch to hate. I was speaking of those moments where someone pushes you to the extreme, you won't love them at that moment. Unconditional love doesn't really make sense to me anyway.

The only time I could see it making sense is between parents and their children. That's why we have psychopaths in the first place, because their parents didn't love them when they made choices they didn't approve of. But then again, that's a contradiction. How do you not approve of something and still love the person? Love should be ignoring everything wrong, actually... not even SENSING problems with the person, just seeing them as pure love. That doesn't happen. If my dog does something I don't like, I scold him but then a few minutes later I'm petting him. So, it's based on situation, and conditions.

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

Well, I have a ton of thoughts on this subject, but right now I am having a hard time sorting them all to be articulate. Still I made a thread a while back (link below) about unconditional love that if you haven't seen it might have some information that would be interesting. Not sure it will change your mind, but it might give you some other points to look at.

What is unconditional love?

[Angela]

Originally Posted by 3nigma

Lol, I'm not pissed. I just like to swear alot to get my point across, and having been on this forum I toned it down a bit because everyone here doesn't seem to swear... but then I thought, why the **** not?

3nigma, here's one really good reason: it's against forum rules. You are smart person; you can make your point quite well without resorting to the plethora of profanity. Please knock it off.

Thanks!

Exercise good judgment, reasonableness, and mutual respect - This is a community for smart people who share an interest in personal growth, so please treat it as such. Personal attacks as well as profane, pornographic, racist, sexist, or otherwise demeaning or offensive messages will not be tolerated. Recognize that there's a human being behind every post, and behave accordingly.

[3nigma]

Originally Posted by Angela

3nigma, here's one really good reason: it's against forum rules. You are smart person; you can make your point quite well without resorting to the plethora of profanity. Please knock it off.

Thanks!

I didn't see anything on the forum rules that said no swearing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the closest thing is being profane, or posting insulting messages. I don't think I did that.

Edit - Besides, I see nothing wrong with swearing itself. It just intensifies an argument. =P Now, if it's at a particular person, I don't do that.

[Maguru]

It's just another system of control for the masses. Wake up, hasn't high school taught you anything? There are certain people you will just hate, it's a fact of life. If you don't, then you've got some bottled up issues that will eventually explode at your place of employment, shooting the place up with a machine gun.

Your words!

Originally Posted by 3nigma

Lol, I'm not pissed. I just like to swear alot to get my point across, and having been on this forum I toned it down a bit because everyone here doesn't seem to swear... but then I thought, why the **** not? I guess some might interpret it as hateful or really angry.

What happened was, I got into an argument with my friend and it made me realize we were conditionally 'loving' each other as friends. Otherwise, there wouldn't be arguments at all. What I'm saying is, there might be unconditional love between some people... but it's fake from the outside! The condition they like each other is on... being themselves! I'm not bringing hate into the equation, don't take that extreme. Just because I said unconditional love doesn't exist, doesn't mean you automatically switch to hate. I was speaking of those moments where someone pushes you to the extreme, you won't love them at that moment. Unconditional love doesn't really make sense to me anyway.

The only time I could see it making sense is between parents and their children. That's why we have psychopaths in the first place, because their parents didn't love them when they made choices they didn't approve of. But then again, that's a contradiction. How do you not approve of something and still love the person? Love should be ignoring everything wrong, actually... not even SENSING problems with the person, just seeing them as pure love. That doesn't happen. If my dog does something I don't like, I scold him but then a few minutes later I'm petting him. So, it's based on situation, and conditions.

[Acting Like Godot]

Okay, 3nigma. How shall I put this? I have a certain impression of you, based on your posts. Specifically:

1. In this thread, you asserted strongly that unconditional love is bs.

2. In another thread, you asserted strongly that life is pointless, and anyone who believes otherwise is a fool.

3. In a 3rd thread, you described certain self-help speakers (Wayne Dyer, Tony Robbins) as evil.

4. In a 4th thread, you say that any person who believes in a religion (any religion) basically suffers from some "fundamental problem".

Anyway, my impression of you is ......

..... NOT that you're an angry, sad, un-loved fellow leading a meaningless existence and continually plagued by fundamental problems (aside from the fact that you're constantly being trampled and bullied by others - another problem which you've also said you're having).

My impression of you is that you're unable to identify your own views as precisely that. Your own views - nothing more.

From the way you write, I have gathered that you're constantly mistaking your own views as a kind of "objective reality".

Wll, I just wanted to invite you to consider the possibility that this simply isn't so.

[3nigma]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

From the way you write, I have gathered that you're constantly mistaking your own views as a kind of "objective reality".

Wll, I just wanted to invite you to consider the possibility that this simply isn't so.

Well, then what's the point of a forum? What's the point of having any sort of communication with another human being? If there's no objective reality, then everything you say to someone else is essentially a projection of your "objective" paradigm against theirs. Isn't what you just said your own objective reality perception about me? If you examine anything, you'll find it has tons of contradictions against everything else. Same as with me, or you, or anything.

I don't place my personal stake into these topics, I mostly just type them up for fun, or boredom, or any emotional state I seem to be in at the time.

[LightWork]

Hi 3nigma, this is a very interesting thread, thanks for bringing it up.

I am not a perfect person, however I have experienced several moments in my life of perfection, where unconditional love did reside within me. This is hard to describe unless you've experienced it.

If somebody came up to me and pushed me around in that state, I would have responded in an unconditionally loving way. Not being in that state currently I cannot vouch for what exactly that would be. Say somebody started a fight with me, I would not fight back. Perhaps you would, but that doesn't mean everybody else woulkd do the same thing. As a wild guess, it would depend upon the exact situation, but I think I would try calm the person and find out what their problem actually is. Failing this (inebriation, anger, adrenaline can all get in the way of the second party thinking straight) I wouldn't stand letting them hit me - this is not loving to them or to me.

On my behalf, I would get physically damaged. That is not unconditional love of self. On the other persons behalf, allowing them to do so will continue their habit of doing so (or possibly of doing it again if it's their first time), assuming they're doing it for their own feel good factor (usually the case). The best thing I could do for them is have them brought down to earth (without violence) into a state where they think straight and can perhaps analyse the hurt they are putting themselves and others through from such actions. Because I want them to feel good, and I don't think fighting is the optimum way to do so in the long run

Failing this, I run. If I can't immediately do anything to help the person, sticking around is only going to damage me. But I would never continue the fight.

That's just an example, but if you take the view that we are all One of the same being, made up of the same stuff etc (which a number of people do believe in) then yes, it is possible to generate unconditional love and quite easily.

Is there anything you wish to add?

[Fullcrum]

Dude, unconditional love is not a THOUGHT.

It cannot be reached through THOUGHT.

And you'll never understand it unless you feel it. This happens when you stop THINKING and become present. Be present for long enough and you'll notice "unconditional love" arising out of you. It was always there - thought covers it up.

The word describes a feeling of shared oneness with everyone and everything. It has nothing to do with sexual attraction or familial love or something.

What Acting like Godot is saying is that you think your viewpoint is the only one. You think it is the only correct one, or at least your posts do not demonstrate an openness for discussion more than they show a "This is fact" attitude. It's alright though - it's just a message board. But this is what I think everyone is trying to get across.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by 3nigma

Isn't what you just said your own objective reality perception about me?

Nah. It's my subjective perception of you. It could change. I might change it at any time. Other people might also perceive you differently. YOU might perceive you differently. Or you might change tomorrow, or next week, or next month.

[Maguru]

Originally Posted by Fullcrum

The word describes a feeling of shared oneness with everyone and everything. It has nothing to do with sexual attraction or familial love or something..............

What Acting like Godot is saying is that you think your viewpoint is the only one. You think it is the only correct one, or at least your posts do not demonstrate an openness for discussion more than they show a "This is fact" attitude. It's alright though - it's just a message board. But this is what I think everyone is trying to get across.

Is that not what you have just done in the 1st paragraph? I do not agree that unconditional love is a feeling of shared oneness.

[bellemeadows]

From the Perspective of the Ego Unconditional Love Does Not Exist, so you are right.

If we are only egos, and no more, than you are completely right. But, if we are more than an ego, than you may be wrong.

I have experienced being more than an ego, and existing as unconditional love. But I know that to an egoic mindset, this is nonsense -- not only is it nonsense, but it is dangerous nonsense. Since the ego wants to be totally in control, and rule the roost; such realities threaten the ego.

Bottom line; if you believe there is no such thing as unconditional love, you will not experience it. Except -- in those moments when the ego is not in play, you may find the experience of unconditional love comes to you, as an experience (which later the ego will debunk entirely.)

There is no way to convince the ego that unconditional love exists, and it is therefore a pointless exercise. However, that does not change my, belief that unconditional love is our reality, and we are each more than our egos would have us believe.

Blessings from Belle,

[Angela]

Originally Posted by 3nigma

I didn't see anything on the forum rules that said no swearing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the closest thing is being profane, or posting insulting messages. I don't think I did that.

Edit - Besides, I see nothing wrong with swearing itself. It just intensifies an argument. =P Now, if it's at a particular person, I don't do that.

3nigma, check my last post to you in which I quoted the rule of the forum that prohibits profane messages. Please also see my PM to you on this subject.

Thanks!