Samwik, thanks for your insight.
Talking about powers that can be used to create and/or destroy, in the Agnosticism/Atheism forum
http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?msg=44735.127&nav=messages&webtag=ab-atheismI am having a dialogue about the DIFFERENCES BETWEEN luv (eros), love (philia), and Love (agape) as practiced by human beings.
In the Greek New Testament, the word agape--the special Greek word for GOD-like Love--is used 140 times. In I Corinthian 13--Paul's great poem on agape/Love--Paul calls it "the greatest of these ...". In I John 4:7-21 John tells us that GOD is Love.
Love does not just mean luv--that is, the erotic, sexual, sensual and somatic-hormone-driven kind of luv--valuable in its right place though it is.
How prepared and ready are we as human beings to be truly humane beings--that is, capable of being truly Loving, without conditions?
When GOD is LoveRedewenur, GOD as
Love is not about being a "god of the gaps".
In my humble opinion, GOD (not as a being separate from us)--at work in and through human beings, willing so to mediate it--is
Love. When this happens, luv (eros)--that is, sexual attraction to wives--becomes more than just lust, it builds families. When not used to build families it can be the opposite--a most destructive and even criminal force.
Love (philia), in the ordinary friendship-sense of the word, becomes loyalty. It is a power that can build communities, nations and the global village.
GOD, as Love (agape)--that is, as unconditional love, is that quality which gives good will, regardless of conditions and circumstances, the ability to give good will, and to do good things to all and sundry, even under the worst of circumstances.
Obviously, the romantic kind of hormone-generated
luv we find in certain movies and read about in cheap novels is not
Love. Nor is it love as friendship. When the handsome hero in the James-Bond movie series "makes luv" to his "luver" he is really saying, "I like me, and I want you ..."