I can't imagine a more desolate definition for Love than what my last question produced.
What of the components of Love: compassion, empathy, sympathy, connection...just more neurons and neediness?
Don't you find yourself feeling alone and isolated with beliefs like that?
2006-09-29 05:52:33 · 21 answers · asked by bobkgin 3 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
I'm sorry, this contains far too much faulty logic and too many hasty assumptions for my taste.
2006-10-01 22:38:14 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Why don't you define love, then? Is "love" compassion, empathy, sympathy, and connection? Or are those just the presenting symptoms of something else? Scientifically, love is a chemical reaction in the brain. So are dreams. So is every other human emotion.
Saying that someone believing "anger is a chemical reaction in the brain" cannot then FEEL anger is ridiculous, right? Same goes for love. It's place in human physiological function does not make it less important.
I do love, very much. I love my family and my friends and my boyfriend and my puppy...where those feelings come from mean little to me, be they chemical reactions or some supernatural spiritual connection or learned behavior through positive reinforcement.
2006-09-29 06:02:18 · answer #2 · answered by N 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Understanding the neuro chemical action that gives rise to the feeling does not invalidate the feeling. Intercourse is just the result of our selfish genes trying to spread themselves far and wide, but that hardly takes the fun out of it.
My adopted daughter graduates college this December. She was a teenage kid I found crying in a coffee shop after her father skipped. I felt sympathy, compassion, connection. She's an incredible person and an utter joy. It was one of the best decisions of my life and I'd lay down my life for her without a thought. All of this flows from sound traits for biological survival, traits that helped our species survive, adapt and prosper through cooperation as well as competition.
Maybe it takes the magic out of it for you to know that our thoughts and emotions are not supernatural in some transcendent way. Not me. Love, compassion, sympathy, connection, all feel great! They bring pleasure and reduce pain, and I don't like them any less because I know their origin.
We're physical beings, which is the only kind there is as far as we can prove. I'm fine with it. I'm diggin' it. I wish I could get more than a normal lifespan of it. I understand how a Harley operates. It's still a freakin' rush to hit the highway on a sunny day.
Don't over-rotate on these things. You'll get a migrane.
2006-09-29 06:08:43 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think you're saying atheists don't believe in love, and that some previous answerers didn't know what you were saying.
It's not "just neurons and neediness." We are created to feel and share love.
I'm not an atheist, but I'm not the best example of a bible thumping Christian either.
2006-09-29 05:57:27 · answer #4 · answered by *babydoll* 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Not at all. You asked for a definition of Love. It's like defining food. Something that provides energy for you to continue to live. Just because Love is an electrical impulse that stimulates the brain for a given end result doesn't make it any less important. In fact, given that it's a natural impulse makes it all the more important, a lot like food.
Afterthought: Who said this guy is a Christian? I think it's deplorable that it should even matter.
2006-09-29 05:56:30 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
So WHAT if love has purely biological or neurochemical origins? It doesn't alter the experience for us as human beings, or make us feel the emotion any less. Does a diamond sparkle any less once you know it's just neatly stacked rows of carbon atoms? Is a sunset any less breathtaking once you realize it's particles of pollution that make the sky light up that way?
This is still a life of awe and wonder, even if it neither has nor requires any supernatural explanations.
2006-09-29 05:57:40 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
the two between the folk earlier me have given quite stable solutions. yeah,, you will desire to not confuse the two definitions of love. once you're conversing in regards to the affection which you're feeling, then there isn't something selfless approximately it. love is an rather egocentric emotion. it makes you sense stable, and it actual would not connect you to others. once you sense love, you are the only guy or woman who's feeling that particular love. now,,, once you sense this way of love, you may desire to be at risk of grant up lots of the 2d definition of love,, which easily isn't even an emotion., it quite is a gesture. it quite is often the definition it is meant whilst human beings say issues like "a mom's love". what they actually advise is "a mom's being concerned". now, this 2d definition of love would be felt via others., yet it is only because of the fact it is an action. it is not a concept it is trapped interior your head. additionally,,, just to counter a available rebuttal earlier to time,, empathy and "bonding" are thoughts, yet for the time of those thoughts, you're actually not easily feeling the different guy or woman's discomfort or love. you're only feeling your individual empathy and "bonding" respectively. (sorry,, i understand there is probable a stronger be conscious than "bonding", yet i can't think of of it.) now,,,, once you're thinking how we are in a position to describe WHY thoughts like empathy and "bonding" exist, it is because of the fact they're advantageous for a tribe and are favoured via organic decision. for sure, in case you image a collection of human beings stranded on an island, it makes extra sense that they are going to stay to tell the tale extra desirable in the event that they artwork mutually quite than eat one yet another. the evolution of altruism has easily taken particularly an prolonged time. it probable started approximately 2 hundred million years in the past, with the ancestors of the 1st mammals.
2016-10-18 04:59:12 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Love is love, regardless of what form it takes. We are what we are - all our thoughts and feelings and experiences - and knowing that this is 'just' the interplay of fundamental particles and forces doesn't change that one bit. It matters not. Does we enjoy a symphony the slightest bit less for knowing that it can be reduced to a graph of air pressure over time? Of course not. It is what it is, and it moves us just the same, regardless of what we know about the medium and the physics involved. D'you see?
2006-09-29 06:01:23 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
What the H-E-double L are you talking about?
We don't believe in God, but we do have emotions. We're not automatons. We feel tremendous love and caring for mankind and selected, special individuals.
I feel sorry for you for thinking that way about your fellow humans. What an isolating existence you have created for yourself.
2006-09-29 05:58:26 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think you ask that again most people just yelled at you but didn't answer. As a Christian I feel that the source of all love is God so I've wondered too how they go on is it just a sexual thing or what?
2006-09-29 06:05:18 · answer #10 · answered by esoreinna 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I can believe in a spiritual dimension to human existence without believing in the existence of a personal God. Even Buddha spoke of the divine although he didn't advocate believing in or worshipping deities.
2006-09-29 05:58:46 · answer #11 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋