Love th neighbour......?

[RG57]

In the Bible Jesus said 'Love thy neighbour as thyself', which is a straight forward idea which is likely to found in some way in other faiths.

But what if you hate yourself for whatever reason, whether you are a Christian or not. So, with that in mind does that then give you the right to hate your neighbour? After al you are not loving yourself.

[Pendragon]

Loving your neighbor doesn't require you to approve of everything they do, nor to dislike a person because they do horrible things. Hating oneself is something that you shouldn't do, because you are unique. In this whole world there is not another you.

God Bless

Pen

[RG57]

Loving your neighbor doesn't require you to approve of everything they do, nor to dislike a person because they do horrible things. Hating oneself is something that you shouldn't do, because you are unique. In this whole world there is not another you.

God Bless

Pen


Agreed but sadly there people out there who for whatever reason hate themselves, believe that they are so sinful that neither God or person could love them and so hate themselves, it becomes an eternal circle.

[NikolaiI]

Soren Kierkegaard's Works of Love was very illuminating for me about his perspective. Love yourself is the second most important commandment, like, Jesus says, the first one, Love God. Kierkegaard found this to mean that to love God was to truly love yourself. To help another to love God was to truly love them; as to love them like you love yourself, you'll help them to love God. To be helped to love God is also then to be truly loved. I don't believe it's right to treat anyone hatefully, even if you feel hateful toward yourself. I mean I wouldn't condemn someone as badly for it, but I wouldn't say it's all okay. The commandment to love your neighbour as yourself needs to consider how one should love oneself. And as Jesus said, one should love God with all one's heart, etc.

My own faith is similar to this. Krishna prema, or love of Krishna, is considered the highest spiritual state.

[planet earth]

I believe who manages to Love Allah; The Peace could love everything else and live the meanings of serenity and inner peace .

[togre]

The general gist of Jesus' words is based in the fact that the majority of people are at very least concerned about themselves. They might not like themselves, but their actions and time generally revolve around providing for their own wants and needs. Jesus encourages us to have the same concern and active involvement in the lives of others.

I think NikolaiI and Pendragon make a valid point--true love is not "I'm okay, you're okay." A doctor, in love, tells a patient about their cancer even though the news will crush them. It is the only way to get treatment and the cure. The greatest goal of Christian love is to share the forgiveness we have through Jesus (and the blessings that flow from it--eternal life, repaired relationship with God, heaven, etc.). Does this mean Christians should ignore other needs of people? No, but caring for the body and mind and life cannot supersede offering blessings for the soul.

To your second question, What about people who have a poor/broken idea of themselves? I would point them to the many Bible passages that show the value God has placed on them and the love God has for them. Focus on passages that speak of "all people" and "the world" as proof that God includes even them in his love. (John 3:16, Romans 5:12, etc.) Romans 5:8 (But God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us) shows God proving his love with a remarkable action for the sake of sinners--people with nothing to offer him. Furthermore, an appeal to God's omniscience (all-knowingness) might be in line (God knew exactly how bad you'd be, every action, every word and every thought. God knew and he still made these promises, he still sent his Son for you. You could never shock him and make him say, Oops, I take it back, I didn't realize you were that bad. No! He knows you perfectly and still wants to forgive you and make you his son/daughter.)

Even for people without self-image struggles, the only way to keep this command (Love your neighbor as yourself) is being motivated by the knowledge of God's love for you and knowledge of God's love for your neighbor.

[Redzeppelin]

CS Lewis once gave an interesting answer to this question:

"...secondly, we might try to understand exactly what loving your neighbor as yourself means. I have to love him as I love myself. Well, how exactly do I love myself?

Now that I come to think of it, I have not exactly got a feeling of fondness or affection for myself, and I do not even always enjoy my own society. So apparently 'Love your neighbor' does not mean 'feel fond of him' or 'find him attractive'. I ought to have seen that before, because, of course, you cannot feel fond of a person by trying. Do I think well of myself, think myself a nice chap? Well, I am afraid I sometimes do (and those are, no doubt, my worst moments) but that is not why I love myself. In fact it is the other way round: my self-love makes me think myself nice, but thinking myself nice is not why I love myself. So loving my enemies does not apparently mean thinking them nice either. That is an enormous relief. For a good many people imagine that forgiving your enemies means making out that they are really not such bad fellows after all, when it is quite plain that they are. Go a step further. In my most clear-sighted moments not only do I not think myself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one. I can look at some of the things I have done with horror and loathing. So apparently I am allowed to loathe and hate some of the things my enemies do. Now that I come to think of it, I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate bad man's actions, but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner. ... "

From Mere Christianity

[backline]

Jesus said, "No man hates his own flesh, but cherishes and nurtures it..."

I think that beyond modern conceptions of "bad self-images," etc., his words are very true.
In modern usage we get all funny about "self-love" because it conjurs up images of auto-eroticism, etc.

I'll put it this way:
Intellectually, you may be depressed and self-distructive. Perhaps even suicidal. But I can pretty much guaranty that every individual cell in your makeup wants to LIVE!

Upon further introspective examinations I'm sure that we would eventually find that even if we consciously made it a habit to diss ourselves, there is another part of us that understands exactly what Jesus is talking about.

So head games aside, we should cop to the notion that SOMEWHERE in our psyche, we truly love ourselves in that selfish "me first" way.

The spiritual principle therefore -in that context- would seem to be: we should honor others as we wish to be honored i.e loved.
To "do unto others as we would have done unto us," is another way of stating the same thing. "Love your neighbor as yourself."

It's not about whether we have a good self-image. Truth be told, when the food truck shows up in our camp it's "Me first!" That's because our love of ourselves is then unmasked for what it is: a self-aggrandizing grab for all the gusto we would rather hide in secret.

[NikolaiI]

CS Lewis once gave an interesting answer to this question:

"...secondly, we might try to understand exactly what loving your neighbor as yourself means. I have to love him as I love myself. Well, how exactly do I love myself?

Now that I come to think of it, I have not exactly got a feeling of fondness or affection for myself, and I do not even always enjoy my own society. So apparently 'Love your neighbor' does not mean 'feel fond of him' or 'find him attractive'. I ought to have seen that before, because, of course, you cannot feel fond of a person by trying. Do I think well of myself, think myself a nice chap? Well, I am afraid I sometimes do (and those are, no doubt, my worst moments) but that is not why I love myself. In fact it is the other way round: my self-love makes me think myself nice, but thinking myself nice is not why I love myself. So loving my enemies does not apparently mean thinking them nice either. That is an enormous relief. For a good many people imagine that forgiving your enemies means making out that they are really not such bad fellows after all, when it is quite plain that they are. Go a step further. In my most clear-sighted moments not only do I not think myself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one. I can look at some of the things I have done with horror and loathing. So apparently I am allowed to loathe and hate some of the things my enemies do. Now that I come to think of it, I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate bad man's actions, but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner. ... "

From Mere Christianity

That was great to read and I intend to read the book as it's highly recommended from a friend. What do you think of Kierkegaard's idea? As I understand it, basically it first asks the question; what does it mean to love oneself? And the answer is, if we try to follow Christ's words, that to love God is to love oneself truly.

[planet earth]

There is an Islamic tradition said by Prophet Muhammad saying

One does not fulfil faith until he loves to his (neighbour/brother) what he loves to himself.

I think this may clarify the idea. It may not only be restricted to loving your neighbour, it would mean to love to others what you love for yourself. I do not want to be treated improperly similarly would others and so on.

I assume the Muhammedan tradition was simply the Arabic version of what Christ had said before, since we do believe they all come from the same source, carrying the same code of ethics and worship to the same God.