Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Wacky Wednesday--Unconditional Love Is A Bad Idea


Note: Before reading the following arguments, please understand that they are not what I believe. On Wednesdays, I deliberately argue for wrong ideas, challenging my listeners to call and defend the obvious right answer, which is usually far harder than one would expect. This is a summary of what Wacky Andrew will be arguing, not a representation of what real Andrew believes.

~Capitalism is directly opposed to this idea. We understand that even relatively decent people perform better in an environment with consequences and expectations and rewards for performance than in one where these things do not count for anything.
~If a spouse knows you’ll stay no matter what, how likely is it that this person will do the maximum amount necessary to be a great spouse?
~Why is it that people are more polite, decent, and generous when they are dating than when they are married?
~Do you love the terrorists? Is it really a sin to want them to be killed?
~When you give people unconditional love, they abuse it.
~You can’t love everyone unconditionally because you must give money to your family, you must deny some needs in order that others get met.
~Knowing that my wife loves me conditionally means that I have that much more incentive to do the necessary things to please and provide for her.
~Imagine how absurd it is for someone who owns a shop to say he loves everyone unconditionally. ~He gives them his goods and services in exchange for their payment. That’s conditional love. If he gave everything away asking only fair compensation voluntarily, he’d be without inventory in mere days.
~Likewise, in relationships, it’s a give and a take, because some people are takers only. Some people, in fact, are givers only, and they wind up getting abused by takers. It’s those who understand cooperation that make it work.
~People who refuse to set limits and punish transgressions only enable other people to continue being bad. Unconditional love is just the raw material for enabling codependence.
~Those who speak of unconditional love almost always want us to overlook moral violations. They speak of love and acceptance, and we all know that it is wrong to accept sin or to act as though sin is acceptable to God.
~You acknowledge how dangerous unconditional love is by how carefully you select a spouse upon whom to bestow it. Why not just acknowledge that it’s too dangerous in the first place. Besides isn’t it hypocritical to unconditionally love only someone who must meet all the right conditions first? ~Would you love, unconditionally, someone who made a habit of punching babies? If so, would your behavior increase or decrease the incidence of baby-punching?
~Don’t you believe in jails?

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