Quote of the Day: reinventing love

[timelets]

“Stoicism regards the fear of death as the greatest obstacle to the happy life (likewise in Buddhism).”

In simple terms there is an apparently insurmountable contradiction between love, which leads to attachment, and death, which leads to separation.
...
The entire originality of the Christian message resides in ‘the good news’ of literal immortality.
...
If humans are immortal as long as they obey the commandments of God and if we suppose that this immortality is not merely compatible with earthly love but possibly one of its consequences, then why deprive ourselves? Why not become attached to our nearest and dearest, if Christ promises that we shall be reunited after our biological death?
Thus, between ‘love-as-attachment’ and love as simple universal compassion towards others, a place opens up for a third form of love: the love ‘in’ God of creatures who are themselves eternal. ”

--- Luc Ferry. “A Brief History of Thought."