This question was inspired by an answer I received to a previous question. Someone suggested that love would be defined by atheists as "merely a chemical reaction... no more miraculous than the fizzing of an Alka Selzer tablet."
Is love like fizzy water? Is it something more?
2007-03-20 09:02:03 · 32 answers · asked by ZER0 C00L ••AM••VT•• 7 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
It is so much more... love is when you care and respect a person so much that you show it in your behavior. Love is when you like how they think and tell them so. Love is when you'd risk yourself to help them.
Yes, there are chemical reactions... but that can also be lust, infatuation or pheremones.
A mature form of love is reflected in what we do with and for our loved one every day. Love is a choice, not "just" a chemical.
2007-03-20 09:05:26 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 0⤋
Love IS a chemical reaction though.
I may not be an Atheist but even I know that.
But i do believe it is miraculous. Or at least more miraculous then an Alka selzer :)
2007-03-20 13:25:28 · answer #2 · answered by Bobby 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A definition I've always liked, from Hal Hartley's film Trust, is that love is the name we give a feeling we have when we express our admiration, trust and respect for another person.
At its root, its biochemical. We need the biochemical high of being liked (loved) back. But it is very convincing, very pleasureable and much to be desired. Orgasms are the same - they don't become less good once we realize they are only about the brain being flooded with endorphins at the end of a particular set of physical exertions. "Only" has nothing to do with it.
2007-03-25 10:14:04 · answer #3 · answered by Bad Liberal 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Everything human is "fizzy water." I choose to accord my various forms of fizzy water with a meaning that I have constructed from the surrounding culture and literature of Love. I prefer it that way but do not claim it is scientifically "true."
2007-03-20 09:07:02 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Emotions are chemical reactions brought on by thoughts, how you represent certain thoughts to yourself greatly influences the intensity of those chemical reactions. Love is one of them, fight or flight would be the strongest, the drive to procreate would be right up there with it. making love an integral (and necessary)part of the equation in a developed society.
2007-03-20 12:46:31 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
I've never got the hang of this one...
The definitions and usages vary so much.
I tend not to use the term, or to wait until I've identified the particular context and keep to that sense.
For some people it is clearly "everything" but I'm miles away from that.
When a battered woman refuses to leave or report her boyfriend/husband "because he loves me" I'm utterly incomprehending, but I've seen it too often not to believe it is something real and powerful.
2007-03-20 09:17:21 · answer #6 · answered by Pedestal 42 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
LOVE is nothing more than a label we humans use. While physically, love comes via a complex chemical reaction, that doesnt take away from the fact that I *experience* it as something more when peering into the eye of my fiancee... Or having swinging-from-the -chandelier-sex.
2007-03-20 09:10:05 · answer #7 · answered by ? 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Love is an emotion, that causes us to react to family and friends in a beneficial way. It causes us to forgo our own safety and comfort in order to help other. Some have an innate ability to love more than others. Some don't have the ability at all and only live for themselves so it is not possible that a divine creator hands it out to humans before they are born, unless he chooses to create loveless beings.
2007-03-20 09:11:20 · answer #8 · answered by ɹɐǝɟsuɐs Blessed Cheese Maker 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Why do you have to follow a religion to know what love is? I do not follow any religion and love is a warm feeling you have when you want to be close to someone, or you care deeply about their welfare. Come on people do you have to follow a religion to know love? Sometimes I feel christians are on a witch hunt this question is the silliest question I ever have read on here.
2007-03-20 09:07:34 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
There is general love (Agape), this is concern for the enviroment, atroxities committed in other lands, and your own. The homeless, the poor, the underpriveledged, human rights issues, etc. Then there is familial love. This is the love that families have for each other. This is not taught or pounded into them. People are just plain stupid, if they think that Athiests have no feelings.
2007-03-20 09:23:13 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋