What is "unconditional" Love?

And how do you practice it?

When I think in terms of "unconditional" love, I don't think in terms of the kinds of affection that we normally associate with loving someone closely, intimately, and it most certainly doesn't need to be a romantic type of love.

Basically all "unconditional" love would amount to from my perspective is a willingness to not wish or cause harm to another, and potentially even help another if it is within your means to do so. Not necessarily because you 'like' them, but simply because you love them in the sense that you do not want to see them harmed. This would include even helping them from situations where they are facing potential harm.

I do place "conditions" on my love. For example, I may or may not risk my life for another person. That can indeed be dependent upon how motivated I am to save the particular person in question. There are people whom I would not go out of my way to save, especially if it required that I place myself at great risk. So my 'love' for others is not totally unconditional. Nor have I ever claimed that it might be.

I'm not sure why anyone would even consider "practicing" totally unconditional love. Even the gods in the major world religions do not profess to offer unconditional love. On the contrary for the most part there are tons of conditions required to obtain their love and favor.

Christianity itself, for example, requires that a person be 'saved' from the very wrath of God himself. That's hardly an unconditional love since the God himself will see to it that you are indeed harmed if you do not meet certain conditions.

So if our "gods" cannot even live up to an ideal of unconditional love, then why should we?

Having said that, I think there are spiritual philosophies that do indeed exhibit spiritual ideas of a 'god' that does exhibit totally unconditional love. However, as ironic as it may seem, many people reject that ideal. They do not like the idea of a God who actually practices unconditional love. They much prefer a God who will condemn people for a myriad of reasons. And many people have no problem at all embracing gods who will condemn people for merely not believing them.

That's certainly not "unconditional" love there.

So I'm not sure why we would even necessarily want to practice "unconditional" love. If someone is truly a mean despicable person who is violently harming others and arrogantly putting themselves above everyone else, then is there truly a 'reason' to "love" them.

In a situation like that putting them out of their misery and preventing them from harming anyone else, may actually be the most loving thing to do, both for them and their victims.

I know that if something horrible happened to my brain and I became a crazy madman who was running around killing people randomly I would actually hope that someone would put me out of my misery and save innocent people from my illness too.

So there may be more than one way to actually "love" someone.

Putting a rabid dog out of it's misery can certainly be an act of love, as an example.

I don't profess to practice "unconditional" love. But I do have compassion for everyone. Even hideous criminals.

For example, I would much rather see a hideous criminal be put to death via a lethal injection than via some horrific method such an an electric chair, or gas chamber, or hanging, etc.

So in that sense, I have "unconditional" love even for criminals. Don't be mean to them, just put them out of their misery and simultaneously make the rest of society safe from their harmful ways.

Killing them softly might actually be an act of "unconditional" love.

Jesus is a Perfect example of Unconditional Love.



(Btw Jeannie, Thank You for your Kind Words....

You are a Very Beautiful person , with

a Very Kind and Loving Heart).

I think unconditional love requires emotional detachment. I don't see emotional love as being the same thing as divine love.

Take for example an evil and despicable person. What you are seeing is a person who is damaged and dangerous. If I had the power to magically "fix" that person I would certainly rather do that than put him out of his misery.

Stepping away from or avoiding a damaged and dysfunctional person is what we do when we realize that we cannot "fix" them. Putting them in prison, executing them for their crimes are what we do when we cannot 'fix" them. Evil comes from wounded souls.

If we have souls.. which some say we do, some say we don't. If we have souls, then the soul needs to heal.

If we don't have souls, which some believe, then you may think that a person can be 'fixed' by modern medicine or therapy.

People who are thought to be incurable are labeled ... insane or criminally insane etc. They might just have a brain tumor or something physical that we don't know about or can't fix.

The point is, a person who can't love and can't function in society with love is considered damaged, dysfunctional, insane, etc.

Hating them is a waste of energy. Loving them in the traditional sense might be impossible.

Unconditional love is understanding that they are flawed in some way, not perfect, sick, damaged. Most people would chose to fix them if they knew how. But we don't know how.

If we could take a mass murdering psychopath and send him through a machine that would wipe his mind clean and fix every flawed thing and thought in him so that he came out a new person with a new attitude to do good in society then we would probably do that. That would only work if it is the body and mind that is damaged.

But what about the soul, (if there is such a thing)-- Would a damaged or inexperienced soul energy soon corrupt that body and mind and make similar choices and mistakes?

Who knows. I believe in an eternal soul. Some people don't.

You can't fix a person with ordinary "love."

Divine love is unconditional love. It understands.

no such animal.

In your world perhaps.

That certainly depends on who's portraying Jesus does it not?

There certainly seem to be a lot of Christians (or at least a very loud few) who would have Jesus condemning anyone who refuses to acknowledge that he is "The Christ", the only begotten son of God, and the sacrificial lamb of God.

That is certainly NOT unconditional love by an stretch of the imagination.

If you are required to acknowledge that someone is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, before he will love you, then that is a very highly conditional so-called "love".

Oh absolutely. If a person can be healed, mentally or physically, by all means, that should be the path taken.

Unfortunately that is not always possible. And what do you do when you think you've 'healed' them and they turn around and go berserk again? How many times to do you take that chance, all the while innocent people are being harmed every time you give the sick person another chance?

Obviously these are the most troublesome questions when it comes to "unconditional" love. This wouldn't even be a question in a world where there no harmful people.

And "harm" can take many forms. It can simply be extreme oppression, constant emotional abuse of others, etc.

Those are the people who are hard to "love".

If everyone was harmless and non-oppressive, then it would be easy to "love" everyone.

It's only the harmful oppressive people who cause this concept to even become an issues.

I personally do not pretend to practice "unconditional" love. I do require "conditions" for my love. But I personally feel that they are quite reasonable and mild conditions.

Simply don't be oppressive or harmful to other people and you've won my "love".

Start becoming "oppressive" toward other people, and you'll quickly lose both my love and my respect.

And perhaps this is why I have such a dislike for religious oppression being spread around in the name of a God.

Either cower down to our religion or God will hate you!

That is already a very emotionally harmful and spiritual oppressive act, IMHO.

So ironically, many religious proselytizers are actually quite emotionally harmful and oppressive people in my eyes.

They basically act like they own God and everyone must cower down to their oppression to be accepted by God and the rest of their "religious society".

That's a form of spiritual fascism in and of itself.

I personally find it very hard to "love" those kinds of people.

Couldn't that potentially come down to how you define 'love'?

I mean, if you even feel any pity or sorrow for a sick demented person, perhaps you might have more "love" for them than you realize.

Maybe what you 'hate' is the mere fact that their mental sickness exists at all.

~~~~

A very long time ago, I realizes that if I view certain behavior as being "sick" then it only makes sense for me to also assume that the person who is behaving that way must also be "sick".

So this has been a view I've adopted. Even though the person may appear to be in full control of their anger, and hostile behavior, that appearance my simply be a symptom of their underlying sickness.

So in a sense, I've started to "judge" evil people as simply being "sick" people. And in this way I am able to exonerate them for their crimes in a way.

Just the same, I cannot deny that their "sickness" must be dealt with one way or another.

This is why I would renounce capitol "punishment" in favor of capitol "euthanasia".

In other words, don't even think of it as "punishment", but rather just think of it as basically doing them a favor. And doing everyone else a favor by removing the harmful to society.

It doesn't need to be done in a spirit of anger or hatred for them.

I guess this is basically what I'm saying.

I think anyone who belongs to an organized religion that worships a creator God basically thinks that their God is the "one and only true God."

I also realize that they believe that you are wrong and they are right.

But that does not make them bad people.

My opinion is that they can think or believe whatever they like. They can think whatever they like about me or my ultimate fate. What they think is no concern of mine.

It is only when they proceed to persecute by force others of a different faith that they are, in my opinion way out of line.

It is only when they say "convert or die" that I have a problem with them. It is when they burn a cross on my front lawn that I have a problem with them.

It is when they interfere in my daily life or in my peace that I have a problem.

They can do as they wilt. Just don't interfere with my freedom.

Unconditional love is giving love with no conditions, no "reward" needed, just gives love no matter what.

This is exactly what Jesus gives to us.

Specifically, how does one "give Love?"

Doing caring loving things for the other. This could range from a kiss, to helping someone whom just lost their home get another, to healing a sick person, to many other possible options.

For more specifics on your question, I can give some examples of how we on Earth "give love". One truly can't "give" love as it's not a physical object, but one can SHARE love with another which is commonly referred to as "giving" love.

You could buy someone some flowers, to helping someone in need, to getting someone a surprise of something they've always wanted. No love can not be bought, but in this world in this day and age, most of people's problems, troubles are associated to money in one way or other. It's not the money itself that is the showing of love, but the act of helping the person with no reward in return.

Unconditional love:

"I don't care that people say it will never work out, I love you!"

If that's the case then why do you constantly preach that there are extreme conditions placed on this love?

If there are no conditions on Jesus' love then there cannot be any requirements to receive it, and that would most certainly include worship any specific dogma that contains endless lists of requirements.



For a Christian to say that Jesus' love is "unconditional" is an oxymoron unless they are prepared to recognize that everyone has obtained Jesus' love no matter what they believe.

But then it would be silly to speak of being "saved" by Jesus, since that implies that they had been "saved" from not being loved by Jesus, which cannot happen if his love is truly unconditional.

So which is it?

Are there conditions to be "saved" by Jesus, or not?

If there are, then his love cannot be "unconditional".

Sadly, it is almost non existent in the human world. Most love given has a price/condition to it.

Sadly, it is almost non existent in the human world. Most love given has a price/condition to it.

Love is an emotion mostly, its when someone owns a spot in your heart

unconditional love is when there are no conditions under which that person could lose the spot in your heart

you express love by not harming others, and by helping others when its possible to do so with out harming yourself or others in the process...

my love can come with no conditions, but my support, companionship, respect,,,etc,,, cannot

Ask a dog. They are very good at it.

That's for sure!