Does love exist

Originally posted by DragonFriend
Scientifically speaking, does love exist?
I don't think anybody would disagree that love can be a powerful motivation, but does science say it exists? Since Christianity is built upon love, this seems a relevant question.

DF

It depends how you define exists. It could be proven that chemical changes in the brain are love.

There are reasons for love one to try and attract a mate and keep the mate to pass down your DNA. Also to look after your child is a kind of love a kind of attachment. If you assume that people who have less love or desire to pass down your DNA will die childless then love would stay in the human race.

You can claim you love other things such as money but this is a love for a decadent lifestyle and luxury.

Originally posted by DragonFriend
Outside of Christianity, where is one suppose to learn about love? From the world? Love has driven people to do some incredible things, and some horrible things. Which is a proper expression of love?

Love has indeed been the basis for a lot of crazy decisions. It can drive anyone mad if given too much focus. To learn about love one has but to live a full life. It's not something that really needs to be taught. To learn how to deal with love is not something you need christianity for either. You need people around you who cares for you as much as you care for them. Then it will come naturally.

But is love really the most important psycho-emotional state to consider? Isn't everything ok when we experience love? Why ponder it so much? Why not learn about hatred and deceit and how to deal with those parts of ourselves? For instance, if you find yourself surrounded only by people who don't give a rats @ss about you, what is that feeling growing in your chest? Is that the beginning of love or?.. It's rarely as simple as throwing water on fire. I think you need to understand what you're feeling, why things are the way they are to make you feel like that and then deal with it in a way that is not destructive (to you or anyone else). I think too much focus is on love these days, that we forget the other parts of our humanity that are as real (and way more dangerous if kept inside to build up over the years) as love.

If love is irrational, hate can be down-right destructive. Hate is what we need to learn to deal with. Love is something we can just appreciate when we get it.

Originally posted by dj2becker
Can you prove this using the scientific method?

Are you saying that love does not exist?

DF

Originally posted by DragonFriend
Are you saying that love does not exist?

DF

dj would argue god didn't exist, if a dirty atheist had told him he does.

Originally posted by Starrman
Define love. If you define it as something intangible then of course it cannot be measured. But whatever definition you make, you will only be guessing what it really means and what is entailed in it.

People agree it exists, but cannot agree on what exactly it is. So what? I can name several things which are like this; gravity, consciousness, George Bush. That doesn't say anything about the nature of love.

I would say that love is intangible, yes. And we all have a slightly different take on exactly that the definition of it would be. But nobody has said that it doesn't exist. How can that be?
This site has taught me that skeptics like proof, cold hard facts, perferrably measureable in a lab. Love doesn't fit that category, and yet nobody has denied its existance. Why not?

I keep hearing that there's no evidence of God, and so He's not worth believing in. Well, where's the evidence of love? Why do skeptics accept that love exists without evidence and reject God for the same reason?

DF

Originally posted by DragonFriend
I would say that love is intangible, yes. And we all have a slightly different take on exactly that the definition of it would be. But nobody has said that it doesn't exist. How can that be?
This site has taught me that skeptics like proof, cold hard facts, perferrably measureable in a lab. Love doesn't fit that category, and yet nobody has denied its ...[text shortened]... skeptics accept that love exists without evidence and reject God for the same reason?

DF

There's plenty of evidence love exists. The exact definiatory nature of love is what is less obvious. You can't compare that to god's lack of existence. However, if it was agreed that god did exist, but we didn't know exactly what he was or how he worked, then you could say the situation is like the one we have concerning love.

Originally posted by DragonFriend
I would say that love is intangible, yes. And we all have a slightly different take on exactly that the definition of it would be. But nobody has said that it doesn't exist. How can that be?
This site has taught me that skeptics like proof, cold hard facts, perferrably measureable in a lab. Love doesn't fit that category, and yet nobody has denied its ...[text shortened]... skeptics accept that love exists without evidence and reject God for the same reason?

DF

There is evidence of love. Its called experience. I know love exists because I experience it. However, I do not experience God, I can only experience what I think is God since God is not an emotion like love.

Do you have evidence of happiness? How do you know it exists?
Actually we know that happiness is biochemical. It is the stimulation of certain parts of the brain or the presence of certain chemicals, or the release of hormones. So why isn't love chemical? Happiness is. Anger is (look up labotomy). How we experience, you might argue is intangible. BUT the physiology of it is purely tangible.

Originally posted by DragonFriend
I'm afraid you don't know much about the basis of Christianity, my friend.
When asked, what did Jesus say was the greatest commandment?
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. ... And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. "

My point in bringing this topic up i ne of us, skeptics included, that would say that love doesn't exist. How is that?

DF

When asked, what did Jesus say was the greatest commandment?
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind

What you seem to forget is that the will to execute such a commandment presupposes that such a God exists in at least a form that can be so 'loved'. Which brings us back to my previous point: those features that are specific to Christianity are based on unfounded supernatural claims (ie., The Christian God exists, Jesus was the supernatural shizzot, etc.).

And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Such a commandment is in no way specific to Christianity. One can strive to follow such a principle and simultaneously not desire to touch Christianity with so much as a ten-foot pole.

My point in bringing this topic up is that science can't measure love itself.

The scientific method is properly applied to descriptive observations and processes. While we could try to delineate a purely descriptive explanation of love in scientific terms (I have little doubt this can be done), it seems more likely that satisfying explanations of love would venture into normative-ish waters concerning those things one finds valuable and why. That's probably better left to the philosopher, rather than the scientist.

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"Love is a battlefield" -- Pat Benatar.

Originally posted by DragonFriend
What you've described covers one aspect of love. What, in the Greek, is called eros, or lustful love. Greek also has another word for love, agape, or brotherly love. It's the love one has for a sibling or a long time family friend. Agape type bonds can be just as strong as the eros type bonds. What does science have to say about a love like that?

DF

You share a close genetic bond with a sibling. Loving them is just loving yourself (in a gene centred view).

Close friends are less of a paradigm than you seem to think. Remember, ANYTHING that increases reproductive fitness will be selected for. Living in societies has been selected for on that basis because of the decreased risk of predation and the increased hunting abilities conferred to the individuals when they work as part of a team. Having a "best friend" makes evolutionary sense too, someone who will help you out when it all goes pear shaped, at the minimal cost of helping them out too if it goes bad for them. Someone who will help you out in a fight, provided you'd reciprocate under similar circumstances. Love for others in these contexts is different from lustful love; this love (simply called love, I believe, because of the imperfections of the way language evolved) is the social cement that allows us to live in societies.

Originally posted by stocken
Love (to me) is a collection of memories associated with emotions; good and bad. In that sense of the word, biology and psychology treats different aspects of love.

What interests me is not the fact that you'd ask this question, but that you seem to think love is something that can only come from your God. Accept his existence, and you will experience lov ...[text shortened]... t most people experience in one way or the other. Christianity, then, is not needed.

how does this have no recs up until now?? great post!

Originally posted by dj2becker
Can you prove this using the scientific method?

you wouldn't accept it even if he did.

Originally posted by DragonFriend
I'm afraid you don't know much about the basis of Christianity, my friend.
When asked, what did Jesus say was the greatest commandment?
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. ... And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. "

My point in bringing this topic up i ...[text shortened]... ne of us, skeptics included, that would say that love doesn't exist. How is that?

DF

we can measure concentrations of seritonin in the brain. How much more measured would you like???

Seriously though, the brain, and therefore the concept of love, is horrendously complex to measure. It is possible to do CT scans of peoples brains while they are undergoing different emotions, such as being shown a picture of a lover, and 'see' the love, so to speak.

Give it time, eventually we'll even learn to measure love.

Originally posted by DragonFriend
I've never said love can only come from God. Atheists can love just as strongly as theists, I have no doubt about that. Love is a human emotion and is not predicated on one's relationship with God at all.

A Christian's self-worth doesn't come from their own view of themselves, but from their best estimate of how God views them. So if I go off and ki sion of love? How is one to decide? Whose voice is authoritative on the subject?

DF

You say the only opinion that matters is that of god. Now whilst in the extreme long view, if you're right, that may be correct, but in the shorter term (i.e. when you are still alive) your sense of self worth comes from your own evalution of how you think you should be viewed by god. This seems self-contradictary to what you just said.

Seems your own opinion is the only thing that gets you through your day, just like the rest of us. The only major defining difference is that we atheists appreciate that we are our own judge, and we have to satisfy ourselves that we're behaving in a manner that agrees with the code of conduct we were conditioned with as children.

Originally posted by knightmeister
If a scientist said 'hey ...look..I've proved love exists ! Have a look at my experiment!' My guess would be it's not likely to be a love I'd be that interested in.

I'm afraid it's all too common in theists to be dismissive of science.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Not necessary. It's self evident. I can directly observe love, just like I can directly observe the keyboard in front of me.

And god is self-evident to deej. Sorry ATY, but we have to put better answers together than this.