love the Lord first and foremost, then love your neighbor as yourself. I personally doubt anyone can really do the latter if they don't first commit to striving for the former.
What if you don't believe that God exists, is it still possible to do the latter? What if you live in a tribe that has never heard of God?
The genetic programming mandates that creature A take some action -- in this case the action is not "evil" ... creature A has no opportunity to do otherwise.
I was positing that maybe the behaviour of creature A could be the definition of "evil" - even if it has no possibility to do otherwise. I don't think the concept extends to sharp rocks and the like because they have no nervous system therefore no capacity to respond to stimuli, or think. Also I believe that humans (and plants) can break their programming - or at least I hope so ! Where does the level of sophistication start where an organism can break it's programming? Is it at the level of the human or somewhere else perhaps? Can a bird break its programming for instance?
Love - I am very uncomfortable with boiling love down to a set of behaviours. "Love" is something more undefinable to me. So Mr Dallas doesn't help me in this area. CS Lewis said that if one starts acting in a certain way then they'll end up believing it, even if they didn't really at the start. But isn't that tantamount to brainwashing - an activity which leads to people flying planes into buildings? Never follow a leader without asking your own questions.
Do you "let go of your inner judgment" ... or do you employ practical discernment?
I can't do it, but don't judge or discern - I believe that we should let God discern, this is what The Christ message says to me - just love your neighbour. For example, how can I discern whether I am naked or not? Answer: because my predecessor has eaten from the tree of knowledge, that's how, it says so in Genesis. Discernment is the original sin (I suspect). I'm unable to not discern though. Thanks Adam and Eve :-)
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