Can unconditional love remove consequences? I think that is one of the potential problems in discerning between the "true God(s)" and the "false god(s)". Allo

Can unconditional love remove consequences? I think that is one of the potential problems in discerning between the "true God(s)" and the "false god(s)". Allow me to demonstrate what I mean. When you say "If a God threatens to send you to hell for loving the wrong person, it's a false God." it seems to imply a couple of things that must be accepted apriori to the statement- 1. That God stating what consequences will be for actions taken by us constitutes him ''threatening' rather than him explaining a cause and effect relationship. If I'm a genuine doctor and tell you that if you eat a certain piece of food that you will die or get sick I'm not threatening you. I'm simply pointing out the causality connected with an action to warn you. 2. That for any given person their loving of any other given person can/will never genuinely harm them. I don't know about you, but those conditions (which seem to be inherent to the view given here by Paul), are hard for me to accept just on mere assertion. I think that it is possible that two people loving each other, in certain contexts, can be detrimental to both of them. This whole 'love conquers all' thing depends very much on what you define 'love' to be. And, while I certainly can think of certain types of love that CAN AND SHOULD be universal, I can also think of types of love that can infringe on the previous types as well as carrying vast detrimental potential for all connected to them. Human connection, Human relations, intimacy, it all is very much a force of nature and, as such, has destructive potential. The next statement I fully agree with-- "If a God tells you to coerce people into worshiping him, it's a false God." but it also presents it's own complexity. As a father of 20 month old boy I run into situations all the time where there seems a thin line between guidance and coercion. In fact, throughout my life I've often found that many of the same principles that bind us in society, that make humanity work, are the very same ones that, without genuine love and genuine concern for the welfare of the person, are those which lead to things like Jonestown. Hence the shared root between "cult" and "culture." The very idea of turning earth (that is - to cultivate) implies applied force to direct natural processes to beneficial means. Who is benefiting is very much linked to the aim and not as much to the methods. The means of trying to encourage people to commit to some actions so as to, in some way, improve the welfare of the aforementioned people can virtually always (in my experience) be seen in a coercive light by those wanting to see such coercion. Yet if there is some true benevolent force, and a person knows about it, then is it not reasonable/logical, to expect said person to somehow convey access to that benevolent force's to others? Whether that's knowledge or some other beneficial thing? Where then do you draw the line between those who are actively trying to convince others that they've found some true benevolent reality that can, and seeks, to help others? Certainly some things seem obvious. It can't be something that is telling untruths. But, and this should be obvious to virtually all parents out there I'd suppose, there are times when, for the welfare of a child, it seems wise to withhold at times information OR to even go along with implicit appearances. An example I can think of would be where some things a parent has done prior to becoming a parent, say something like teenage-to-young-adult-years stupid kind of things. One doesn't generally go blurting those things out to a four or five year old when they ask some related innocent question. "Genuine, unconditional love is a gift that must be freely given and freely accepted, with nothing expected in return. Love can not be delivered at gun point, or with the threat of eternal damnation. That's more like rape." I have to say that this paragraph puts me in a light that I believe is a bit unique due to a personal experience. I'm presently in Lima, Peru. Here I have to take all kind of precautions due to being a tall white guy with a gringo accent. Otherwise I stand a good chance of being mugged. I know this because of an attempted robbery I already lived through where I was physically assaulted. That being said I've never felt hate here for being who I am. And I can say the same for virtually every where else I've been throughout my life, regardless of where or what context--with the exception of one place -- Santa Cruz, CA If you want to feel hated, and I mean something on the verge of knowing some of the people hating you have lynch mob like ideas entering their mind, go walking down Pacific Ave in Downtown Santa Cruz as a "Mormon" (LDS) Missionary (I imagine it could be even worse now post Prop. 8). For a land filled with hippiesque love and peace centric bumper-stickers and an intellectual heal the world, free love vibe all over I have NEVER felt so much hate or had so many people heckle and curse (most under their breath as we passed by but quite a few yelling loudly) me just for me being who I was. They knew nothing about me other than the fact that I had a well worn white shirt, a tie, and some slacks and a black lapel pin. They didn't know the missionary that was walking beside me was an intellectual Boston, MA native who converted in his early twenties. They didn't REALLY know much at all about me--but I was, in there eyes, someone who fit the very labels that Paul here associates with one who follows a "false god" and uses like methods to "rapists." Their own certitude of the pretexts upon which they saw me seemed to render them incapable of unconditional love. Contrary to the way they might have seen it, I was not there to condemn them, nor to coerce them to anything, nor to tell them not love someone, nor to offer a mob-esque protection arrangement. But that's how they all saw it. And so using a metric very similar to what Paul puts forward for a discernment between the 'gods' I was deemed and infidel worthy of being looked down upon, or even just ignored, because I happened to believe something that superficially could be made to look intolerant and even hateful when it was actually quite the opposite.