Why is Love a repetitive theme in Religions?
With the exeption of Judaism and Buddhism. Why does love alwasy play a big part in religions? Christianity and Hinduism displays different types of loves. Love between the sexes and love between creator and the creation. Is it really Love the driving energy behind immortality? Most of the stories involved the topic of love. So I keep wondering...do the gods wants us to love them?
Love is supposed to be the greatest feeling humans can achieve. From a non-religious perspective the creation of the idea of love in religions comes from the way people have perceived true happiness. It has always felt much better to love and be loved than any other emotion, so when religions developed, it would make sense that love woudl play a signicficant role. From a religous perspective it would seem that love promotes the good in people and that in order to maintain order and peace, love would have to be among humans not just for the happiness, but for the existence of the human race. If god didnt create love then chaos would be among us and war would be our demise. So it was imminent for our existence to have love. Whether god created that feeling and made it an important role in religion, or people tried to incorporate it into religions they created, that i do not know. I'd like to believe the first one because im christian, but who knows.
Originally posted by Nellinator
I believe that love is a recurring theme because it is the strongest emotion. And BTW I don't understand why Judaism was left out. Love is central to the OT teachings.
I've actually begun a comprehensive study of the bible and im currently in exodus. Love is important, but I would say the central teaching of the OT up to this point is believe in god and follow his rules. A lot of things the early Jews did would be considered most likely sinful in christianity and juadism today even though what they did was mainly to preserve the existence of the Israelites. Like I said, I've only read up through exodus, but the main theme thus far is listen to god and do as he instructs.