h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Post 340:
"When will Christians realise that Hell is a pagan concept."

Oi! Don't lumber us with that pile of medieval baggage, thank you very much. Yes, certain precursor (and mostly middle eastern) religions had the concept of Hell well documented before a certain bunch of homocidal hebrews wandered out of the desert. But I think you are stretching the term 'pagan' just a tad too far. By this use every non-abrahamic religion is 'pagan'.

And before you begin berating me with the Norse religions' 'Hel', you should check your sources. The Norse realm of Hel didn't appear until it was written down in the 16th century, by a Vicar in Gloucester if my memory serves me well. Asatru priests of my acquaintance will have no truck with it (Asatru is the pagan religion of Iceland, and possibly the only western european precursor religion to fully survive the coming of the 'merciful Christ' through to the modern era).

Hope that clears that up .
Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.

Sorry Matholwch, I used Pagan to mean non- Christian not your type of paganism. (BTW I believe Druidism came from India)

The Hebrew word for the place of the dead is Sheol. Sheol was simply the place where dead people go. It was almost synonymous with death and especially “grave,” and indeed is used that way in several OT passages. It was Sheol Jesus went to not Hell.

Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

Wow... my first day on the site and what do I do? I pick this discussion... So here it goes:

Do I believe in God? Not in the strictest sense of the word. I believe that we are all a part of something that is bigger than us. I believe that the Universe is a living, breathing entity that we are all a part of.

As far as religion goes, I'm too much of a philosopher to go for the dogmatic bastardization religion makes of perfectly good ideas. "Religion is the opiet of the masses." or so Karl Marx said once. I believe that this is true in the sense that too many people blindly accept that what they are told is true and that there is no other way to think about something. But that is true of all things and not just religion.

As for higher beings, I respect all gods... not equally, but I respect them all. In fact, the next time some missionary decides to discuss conversion with me, I think I'll ask him why his god has let his kids kill each other for the past 2000 years.

It never ceases to amaze me how easy it is to justify present beliefs. In Science it is simple- we didn't know then what we know now so that's why we were so wrong. In Religion it is even easier- not only were we wrong then but that particular sector of our religion was an aberation. Except that isn't an excuse. The writings then are the same as now (King James and his PC group accepted *not excepted*). Misinterpretation of text is not the same as misinterpretation of natural phenomena.

Heven, Hell, God, the Devil, punishment for sins, and holy choirs are believed in by some now. More believed in them in the past. What makes your belief and/or interpretation any more valid than a bishop in 1350 AD? Prove it.

Like Matholwch, I practice my belief. I can't prove it to you but you can prove it to yourself. You can talk about it 'till you'r blue in the face but unless you are willing to jump in the deep end, you will never know.

There are plenty of ways (though C S Lewis didn't think so) to the Truth.

Alji, of the Red Dragon (Swynwr y Ddraig Goch) (conducting a sun sign poll @ A712595)(Member of The H2G2 Guild of Wizards @ U197895 looking for wiz kids to join, though you don't have to be a wiz kid just know a bit about some subject that you think will be of interest to others or just bore the pants off them. This is an equal opportunities space open to all sexes, ages and abilities)

I am perfectly willing to accept your faith in God and respect it. I am talking about the existence of Heaven, Hell, the Devil, etc.. The tenents of your particular brand of Christianity for instance or why are there are dozen different varieties of Baptist, each saying the other is wrong. The religious attack on Science has no basis in anything other than faith just as it's factions attack on each other does. Even in the Bible the Old Testament and the New are at odds with each other. Theology spends most of it's time explaining contradictions and when all else fails we must have *faith*. When someone is losing and argument in religion they throw up their hands and say that the other side has to surrender to faith or enlightenment. At the same time they are not willing to accept the tiniest leap of faith in a logical scientific argument. All as a defense of the indefinable and immeasurable (faith).

What makes you think we are Christian?

BTW Matholwch, I thought Hel was a Norse Godess. The pagan bit came from http://www.hisremnant.org/roach/hell1.html

<quote>
Centuries ago the doctrine of eternal torment in searing hellfire and brimstone swept into the Church like fire itself. It is pagan in origin, and its roots are largely in Assyrian mythology. Such doctrines picture God with a violent temper, and His actions are justified only because "He is God." This portrays Him as unforgiving and relentlessly vindictive.


BTW I'd started writing sorry before I read your post.


Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

Post 314:

<"How did God help either of these events to happen?"
By failing to prevent it, as is blatantly obvious.>
Since when is failing to prevent something the same as causing it?


So Cain went to Nod and had sex with his wife. Why should that imply that his wife CAME from Nod, as opposed to that she went there with him?


In case there is anyone who hasn't noticed, Hoovooloo gets some sort of perverse pleasure out of insulting people. I don't know why, or how he selects his targets, but try not to encourage him, because it does no service to his otherwise evident intelligence.


It sounds unpleasant to me too, but I must accept that, as the giver of life, God has every right to take it if he wants. I can accept that there is a superior being whose thoughts on morality are superior to mine, and who, we are told, has perfect standards of justice. As to being 'unfit to live', you have to realise that according to the Bible we are ALL unfit to live due to our being sinners, which is why we die, and that we can only regain everlasting life because of Gods mercy and Jesus' ransom sacrifice. Romans 6:23, "For the wages sin pays is death, but the gift God gives is everlasting life by Christ Jesus our Lord."

<"science in general is unintelligible"
Don't presume to consider the rest of us as stupid as you.>
So here's another reason that Hoovooloo thinks I am stupid - it's because I don't understand every detail of every scientific theory that has been devised. And I suppose you, Hoovooloo, do.
Or did you not realise that 'general' means 'applying to all or most of the members of a category. But I thought I'd made it obvious by the rest of the sentence, which you conveniently leave out of the quotes.


The Hebrew word translated day doesn't necessarily mean 24 hours, and I know from past conversation with Hoovooloo that he knows that perfectly well.
It may also be applicable that those who are separated from God are sometimes metaphorically said to be dead, as in Ephesians 2:1, "Furthermore, it is you God made alive though you were dead in your trespasses and sins"
Further, the literal meaning of the verb 'to die' according to Vines Expository Dictionary of Old Testament words, is 'to lose one's life.' The moment Adam ate of the fruit, he became a sinner and lost the right to his life. So at that moment he could be said to have 'lost his life', or 'died'.

Post 318:


Don't forget that most 'christians' DO honour their pagan past, by keeping the festivals of Saturnalia (The Encyclopedia Americana : "The reason for establishing December 25 as Christmas is somewhat obscure, but it is usually held that the day was chosen to correspond to pagan festivals that took place around the time of the winter solstice, when the days begin to lengthen, to celebrate the 'rebirth of the sun.' . . . The Roman Saturnalia (a festival dedicated to Saturn, the god of agriculture, and to the renewed power of the sun), also took place at this time, and some Christmas customs are thought to be rooted in this ancient pagan celebration.") and Easter ("What means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, . . . as found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar. . . . Such is the history of Easter. The popular observances that still attend the period of its celebration amply confirm the testimony of history as to its Babylonian character. The hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Pasch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now." "The egg is the emblem of the germinating life of early spring. . . . The rabbit is a pagan symbol and has always been an emblem of fertility.")

Post 322:


It's an interesting point, but I think God tells us enough about himself in the Bible so that we establish some kinds of rules in order to understand him or predict how he feels about certain things.

By the way, your explanation of entropy was the best-explained I have ever heard/read.


A Hypercube (the 4D equivalent of a cube) has 8 'faces', and each 'face' is a cube (a 4D shape has 3D faces). So I suppose it is probable that the 4D equivalent of a sphere would have 1 'face', which would resemble a sphere. Does that sound right to you?

Post 323:


I find your statement a bit strange. Can you explain why you give Monotheism and Christianity as two different things, and why you give Nature and Science as two different things? Christianity is certainly a form of Monotheism, and I generally think of Nature as a branch of Science.

Post 340:


True Christians, such as myself, do. Indeed, I talked about that quite a bit in my last post (313)

Post 341:


(Gets Dictionary) ... "pagan : n. 1. a member of a group professing any religion other than Christianity, Judaism, or Islam."
So the term 'pagan' isn't actually being stretched at all - that is exactly what it means.

Post 342:


Since it was in the New Testament, it was actually Hades, but the point I was making was that that is what the word Hell in the Bible actually meant.

Post 343:


I've already answered that question somewhere. I think the discussion was one of those in the entry named 'Evil and the Christian God'

Post 344:


Put simply, that my beliefs are based on the Bible, whereas the Churches through the ages benefitted in power and wealth by getting more members, and would therefore change their religion in order to make it more acceptable to others. This is how the Trinity, the immortal soul, Heaven and Hell, and other non-biblical doctrines got in.


Heck, this discussion goes fast.
By the way Jordan, has university started yet? And which one did you eventually get in to?

*The Bible* Please tell me which version. Are you a King James man or a revised, modern reader. Do the scrolls found since the 1800s have relevance or not? Who decides if the Gnostic gospels are relevant? Why do the interpretations of non-theologians have meaning? Now is your turn to tell us how the will of God and His hand shaped the Bible. Why should we believe that any more than an unknowable hand of God in the world. Your interpretation of interpreted scripture is limited by translation, verbal history, and thousands of years of the unknowable hand of God...and man. Just the fact that you admit that God has placed falseness and deceit in the world doesn't exempt the version of scripture we presently have. Or the version a bishop in 1350 had- which was very, very different.

Post 346:
I'm with Alji, what makes you think we are Chrisitian or even Abrahamic? I think I've made it clear that I at once both 'pagan' (general category) and a practicing druid (specific self-categorisation).
Thus (I love that word), I have no belief in nor concept of heaven, hell or the devil. The universe is just too complex for such simplistic moral concepts. The Abrahamic religions are a left over from an age when all deities were stereotypes and tended to act like spoilt children.
For some reason it is inconceivable to many monotheists that, as their god has been around a long time, he (note no 'she') may have just acquired enough wisdom to become more than a moral fable. To want to do more than play with humanity and the world like it was their exclusive trainset.
The gods and spirits which many pagans, and other religions, interact with have far more depth and complexity. They guide us and teach us at an individual level. None would intefere with our choices nor our lives. It is us who must want to change.
They certainly do not want us to set down a dogma that will last for all time, because any set of rules is only worth its salt in the context in which was created. Which is why we have case law as well as statutes.
You will note that it is only those religions that have dogma, set down in unchanging text such as the Bible, Koran or Torah, that have 'theologians'. Full time 'experts' tending an industry of interpretation. The rules set down for a bunch of nomadic, homocidal hebrews 4,000 years ago were out of date by the time of the Romans, never mind now. Yet the Abrahamic religions cling to them, and you are right, wherever the rules fail they say 'you must have faith'. To challenge the rules is to challenge god and as such is heresy.
This is why the classic northern european pagan traditions were such a threat. They were based on continuous personal and spiritual development, an ongoing interactive relationship with the gods and spirits of the land. Where each generation learnt more, and the rules changed to reflect this and their changing local circumstances.
What the monks of the twelfth century set down as celtic and norse myths were not a standard set of religious beliefs. They were stories, moral tales, parables if you will. In a country where you have a strong oral tradition these stories would change over time, and indeed in each location, to meet local needs. The welshmen on the list will understand this for we, the highlanders and the irish are the last peoples in europe to maintain this tradition.
This is why the Christian church, representatives of the merciful Christ, tried so damned hard to wipe us out. The early missionaries were appalled when, after they thought they had 'converted' the saxons and celts, the people continued to revere many ancient gods and spirits. To these people JC was just another deity to work with and respect. However, the missionaries weren't complete fools and soon learnt to convert the saxons and celts gods too, to become christian saints (a good example is the celtic goddess Brigidh, who became St.Bridget - recently decanonised). Thus easing the transition to monotheism, or so they thought......
Now, as the grip on temporal power of the monotheists gets ever thinner, we have re-emerged. The main problem of having a religion based upon dogma, and thus fear of change, is that it will eventually become irrelevant. This was obvious in the twelfth century and so began the most brutal period of religious repression ever recorded in human history. Seven centuries of war on dissent, that grew more vicious with each schism in the church. We are seeing it again now amongst those countries where Islam has the upper hand. Afghanistan under the Taliban was just a reflection of Britain under the medieval bishops or Cromwell's protestant army.
There are a few Christians and Jews now who have looked upon the example of the pagan re-emergence, and can see good in it. Who recognise that a developing relationship with the divine is healthy, and that dogma is not. But they are so very few.
For us pagans the universe is alive with wonder. A marvellous place where more is discovered each day, both by scientists and by us explorers of the spiritual high frontier. Maybe in time we can learn that these two paths (science and spirituality) are not mutually-exclusive, and we can make a leap of faith towards one another that will benefit all the voyagers on this little blue planet.
Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.

Post 347:
Hel is indeed a norse goddess. However, if you read medieval interpretations of norse 'myth' she can be a goddess, a place, a dragon and the devils nanny (probably). Another victim of the process of conversion.
Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.

An awful lot here to reply to - and I don't have time!

I got into Warwick. Perhaps I would have got a 1 in STEP if I had studied. Or Mr Roach didn't keep saying 'you're going to fail everything, you're hopeless, the world will end in 2003, aliens are among us' type rubbish. Oh, how he drove me round the bend at times. But anyway:

Some branches of Christianity are polytheistic. They're just not known to be.

And Hoovooloo was a bit nasty. I think both of you started out on the wrong foot on that whole 'centrifugal force' thing. Perhaps you could, umm, and make up? (Or similar defusing tactic.) Let's just hope this doesn't become a flame war or whatnot.

[big s for both Hoovooloo and David ]

On the whole pagan thing: I don't think that there are /any/ religions that are all united happily. Really, when we say religion we mean christianity and paganism and islam and all the rest, same as science means biology and chemistry and physics etc. And christianity means baptists and mormons and witnesses, while biology means genetics and anatomy and physiology... And there are, of course, overlaps.

Can't we see that we're more similar than different?

- Jordan

It'd be nice, but I do not consider any form of paganism to be a 'religion'. Faith, certainly, but as Matholwch said it's far more personal and not dependent on doctrine or rules, or even a package of similar beliefs.
That's my view tho. However, I don't see why we have to be 'the same' in order to coexist.

btw Matholwch- I would say it's not just the modern Celtic areas that have that oral tradition, if you consider the similarity between their 'folktales' and those of the rest of Britain.

Re post 333: Thanks for the explanation of demosthenic, Alji. I'll take it as a compliment Jordan, though I'm aware it could be a backhanded one as I'm not unaware of my tendency to drop into lecture mode at the drop of an argument.

Post 348: Thank you. We aim to please

A 4D sphere is a hypersphere. Don't ask me what it looks like. My powers of visualisation don't run that far!

Post 352: I nearly went to Warwick, but I didn't get my grades. Long time ago, though.

Question of the week. We have all (I hope) thought ABOUT our own beliefs as well as with them (nice distinction, eh?) but we have to use parts of our belief systems to do this. Most of you probably have a rough idea of what underlies my belief system by now, but what are the tenets that ground yours? And at what point do you say (like Wittgenstein) "Of what we cannot speak, we should thereof keep silent?"


Noggin

Back to post 314,

Genesis 4:15
Yahweh said to him, "Therefore whoever slays Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold." Yahweh appointed a sign for Cain, lest any finding him should strike him.
Question: Who was there to find him?

Genesis 4:17
Cain knew his wife. She conceived, and gave birth to Enoch. He built a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.
Question: Why did he need to build a city?

Genesis 4:25
Adam knew his wife again. She gave birth to a son, and named him Seth. For, she said, "God has appointed me another child instead of Abel, for Cain killed him."
Question: Was Seth her third son?

>it was actually Hades: Hades comes from Greek mythology, so why would Jesus go to such a place.

1 Corinthians 15:4
And he was put in the place of the dead; and on the third day he came back from the dead, as it says in the Writings; i.e. Sheol


Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

"You can train your mind by analyzing the shortcomings of anger as well as from other people's experiences. It is also useful to look at history. Whenever I examine human tragedy, I find that in most cases it is the result of human behavior - negative emotions, such as anger, hatred, jealousy and extreme greed. All good things that are constructive, happier human experiences, are mostly motivated by respect for others' rights and concern for others' well-being - compassion, love and kindness." The Dalai Lama
Nogin I'll have to sort out the tenets of mine.

Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

I'm sure I could get more into this if I'd been getting more sleep than I have lately... I just want to add one thing I've been wondering...

When are the religious types going to realize that by seeing evil in everything, they're letting "evil" win?

Hi Noggin

To answer your question of the week.

My one fundamental belief is that we have the ability and capacity to reach a synthesis of the Universe at all levels from the sub-atomic/quark level to the infinite (or finite but boundless) extent.

My field is nursing/employment relations and my hobby/passion is cosmology/astronomy/physics.

My views and posts are based on experience but I would stop and be silent at the expert level of my passions and the periphery of current research.

Strings/Superstrings get me in a tangle. Fundamental particles are a sea of dualities to me. But I try and understand!

I have stated my opinion on the non-existence of God and to expand a little, I was brought up a Catholic and became disillusioned quite early on. Catholisism had nothing to offer me (apart from hell-fire and damnation for being a naughy person). No-one since has offered me anything in the way of proof or the value of faith/belief at a personal level since then. The most obvious thing about faith that came across to me over the years was an abdication of personal responsibility. I have also met many believers who were pretty obnoxious people with inflexible views and attitudes.

Again I will remain silent on other Faiths than Christianity and to a lesser extent Islam, and would add that I have met as many honourable people of all faiths in my time too!

Rant over!

None of the rant is aimed at you Noggin or anyone else, promise

turvy

*Long Post Warning*

Question of the week;
Noggin you do ask the most excellent questions! This something I have given a lot of thought to over the years. Part of my progression through druidry has been a certain level of self-inspection, deciding where I am and where I want to be. The following is where I want to be - to be a man of honour, duty and love.

Honour.
Honour is an odd concept. Like respect it cannot be taken, only given. You earn it by your actions from the world around you.
Honour has been a cornerstone of the cultures of many of the greatest civilisations in history. To have it was everything, to lose it was to lose everything. Samurai would commit seppuku, Romans would fall upon their swords, Celts and Vikings would commit acts of suicidal bravery in order to restore their lost 'honour'. In medieval Europe honour became the basis of the notion of 'Chivalry'. A code of fairness and courtesy.
However, I do not feel entirely happy with these 'famous' interpretations of the concept of honour. To be honourable, in my opinion, takes more than manners and a fanatical regard for your reputation.
Honour, to me, breaks down into three philosophies:

Honesty.
To be honest is to make your actions and aspirations transparent to yourself, to others and to the gods. To mask nothing with deceit, especially self-deceit, and to be prepared to accept the consequences of your actions.
Honesty is not about obeying the law of the land. Strangely, psychopaths are often extremely honest, as are many professional criminals. Their actions may be morally reprehensible, but they understand them and their effect, and do not deny them.
Who do you harm when you are not honest? Well primarily yourself. You add another mask to your soul, another burden to your life. I know this for I was once an accomplished liar. For me it was a defence mechanism against bullying in school that became a habit. It took me many years to cast aside the many masks I wore and to see the real me staring back from the mirror.
To walk naked in front of the world is very difficult. Deceit is easy as most people want to trust you. To be regarded as an honest person is possibly one of the highest compliments you can aspire to.
This does not, however, give you the right to dispel the illusions of others. Some call this being 'brutally honest'. I call it 'assault'. Sometimes you will need to burst another's bubble, but it must be dome with care and compassion. When it comes to honesty, start with yourself.

Humility.
This does not mean being 'humble' nor 'obsequious'. True humility comes from three things:
1. Having a sense of perspective about your place and effect upon the world around you.
2. Accepting the frailties and ignorance you possess, and have seen in yourself by being honest.
3. Accepting that there will always be those whose wisdom is deeper, and experience and knowledge is broader than your own.
Humility is a positive trait when it leads you to listen to others, to accept their wisdom and celebrate their achievements with as much energy as you would do your own.
Having a sense of humility does not mean you may not also be proud. Satisfaction with a job well done, a hard earned achievement or a goal reached is good. Indeed it is necessary in order to build up your self-esteem and enable you to reach for your next level of development.

Hospitality.
The willingness to share your wisdom, hearth and heart with others. Amongst the many ancient cultures that have contributed to ours (especially the celtic and norse) a person's greatness was often measured by their generosity.
Hospitality is a realisation that all ownership is false. You cannot own the land or an idea any more than you can catch the wind. You have, at best, temporary stewardship of it. I am promoting neither communism nor anarchy, but if you realise this concept you will understand what I mean by hospitality.
By the grace of the gods, by the sweat of your brow, or the luck of your birth, you have gained both material and spiritual wealth. If you wish to become an honourable person you must be willing to share these with those who have not been so fortunate.
That which is given freely and with a glad heart shall come back threefold.

Duty.
Another odd concept, but this time one that must be accepted, never imposed. Again it is a cornerstone of 'civilised' or social behaviour.
Duty relies on three philosophies:

Awareness.
Unless you a truly aware of the consequences of your actions upon yourself, upon others, upon the world around you and upon the divine source, you cannot understand your duty.
This lack of awareness of consequences is very apparent in the rush by many new pagans to get to the 'good stuff'. Many pagan organisations and their web sites are besieged by new pagans demanding access to power and magic. These people are not 'bad', they just want what is advertised on TV.
A good touchstone for the worth of a pagan web site or organisation is in how they respond to this. If they publish endless 'books of shadows' containing spells, rituals and potions, then they are no wiser than their audience. If instead they attempt to guide the enquirer onto a path of self-discovery and awareness they are possibly worthy of further contact.
It is worth stopping for a moment before any major life decision and jotting down the positive and negative consequences that will stem from that decision for yourself, your family and friends, other people, the world around you and the divine source. You may well surprise yourself.

Responsibility.
This is hard. You must learn to take responsibility for every step you make along your road. For every decision you make or avoid. For every mistake and misstep.
Responsibility means accepting the effect you have had upon the world, upon others and upon yourself. If you wish to deny your effect then leave this place now, for you are self-deluded, and seek out the essay above on 'Honesty'.
It is a total concept, there are no half measures. Responsibility can be shared, but it cannot be divided. If two people accept a duty, the amount of responsibility is doubled, not halved.

Courage.
Fear is a natural emotional and bio-chemical reaction to danger. Without fear we would not survive a day in this world. Fear is good, it activates reactions within us that fuel us to fight or flee.
Courage is the ability to accept this fear and to maintain a balanced state in the face of it. Never mistake a fearless person for a courageous one. Fearless people are dangerous both to themselves and others, for they do not learn.
I am a pyrophobic. I have a fear of fire. Every time that I must face fire, I also face a test of courage. Most of the time I handle it, I fight it when I would much rather flee from it.
Often to do one's duty it is necessary to face our fears. Fear of failure and fear of embarrassment are our frequent companions. A dutiful person courageously overcomes these fears and completes the task that they have accepted.

Love.
Love is possibly the most misunderstood of all three concepts. Let me make something clear at the beginning of this essay - I am not talking about love as an emotion. Yet the reduction of the concept of love to an individual projection of passion is one of the greatest tragedies of western civilisation.
One of the main problems we encounter is the mistaking of 'passion' for 'love'. We are in 'love' with someone, we must be near them, we must own their heart....... can you hear the pain? This passion is an overwhelming desire to know that someone else cares for you. It is obsessive, and ultimately self-destructive. We have lost the true meaning of 'love', and are now desperate to have it.
Many relationships founder because of this mistaking of passion for love.. Passion is generated at the beginning of the relationship by desire, both physical and emotional. This bio-chemical reaction overrides all sense and the two people 'fall in love'. Passion, however, is very difficult to maintain for any length of time. It simply consumes too much energy. Soon it begins to fall away to a more easily-maintained and much lower level. Then the two people have to maintain their relationship with whatever is left. if they were not friends beforehand, or have not become friends, then there is precious little to work with.
Unfortunately this last century, through the growth of the media and popular culture, this pursuit of 'love' has become an obsession. In earlier times people often married those they knew well. Courtship could take years, and as a result many relationships were founded on the bedrock of friendship and mutual respect. Indeed those that undertook an obsessive quest for 'love' were seen as sick or demented, to be pitied or cured.
Now we live in a society with precious little real love and a surplus of disappointment and bitterness.
Love, in its true form, is (as I said before) not an individual feeling or an emotion. Love is a way of life, a way of presenting your 'self' to the world and the people/beings you interact with. To understand this better we need to examine the three main tenets of Love.

Acceptance.
We all crave acceptance. We want others to like us for who we really are, not for what society dictates we should be.
To accept someone is to see them as they are, and say 'no problem'.
There is nothing worse than saying they you 'love' someone, and then setting out to change them into a form acceptable to your own self-image. Many of the main stream religions do this to those they convert. It is also the source of the nagged husband/wife.
The key to acceptance is the realisation that each person walks a different path. You can neither walk it for them, nor direct their path to your choosing. To do so is to assault their freedom of choice.

Trust.
To place your head in the mouth of the dragon. To trust is to invite betrayal. Not to trust is to be alone. What a quandary!
To be trusted is a great feeling. I can think of no greater compliment, for instance, than to be trusted with another person's child. Of all the Christian traditions I have examined, one of the most touching (and thus worth preserving) is the position of God-parent.
Some say that you must earn trust. What nonsense! It can neither be earnt nor taken. It can only be given and accepted.
The Celts knew this and it is a component of their concept of Geasa.

Compassion.
Called 'empathy' by some, this is the ability to walk in another's shoes. To understand, at the very core of your being, the joy and the pain and the confusion of another being.
Compassion demands that you share a part of your soul or spirit with another, in order that you may be able to help shoulder their burden, if only for a few steps down their road.
To show compassion to another is a great thing, for it is fraught with danger. I seem to remember that it was the Chinese that believed that if you saved a person's life you were then responsible for all that they then did from then on.
For as you help them on their road, you may also influence their decisions, what turnings they will take, and thus what the future holds for them and any others they encounter.

Well Noggin, it just serves you right for asking such a good question . I hope this answers it, at least from my perspective.
Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.

Post 358:
Hey Turvy .
I was also brought up in a fairly strict Catholic household with all its active hypocrisy and reliance on 'faith'.
One of the problems my family and Church had with me was that I was a child with imaginary friends and one who saw things in the hedgerows and amongst the trees.
As you can imagine I got quite a lot of bullying for that, both from my Catholic chums as you might expect, but also from my teachers and Priests.
For many years I repressed these sights and the memories of them just to get along. However once I was 'released into adulthood' I could no longer deny what I felt and saw. Thus began my quest to discover what was going on. I tried many coats of belief and philosophy but none seemed to fit until I fell across druidry.
This path suits me well. It requires me to have an open and enquiring mind. To take responsibility for my every action and word. To reflect on my actions and strive to be a better person each day.
I wish I could say I fully lived up to these ideals, or the ones I spoke of in answer to Noggin's question, but I don't.
However I am trying.

A question for you Turvy and everyone else for that matter.
If we simply accept that 'religion' has had its day and that science and rationalism is the answer to everything, what is there then to guide people to be loving, dutiful and honourable? So far the only outgrowth of the rationalist perspective that I have seen is the cult of endless self-gratification. I don't see a great movement amongst the atheists out there to provide either a new moral compass, or a set of ethical directions. And please don't point towards the law. They are a set of highly-complex decrees which are aimed at the protection of property first, the provision of revenge second and with compensation coming up hard on the rails.
I look forward to your answers
Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.