(January 24, 2015 at 1:56 pm)robvalue Wrote: You seem to be suggesting married people should stay together even when they are no longer happy. What is the point of that? Two people are miserable, and no one is benefiting. Sure, it is a legal contract, but it is one that can be terminated legally as well. I understand that to you this has religious implications, but I'm not discussing that. Just morality regarding wellbeing.
"Loving" your enemies I wouldn't take literally as a good moral teaching. Love is a very extreme word. You can still want the best for them, within reason. It's too vague to mean much, for example if your "enemy" is someone you are fighting in a war, you can't love them while shooting at them, not in any meaningful way. So it's wildly open to interpretation. I think the most sensible one is to separate people from their actions, or past actions at least. I think that's an obvious way to think. The fact that people may hate their enemies doesn't mean they are unaware of such thinking, or the benefits, but can be just that they don't want to think that way or that they are too much of an enemy to deserve their thoughts.
Just because people aren't following certain moral actions, doesn't mean they aren't aware of such actions and that they would be moral. No one acts morally all the time, and some people are more selfish than others and don't care too much about morals.
Yes. I am suggesting that a married couple stay together even though they are not happy. Of course, when a christian marries he does make a commitment to God as well as his spouse and I can't remove that from my opinion. Even not considering the religious factor, if there are children involved, one should consider the welfare of the children, as well as his own happiness. People say that it's better to raise the children with one loving parent rather that two fighting parents, but if they really love the children they will work to resolve their differences and to maintain a peaceful and loving environment in the home. At work there are certain individuals we like and others that we can't stand, but we maintain a peaceful working environment, so why can't we live at peace with someone whom we were totally in love with?
Even without the religious factor, I do view it as a lack of moral integrity to make a promise and then back out on it; especially if one spouse is against the divorce and the other one forces it , as is often the case. Of course, I don't recommend staying together in a case where there is damaging abuse or when one spouse is continually committing adultery, and the bible would confirm this. I've found through my own marriage experience, that a couple can experience a growth in love and maturity by working through problems simply because we're committed to staying together. We have happy a marriage now, but I'm fairly certain that we would have been divorced had we believed differently, so we've been rewarded for standing by our our commitment to each other.
I'll agree that you're right in believing that "loving your enemies" does involve separating the individual from the act. "Loving your enemies" is completely counter to our human nature. When we manage to do that we are resisting our natural human urges. Adhering to christian morality in many instances is going counter to our innate human nature and being in step with our spiritual nature. Sometimes that involves choosing to do right rather than choosing to do what makes us happy. I also agree that we often know what is right, but simply choose to act against that knowledge.
