Comment on the statement " Christian morality is essentially based on love for which embraces even the enemy"

Answer 1

Christian morality is based on the teachings of Christ, and love certainly figured very highly among His teachings: 'by this shall men know ye are my disciples, that ye have love one for another.' He also said to love your enemies and that the second commandment was 'love thy neighbor as thyself.' Then He defined everybody as a neighbor.

The problem today is that love no longer has the meaning it once did. People think of love as a mere emotion, and one intertwined with Romantic and Romanticist notions. Romanticism is the de facto religion of America, not Christianity, so it's hardly surprising that the idea of loving enemies is difficult to comprend.

People assume that in war, for example, those fighting each other must hate each other. This is far from universal, however; in many wars the men fighting each other respected and honored each other even though they were trying to kill each other. In WWI, despite the fevered propaganda war, Allied and Central soldiers took Christmas off and played soccer in No Man's Land. They were quite friendly to each other, and then the next day went back to shooting. These examples are meant to show that you don't have to embrace an enemy to show love. Loyalties and beliefs divide us all the time; but it is not necessary to hate the other simply because they're not us.

Tribalism is the natural state of humanity, and the concept of love taught by Christ makes all humanity one tribe. In a tribal society you would be killed for raping a woman of your tribe, but commended for raping the woman of another. Vikings used to play a game of 'spit the baby' with enemy babies, because the babies weren't quite human. Christ taught that everybody is human, and has value to God.

Not that it was entirely new; Jewish tradition included many of the same concepts, and Greek philosophers (especially the Stoics) came to the same conclusion.

And of course, even a perfect concept is not so perfect in execution. There have been many who called themselves Christians but behaved as more tribal than any barbarian.

To put it into practical, daily perspective, when you run a race you don't have to hate the other competitors. When you compete for a job you don't have to hate your rivals. When you set yourself up as an artist you should love those who you aspire to surpass. You don't become better by exulting when other people stumble, but by exceeding your own limitations. Even when you're opposing them.

Answer 2

Christian morality is essentially based on obeying the laws of God, one of which includes the love of God which loves even our enemies but cannot embrace their sins.

Answer 3

I agree totally. However, I do not see this as tolerance of law-breaking. Christian morality is also based in justice. It was pointed out in an earlier post that we must love the sinner and hate the sin. This is an important distinction. The Bible tells us that it is easy to love just those who love us. Loving the unlovable is a challenge, but Jesus is the great example of loving the unlovable. The human race is, to Him, the unlovable because we are all sinners.

Answer 4

Didn't God make a giant flood to drown a bunch of people?

Seriously though: The Christian moral system imposes absolute values upon which one may be judged. Love requires acceptance -- not judgement.

Answer 5

That is foolishness. One must have good sense no matter how deep they are into Christianity. We don't embrace someone who is a sociopath and who does not have a social conscious and just goes about hurting and taking advantage of people, do we?

Answer 6

WHAT!!! 'embrace even enemy' is impossible.
Defend yourself to survive.
'They know not what they do, out of Ignorance'--FORGIVE THEM--is later step

Answer 7

A very good notion, I just wish people would be true to it. Religion equals exclusion for other religion and therefor others from property. They fight for property.

Answer 8

false
its based on convenience