The Core

If you ask any religious/spiritual person what the most important, core truth of their religion is, they will tell you some wording of 'love God/neighbor.'  

Actually, what they tend to first tell you the core truth of their religion is the thing that they are the only ones doing, but if you lead the answer by replying: "Well, OK, but the core principal, the most important bedrock element, wouldn't you agree is 'love God/neighbor?'" they will always affirm that it is.  (1)  Yet none of the religions/spiritualities pay any attention to the aspect of loving neighbor.  Instead they fight their neighbor over all the distinguishments of their religion which they stack above and around, and thus obscure: 'love God/neighbor.'

Furthermore, I feel all the religious distingishments can be classified in two categories.  Rules and rituals.  The rules serve to provide pointable proof that particular practitioners are better than other practitioners or other religions.  In other words, an avenue to feel morally superior to neighbor.  And the rituals serve to provide avenues to gain/achieve more closeness to God/god/spirit than neighbor.  In other words, to obtain more spiritual power than neighbor.

Imagine how great society would be if we all focused on what we already agree is the most important thing: love God/neighbor.  

But we can't make others do that, not without violating the principal in the first place.  So imagine how fulfilling and rewarding your own life might be, if your own overriding goal was making your neighbor appreciative, rather than awed or envious.

The Core, B1

Yahshua (2)(3) said, paraphrased and condensed: 'the path to the kingdom of heaven is to love God and neighbor.'  Yahshua is documented as spending a lot of time talking of what loving neighbor looks like (4)(5) but none talking about what loving God looks like.  For a long while this silence on such an apparently crucial subject has puzzled and interested me.

Eventually I came to a conclusion Yahshua left that topic blank because individuals demonstrate love for God by searching for a sense of God, ON THEIR OWN.  Valuing God enough to wonder, and investing effort to understand. (6)

I extrapolated this concept one step further: that perhaps it doesn’t matter what a seeker of God concludes God is/wants, as long as that seeker believes in loving their neighbor.  The same as the best gift to a deeply involved parent is to gift their children: perhaps what makes God most happy is humans caring for other humans.

The Core, B2

I continued on this question quest, because who knows what TopGod may want, or what Yahshua might have meant by silence, or even if he was silent.  I examined the concept in reverse.  Since from the context of the texts it does not seem to me that by 'Kingdom of Heaven' that Yahshua was speaking of 'Life After Death,' but speaking rather of 'Joyous Living Right Now,' I asked self: “What would it take for all humans to have equal access to happiness and fulfillment here on Earth?  If 'Love Neighbor' is one element of that happiness and fulfillment, what would the 'Love God' part entail?”

I concluded it could be "Cared for Creation."

If we considered an ecosystem designed to keep producing life forever to be a gift sufficient for happiness as it is.  Earth doesn’t need to be improved: plants changed, the rain avoided, these animals or bugs gone, or the temperature inside our shelters changed.  If we ever felt less than satisfied with this ecosystem, instead of changing it, we asked ourselves how might our dissatisfaction with Nature's attributes be from an incomplete perspective.    Because fundamental to our understanding of Life, we considered it to be an absolute given that Earth is perfect as is.

And, as to how this answer of 'loving God' includes ‘loving neighbor’ as an integral element: Caring for Creation would entail not considering Earth's resources as materials to be abused in pursuit of personal profits over and above others' welfare.

And we could then live here forever.

This latter concept is very, very personal to me however, and is a whole lot like me arriving at rules for others to observe.  So I continued on the quest for what ‘Loving God’ might be.

The Core, B3

And I have, so far, come up with one more answer as to what 'Loving God' might be.  Faith.  Faith in God.  That despite not knowing any specifics about TopGod's personality or desires for certain sure: we trust TopGod's wisdom and power to be all-good.  Trust that TopGod knows when other humans do wrong, and trust that TopGod can, and will, make things right.  Let God be God, and not take the role upon ourselves.  And therefore we ourselves do not need to look for wrongs in others, and we ourselves do not need to punish them.  

And immediately, all of that unpleasantness: that conflict, that competition, that castigation, would be gone from our lives.  And obviously: from our neighbors' lives as well. (7)

And that, my friends, is what I would consider Heaven on Earth.

The Core, B4.  

I've recently come up with another avenue to look at what Love God might entail.  Since "Love God and neighbor" is the solution to "being like God and knowing right and wrong," we should be able to use the two to shed light on one another.

It does seem as though 'loving neighbor' is very well answered by not expecting we can apply our right vs wrong to them.  

Therefore: what 'loving God' might involve could logically be resolved by: not expecting we are like God.

1: Some feel the term ‘God’ has too much Abrahamic baggage and may prefer a less self-aware Force, but they all feel It merits respect and admiration

2: His name may not have been Yahshua but it most certainly not Jesus: jesus is the abstract noun for the meaning of his name in the language of the government which killed him, and contains a consonent sound not used in Yahshua's birth language.

3: and who do I think Yahshua is?  At the very least a very wise man who did a lot of thinking about God.  And in my personal opinion: said it the best.  Beyond that, an individual would have to themselves be God in order to declare any absolutes.

4: primary reference: Sermon on Mount in Matthew, Beatitudes in Luke.

5: Since I have been accused of picking and choosing which parts of the Bible I like I will say: “Yes indeed I do.”  And my opinion is completely irrelevent but since some ask this next as well I will specify: I like most of the first three gospels, plus James, 1st Peter (not 2nd), and Proverbs, and I read Acts as a newspaper account of the disciples abandoning Yahshua's teachings for Saul's.  I consider the Bible to be like a Reader's Digest spiritual edition.  A batch of pre-filtered men-written opinions about God: maybe all worth reading, not necessarily all worth accepting. And I think I've made it clear but maybe it bears repeating: I'm just one more human, and claim no special/unique access to Truth.

6: The only advantage any ‘teacher’ has over any ‘student’ is time invested in the search.  While the only individual who's effort and integrity you can be sure of is your own. Seriously.  It's YOUR potential destiny, YOUR potential eternal life, and you can be completely sure: no matter how great a person any teacher may be, what happens to your soul cannot be as important to them as it should be to you.

7: Which would be super super ‘loving neighbor.’