In any event there's something vaguely impossible about being COMMANDED to love anyone or anything. If I love a woman, can I ORDER her to love me back? Can anyone love on command?

Recall that it took O'Brien a long, long time of torturing Winston daily, to get him to finally love Big Brother. (Anyone not getting that reference should stop reading this crap, download Orwell's classic 1984 for free, and read that immediately. I devoured it in one sitting in high school, and it left an indelible impression.)

It's just not possible for many people to love because they were ordered to. And they shouldn't feel bad about that fact.

If the act of loving is REQUIRED or FORCED on a person, is that real love, anyway? Or does love necessarily always have to arise, organically and VOLUNTARILY, from within?

I would suggest rephrasing the first commandment as "Thou shalt remember forever that the Lord thy God loves thee with all His heart and soul."

In any event there's something vaguely impossible about being COMMANDED to love anyone or anything. If I love a woman, can I ORDER her to love me back? Can anyone love on command?

Recall that it took O'Brien a long, long time of torturing Winston daily, to get him to finally love Big Brother. (Anyone not getting that reference should stop reading this crap, download Orwell's classic 1984 for free, and read that immediately. I devoured it in one sitting in high school, and it left an indelible impression.)

It's just not possible for many people to love because they were ordered to. And they shouldn't feel bad about that fact.

If the act of loving is REQUIRED or FORCED on a person, is that real love, anyway? Or does love necessarily always have to arise, organically and VOLUNTARILY, from within?

I would suggest rephrasing the first commandment as "Thou shalt remember forever that the Lord thy God loves thee with all His heart and soul." Put it on the reader to consider.