[Jesus sits on a rock, speaking]
A new command I give you:
Love one another
[an angry character talks back to Jesus]
What if they’re something bad like gay, trans, brown, or communist though?
[Jesus is facepalming on his rock]
I don’t want to be a messiah anymore
Compassionate love does not require kindness and generosity in the way you mean those words. It does not require making yourself vulnerable to danger, it does not require giving material or emotional support. You should still be able to recognize and respond to the humanity in a flawed person.
I believe if you are following the words of Jesus, then yes, it does require kindness and generosity, with their standard meanings. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” – Jesus
I agree that it doesn’t require sacrificing your safety.
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While Jesus is an authority and primary source on a number of things, He is neither of those things for compassionate love. I think in this decontextualized instance, “thy neighour” actually has a specific meaning that is being stripped, possibly referring to the other tribes of Israel, such as in his parable about the good Samaritan that people commonly misunderstand. I wouldn’t be willing to draw much from it without a much deeper reading.
I’m not making a dogmatic argument, I’m making a much more grounded claim about psychology and spirituality. Compassionate love is a real thing that we know stuff about.
“I tell you, love your enemies” – Jesus https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5%3A43-48&version=NIV
I’m engaging in the thread, the leader of which is a meme featuring Jesus, so it is more relevant what Jesus said than “claims about psychology and spirituality”.
I was raised Baptist, but I no longer adhere to it dogmatically.
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Jesus doesn’t offer a realistic model of compassionate love. Christians aren’t really supposed to emulate Jesus. I know that’s the schtick, but it’s not the reality. Jesus exists to give Christians opportunities for moral self-licensing and self-stereotyping, which is the moral candy alternative to actually being a good person. He performs miracles and displays superhuman feats of equanimity (when he’s not cursing figs) not because we are supposed to actually emulate him, which would be impossible, he’s fucking GOD in a fake mustache, but because we are supposed to psychologically transfer his good qualities to ourselves by our association with him. That’s why Jesus stops at telling you what to do, and is silent about how to do it. He knows you’re not really going to do it.
Compassionate love is hard. It’s not just a matter of deciding to do it, you have to know how, and you have to practice. Other religions and creeds that preach and teach you how to practice compassionate love don’t do so for abstract moral reasons. Compassionate love serves the person who practices it.
Christianity offers people a way to feel like a good person without having to do anything, and Jesus doesn’t have very much of meaning to say about compassionate love.