Re: LOVE: a feel-good social construction.

Good questions Zoe! I wish I had better answers and that I could write better to express it.

But spiritual love isn't dependent on anything outside of yourself. It's something you choose to be. It doesn't matter if someone agrees with you or disagrees with you, or see's you as something you are or aren't. You become unattached to worldly desires, you're humble, you experience freedom, forget about preferences, you don't do things for personal gains, your attention become redirected, you live in this world but your heart or attention are grounded in the spiritual world. You become dignified as a king. Joyful and optimistic as a child. You live with everyone, but your heart and eyes are on God. Like Rudenski said, you are totally forgiving. Confident but not arrogant. You love everyone truly as your brother and sister. And even a better example would be to love everyone like your children. The mature spiritual person looks at all other humans with tenderness and tolerance. They view immature folks with the love and consideration that parents bear with their children. The best example would be Jesus.

I would say emotional love lacks most of those qualities. Emotions are temporary, so emotional love is too in my book. It's dependent on physical apperance, or being treated in a certain way. So emotional love is dependent love. It's dependent on something else for it's existance. Money is a big one too. Marriages that last many years just about always go deeper. More soul to soul. When it gets to that level emotional love is none existant.

I believe animals are spiritual to an extint, but they follow Gods will no matter what. I don't think they are aware of this spiritual connection. They manifest it, but are unaware of it, and not in a bad way. I believe Jesus was unaware of his greatness too. Only humans can go against Gods will. Animals respond nobly to the urge of life, but only humans can attain the art of living, although the majority only experience the animal urge to live. Animals know only this blind and instinctive urge, man is capable of transcending this urge to natural function. Man can elect to live upon the higher plane of intelligence, even that of celestial joy and spiritual ecstasy. Animals make no inquiry into the purposes of life; therefore they never worry, neither do they commit intentional suicide. Suicide among humans testifies that such beings have emerged from the purely animal stage of existence, and that the exploratory efforts of such human beings have failed to attain the creative levels of mortal experience. Animals don't know the meaning of life; humans not only possess capacity for the recognition of values and the comprehension of meanings, but also are conscious of the meaning of meanings, we are self-conscious of our insight.

There are just two ways in which humans can live together: the material or animal way and the spiritual or human way. By the use of signals and sounds animals are able to communicate with each other in a limited way. But such forms of communication do not convey meanings, values, or ideas. The one distinction between humans and the animal is that humans can communicate with each other by means of symbols that most certainly designate and identify meanings, values, ideas, and even ideals. Since animals cannot communicate ideas to each other, they cannot develop true personality. They do have limited personality, humans develop true personality because they can communicate with each other about both ideas and ideals.

Well that's my opinion about animals. I can't say for sure, I could be totally wrong. I do love animals, and I think we can learn a lot from them!

Take Care Zoe! Tweet