ROBERT LIKES RICHARD

 

Readers of Robert's blog, if any would have noticed that he writes about Catholic themes, says that he loves people a lot and is enamoured of C.S. Lewis and other silly Christian Apologists.

C.S. Lewis, as well as writing children's fantasy (he was envious of his friend Tolkien's body of work), Catholic and Christian 'apologies' and various works of a latent homo-erotic nature also wrote 'The Four Loves'.

Here's a link to the Wikipedia post if you want to read it in full:

THE FOUR LOVES

OK? Right- moving on. I mentioned that Robert say's that he loves people a lot. I think this stems from his being a Catholic - it's in the job description - and not from any sense of neediness. I've kind of gotten used to it although it does irk me when I am critical of something he's written that he responds with "I love you Peter." That 'turn the other cheek' thing is too passive aggressive for my liking.

I was very surprised yesterday when, in a comment on Richard's blog post he wrote: 

Don't be alarmed at his use of the third person when referring to himself. All right wing, fascist oriented Christians like Donald Trump do this.

What surprised me was the demotion, out of the blue, of Richard in Robert's favour. Previously Richard had been bombarded by Robert's love to the point where it was becoming embarrassing for observers.

I wondered if, in Christianity or Catholicism specifically, there is a sliding scale of favour from 'love' through 'like' to, I guess, 'dislike' and 'hate'.

This is how I discovered old C.S.'s 4 loves thing. I have to admit I didn't read right through the Wikipedia article and didn't do further searching but I did skim through it and found that Robert's 'like' is closer to the Storge or empathy bond. This is below the Philia or friend bond that Richard might previously have been rewarded with. I certainly hope that the 'love' Robert previously professed wasn't the Eros or romantic love and am certain that it wasn't the Agape or unconditional god love at the top of the scale.

I like that Agape love. It is apt for the Catholics who adopt it I guess:

Sitting in a catatonic state during the mass and the sermon is how I remember attending church on Sundays.