Hi to everybody...here's a few thoughts taken out of a longer essay I did a long time ago now, but seems quite relevant still...

Part 10 What is love
I want to discuss a subject here which has as many depths as there human beings on the face of the earth, but one which nobody remains unaffected. It is the human concept of love and its opposite emotion, hate. In the past, human beings have been told love is a God given gift, and hate comes from an enemy of God, the devil. Love proves the existence of God within the soul,
while hate proves the existence of the devil and love's absence. This is an interpretation common to western and eastern Christianity, whereas eastern and Middle Eastern belief systems concentrate more on right attitude of mind, heart and body, which, if disciplined, will produce healthy, well balanced individuals capable of living a life which embraces love and hate alongside all the other degrees of emotions found in humankind. How can human beings at the end of the twentieth century regard these two emotions where faith in a deity or the absence of a practised belief system is becoming more prevalent by the day? Is it important to find an alternative understanding? I would suggest it is, simply because the fragmentation of religious or spiritual belief is increasing, and one day in the not too distant future will be an insufficient basis upon which to understand the driving forces in human nature.
For thousands of years human beings have striven to explain these two powerful emotions and their effects on the human psyche. It does not seem necessary at the end of the twentieth century to seek an outside source for either one. Regardless of where the individual believes it comes from, the most important issues are what effect do they have on individuals and how do
they influence their responses to given situations.
First of all, it could be proposed that love is the most powerful pleasure sensation known to all human beings, while hate is the most powerful sensation of revulsion. Huge degrees of intensity exist within each of the emotions. From infancy, human beings need love to grow into mature, emotionally healthy, adults. If it is absent, or inadequate, frequently, the end result is an adult incapable of understanding what love is, and who will sublimate often dangerous abnormal replacements as sources of pleasure.
Such adults cannot be blamed for their later reactions to love's absence in their early years, because, without it, they cannot appreciate or understand the pleasure of a healthy expression of love. Unless helped by another, prepared to take the time and great effort, to undo the inappropriate replacements and build a new comprehension of love as experienced by an
emotionally healthy individual, the damaged human being will not be able to relinquish their chosen sources of pleasure, which, in many cases, can cause them and others extreme harm or even death.
It is for this reason it is vital human beings explore these powerful emotions without the burden of religious interpretation. Their origins are as primitive as the first creature with a rudimentary brain. Any primordial creature with sufficient neurones or chemicals to produce a reaction could be said to be capable of experiencing a primitive sensation of love or hate. As evolution
increased the size of brains in reptiles and mammals, these sensations multiplied accordingly until the human brain came into existence, capable of language and analysis. These two abilities enabled human beings to explore the pleasure and revulsion sensations in themselves and their primitive relatives, and to try to find explanations for their powerful influence.
Primitive thought processes tended to place powerful emotions, forces of nature, or natural objects with longevity on pedestals, because, apparently, beyond their personal control. This reaction was a logical step as the capacity for analysis and thought grew in primitive groups of human beings. Identifying powerful forces and separating them off from the group in the form of idols,
totems or rituals would be a natural response. At the dawn of this ability, perhaps, the powerful emotions were not included as separate entities for reverence. The forces of nature, embodied in symbols of fertility, such as mother goddesses, probably, were amongst the first to be revered, but, gradually, as concepts expanded, the emotional forces became embodied in
appropriate images, and rituals were organised to pay homage to them. The shaman would become the mediator to communicate with these forces, and would be able to influence the group in how it reacted to particular situations
and problems. Slowly, with the birth of civilisation, constant refinement led to the introduction of organised religions with their own priests. Myths and legends would be used to illustrate and support these new beliefs, and, while the people believed in them and obeyed the rituals laid down by the priests, the religions grew in strength and numbers of adherents.
Once the capacity to write down the rituals, myths, legends and rules came into existence, particular religions would become established as part and parcel of the cultural inheritance of specific peoples. These would undergo continual updating and amending, but their essential teachings would have to remain intact if they were have a sound foundation, and continue to exert an influence on their members. Too much alteration would confuse the people and undermine their confidence in the priests to offer them satisfactory answers to their human needs, or to provide reassurance they could commune with these forces on their behalf.
With the collapse of a previously cohesive group or civilisation, more often than not, the religion died with them, and this has continued throughout history. It is a process which is continuing to the present day, and, at the end of the twentieth century, globalisation is beginning to dissolve separate civilisations, and, through this, has a profound effect on the major religions or
belief systems around the world. The danger of separating the powerful emotional forces of love and hate and embodying them in deities or powers has been amply illustrated in the history of the past two thousand years. When a religion places one emotional force, namely love in this case, wholly within the body of being outside of the natural world and entirely separate from it, that emotion becomes open to abuse and manipulation on the part of those who claim to be able to mediate between the supernatural and the natural world on behalf of those who can only look on and hope they get a share of that emotional force. Elaborate rituals were required to reassure the people they could receive a taste of this supernatural love.
The establishment of hierarchies of priests ensured the religions exerted their influence on the whole society from its leaders to the least amongst it. Human understanding of this powerful emotion was discouraged, and its experience outside of the religion was vilified as inferior or, worse, demonic, initiated by the enemy of the embodiment of love, the embodiment of hate in the form of a supernatural demonic entity. Light and Dark would become symbols of the battle between these two forces. The introduction of laws defining how Love could be lost and become Hate ensured that the religion's adherents would
begin to be fearful of losing the love of the supernatural being and be plunged into darkness or filled with hate. Variations of this theme would come to be a common basis upon which all future religions were built, and which have survived to the present day.
As religions became more powerful, new concepts were incorporated. The most powerful of these was that of the presence of a soul or spirit within the individual follower. The introduction of such a concept is understandable if the greatest fear of human beings is considered, namely death or the fear of complete obliteration. In its absence, the priests had no way of offering hope
to their followers of an existence after death. Only by providing an escape clause, namely the creation of an invisible presence of a soul or spirit, could they control their followers' greatest fear. It was the ultimate stranglehold on the human psyche. Priests could say who went into the Light and who went into the Dark or who was filled with love and who was filled with hate. The fact
that they were subjected to the ebb and flow of these powerful emotions alongside their followers was kept well hidden, or sublimated into other less healthy expressions of these forces and explained away as expressions of the supernatural being's love. Abuse and manipulation was always a danger, and had to be present at the birth of these religions simply because no human being can avoid being affected by them. As the religions' followers grew in numbers, so the abuses became more widespread and damaging. While confined to small groups, primitive spiritual practices were, probably, far less open to abuse than the later major religions. The shaman was a single individual who would pass his or her knowledge onto another at the end of their lives, so a failure on their part to provide spiritual reassurance to the members of their group would be met with extreme hostility and rejection, so it was in their best interests not to abuse their position of power. Modern human beings may well see their practices as primitive and superstitious, but the shaman was a deeply respected member of any group, and their myths, stories and rituals were as sophisticated as any in the world today, and carefully considered to bear the greatest benefit for the group. The fact that these groups survived successfully, otherwise none of the inhabitants of today's world would be here, suggests the shamans had a right balance of myth, magic and ritual to keep their groups healthy, happy, and safe.
With the introduction of a soul or spirit, later religions would include descriptions of a supernatural world and offer the promise of entry into it to their followers, providing they obeyed the religion's laws and followed its rituals faithfully. Many of the primitive beliefs were incorporated into these later religions, such as the concept of the ladder to the world of the spirits, which the shaman would climb and bring back messages and information from it. Later on, this world would become known as 'heaven' or 'Paradise', or, where no such physical concept was adopted, a state of bliss for those who have achieved perfection.
In the Christian religions, each individual was designated one life and one soul, and, therefore, one chance to get to heaven or be plunged into its opposite state of being, hell, the realm of the demonic entity. In the eastern belief systems, the human being could not hope to gain perfection in only one life so the introduction of the concept of many lives, or reincarnation, was
introduced. These belief systems have not separated existence into natural and supernatural in the same way as the western, and to a certain extent, Middle Eastern religions, but see them as one and the same being, with human beings failing to realise this through ignorance of their true state of being, namely existing in the mind of the supreme being with all physical
existence being merely an illusion. As the major religions or belief systems exist into the present day, clearly each provides its followers with some degree of comfort, reassurance and confidence still, but for how much longer remains open to question.
These thoughts are exactly that, thoughts. They are not intended to criticise the spiritual practices of any individual, but to point out where their beliefs might have originated, and how their myths, laws and rituals came about. If, after discovering that, the individuals choose to believe in their religion still, it is their choice and they must be allowed to be free to do so, but, and a 'but'
should be added, as long as their beliefs are not causing wars, conflicts and the destruction of a healthy approach to the most powerful of all human emotions, namely love. Where it incites the opposite emotion of revulsion or hate for another individual who does believe in their religion, it is an unhealthy presence within the society, and it needs reassessment by its adherents
because not based on real love but on the need to be dominant. If the latter, its adherents cannot fail to see those outside of its field of influence as either misguided, ignorant or living in darkness, and, therefore, deprived of any possibility of entering their concept of heaven.
It is not surprising, considering this conclusion, that many individuals within communist countries, who have found themselves in newly emerging capitalist countries after the downfall of their previous system, are returning to the reestablished religions. When communism emerged as a viable political system, its leaders set about undoing the influence of religion, but it was an enforced undoing, not a freely arrived at decision by the people. Making religious practice illegal removed from the people the time to reassess the value of what they had believed in prior to the political revolution. They had no time to come to the conclusion that they could live without it, and discover the value of viewing love as a natural human response to given stimuli, and, likewise, hate from the same perspective. Today, various religions are vying with each other to gain the hearts and minds of their peoples again with all that such an undertaking entails, not least, the increase in animosity and conflict between
peoples who, previously, lived alongside each other relatively peacefully.
It should be clear the enforced abolition of such practices does not set people free, but cuts the floor from beneath the people's feet leaving them floundering in a vacuum, and forces them to sublimate their need for a deity with a human replacement in the form of a powerful leader. This has happened across the earth wherever such a revolution has taken place. In the case of fascism, religious practices were not banned, unless practised by human beings within the society considered undesirable and unwanted. Religions were used to support the newly established systems.
Fascist leaders realised the power of the support of the Christian religion in particular to legitimise their political aspirations and, actively, went out of their way to persuade them of their sincerity to provide protection and prosperity for all their peoples. It was not difficult to get their support because the religious leaders invariably agreed with their ideas, if not all their methods of
incorporating them into the body politic. Once established though, the acceptable religions found they could not extricate themselves from the liaisons made at the beginning of the overthrow of previous forms of government, and became tools of the state; impotent to act as opposing forces. In the distant and recent past, this coalition of religion and state has been a source of profound disturbance for many individuals who could see the massive contradictions inherent in these unions. On one hand, the religions were preaching love while, at one and the same time, supporting a state which practised extremes forms of hate and the persecution and murder of any individual who stood in their way.
Such alliances have given rise, in no small way, to the gradual disillusionment with religion in general so prevalent in many societies at the dawn of the new millennium. There were individuals within the various religions who did stand out against the inhuman activities of the political leaders, but they lost their lives or were imprisoned for their opposition more often than not, or removed from danger by their own religious leaders and effectively silenced. Many individuals amongst the hierarchies of the religions were ardent supporters of Fascism because they feared Communism more with its godless beliefs. They
were prepared to close their eyes when it came to its darker side, and it was these individuals who enabled the leaders to survive, sometimes for far longer than they would have if their religion had opposed their authority publicly.
The modern world has only to look at the twentieth century to see how deadly such alliances are on the well being of the people governed and guided by such leaders and priests. This is another profound reason why modern human beings need to review precisely what love means to each of them, and what enables human beings to experience it, and its counter emotion, hate as well, in order to reduce the power of the latter to cause havoc and harm wherever it exists. So far this has been a discovery of the influence of religions on the emotions of love and hate, and that is understandable because most of modern human beings' comprehension of these two forces are based on religious explanations of their meaning and origins. For many, these
explanations are no longer satisfactory. It is time to look at love and hate freed from the baggage of the supernatural and superstition.

There's a second part which I will put in a separate post.

Great big hugs to one and all...