Gee, Pat, I’ve not read all of your postings; but from what I have read, you seem to have taken a very hard stance and you’re not budging.

I assure you that people can, and unfortunately do sometimes, choose NOT to love. These people are sometimes very angry at the world and choose to bathe in that anger; they refuse to even try to be happier. They don’t take criticism well, and they spend much time criticizing and complaining about what is not right. (And we all know that there is much that is not right, and much to complain about.) Any encouragement is discarded with a "bah-humbug", cheerfulness is viewed as blind ignorance, and introspection and peace are foreign concepts to these folks.

At a minimum, we can CHOOSE to "love" by choosing to NOT be vindictive or bitter. We can seek justice and truth without hating. We don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water. There are many dimensions of "love" and we might be talking past each other on this discussion board.

The "love" of the chosen type is not romantic love -- it is the divine love of which the bible actually speaks. God loves us with fatherly love, not romantic love. At some level, we affect how we feel by the attitude with which we approach an experience. At a minimum, we CAN choose to love by adopting a loving attitude. Again, this is not the touchy-feely type of love, but more the brotherly/sisterly love of "I wish you well" type -- the "I refuse to feel negative about you" type. The "I respect you because you are God’s creation" love.

Yes, I think that we all have control over our attitude, which affects how we feel.