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What is love? Should the morals/values of life be revolved around spreading and teaching the ideas surrounding love?
Love is a multidimensional concept in which many subjects involving philosophy, morality, psychology, history, faith and opinions/perspectives can be used during the discussion.
Should values be taught by using love as the concept/term in which the discussion surrounds?
The discussion of love is a great lesson to be held, it does not have to be limited to just facts or strong beliefs. It can transcend into both (in various degrees) and still create valid considerations, debates, arguments, understandings, beliefs and/or facts.
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels. Love may also be described as actions towards others (or oneself) based on compassion. Or as actions towards others based on affection. - Wikipedia
No idea of love is a bad one here.
Religious books are literature bottom line. The "golden rule" is widely accepted as the foundation of most religions, but as history dictates that is not the case always.
Poems, short stories, links, etc are great!
Ray Bannatyne
You are so right. Love is a loaded word.
Along time ago my best friend,age 16, took his own life. His reason turned out to be anomie, anger,and despair triggered by the death of a girl by parental abuse and neglect.
We had read 'Autobiography of a Yogi', batted ideas around, including reincarnation.
He never revealed his despair to me.
Young teen boys don't toss the word 'love' around.
He had rescued me from a plunge through bad lake ice just a year before. He knew I had my own troubles. I think he might have been protecting me.
Upon seeing 'The Scream' for the first time
I realized the depth of my friend's horror at the human condition.
One pang of regret was that he died and no one knew
that he was a hero.
There would have been severe repercussions
How could we tell anyone that Raven was to blame?
Yea, love is a very complicated thing.
All that happened forty years ago
and I love Norman to this day.
Actually Samantha it occurs to me that my love is manifested in
in me as I identify as a "Catcher in the rye"
The best part of Holden still survives in my
support of youth liberation, ie 16 year old vote, speaking to youth about suicide and self-medications.
Child protection.
I told my own children that they were loved almost daily
and every time we parted for any length of time.
It never felt awkward, they are 20 and 16 and when we meet we embrace.
My love for my ex wife seems moot under the circumstance,
but I have no intention of 'forgetting' to 'love' her.
When our marriage broke I understood that I was
responsible to do no further harm.
In my callow seasons I misused the word.
I cannot philosophize, I can only tell the truth as I saw it.
Jack Kerouac was known as 'Memory Babe'. C'est moi aussi.
Once again, apologies for this reply to Samantha in the Post section.
Love, Ray
Autumn Frisco 10+
"Respect is not fear and awe; it...[is]the ability to see a person as he is, to be aware of his unique individuality. Respect, thus, implies the absence of exploitation. I want the loved person to grow and unfold for his own sake, and in his own ways, and not for the purpose of serving me"
Ray Bannatyne
I was forever uncertain that I was loved.
Through a self-examined life and full-on learning agape becomes my setting for serenity.
My blessing has been unconditional love for both of my children.
My love for nature(cosmos)is unconditional.
I wanted to do a reply along with Collen and Kathy
if I had not been a parent nor had I raised kittens or puppies
I might have been a curmudgeon and perhaps grasping.
I understand the 'why' of some things
not putting stumbling-blocks in front of others
or why a gentle answer turns away much wrath
these are only two examples.
Great conversation!
My reply function is buggy, some quite detailed replies
have been vaporised upon submitting.
Thus, I post, when I also reply.
I am 56. Self-realized through thorough ego ablation.
Shine on!
Ray Bannatyne
Caleb Vietinghoff
Samantha LeBlanc
Love is having a mostly positive bond with someone. When you love someone, you respect them and care for them, enjoy spending time with them, trust them, etc.. It could be a best friend, a family member, a pet, a lover/spouse, and so on. Yea, love would be a great message to spread, but it's a word with a pretty broad definition. It would be better to be more specific, like spread the importance of care, understanding, openness, and respect.
Reinna Oov
This is how love feels like for me.
i wanna let the world know what is love actually i feel this before.
i feel this for someone and someone feel this way for me before i have complicated story.
but my love is simple.
To me ,
When you love someone.
He can change you
he teach you what is true love
if you love someone , you wouldn't care if he likes you or hate you
you wouldn't care if he's in different religion or different race
you would love the way he is
whether it is bad or good
you will care for his feelings
you will try to protect him
you will be honest with him
it's not about being obssesed with him or not
it's about wanting to provide him a good background in the future
it's about wanting to give th best to him.
love is humble.
and you'll want to make him happy even just for awhile
love is sacrificing.
Loving someone you love is like he's one part of your self and losing him is like losing another part of your self.
Thank you for reading =D
Raphaël Musio
it is then modulated according to the culture
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
Raphaël Musio
the love is a form of bond and makes it possible to reveal behaviors of assistance, of altruism but also of protection, research of the partner and for certain cases (couple) the sex act supports. Darwinism: the love thus evolved/moved to make us survive according to the conditions present.
it is then modulated by the culture which allows, or not, certain demonstrations, creates interdicts, a tolerance or an encouragement.
It is liked because there are a phylogeny and an ontogenesis (a crucial factor in the variety of our behaviors).
inthegarden beyondthecave
Love is like that. It is an aspiration. For the best members of our community, it is the aspiration that structures their lives.
Here are some poems about love.
1)
Let’s do love’s work
And sing hope’s song.
Let me be joined with thee
In spirit’s truest family:
The Unbounded We.
2) The Hammer
By the Golden Rule,
Love’s
Empathy
Breaks the idols of our age,
With hammers in our hearts,
Love pounding out the beat
Behind the rhythm starts
To crack
Our fault:
Our fault
That lets
Us fall,
And fall,
And fall,
And fall.
3) The Holy Grail
Let us sing the call
To build it here:
The Holy Grail
In spirit near.
Become the love,
That brick by brick
Becomes the Holy Home,
The Temple of the Light of Truth,
The Temple of the Truest Love,
The Love
That fits
The Golden Rule.
The Narrow Path that travels to
And through the sunlit gardens beyond our cave.
4) Love
Real love. True love.
The love that fits
The Golden Rule,
The discipline
Designed
By love
To make
Love real and true.
5) The Dream
A dream
The song would flow
more perfect in these veins.
And move us fast to do the work
For children here and far away,
For generations not yet born,
For millions,
Billions,
Trillions.
Forevermore.
A dream
To be the morning sun,
To find a way across the hues,
Providing food for forest growth,
Not refusing, but still diffusing down
To leaves that grow in darkness deep.
A dream of leaves still singing songs,
Dancing, and seeking strength
To stop
The bugs:
The bugs
That feast
Upon our roots.
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
inthegarden beyondthecave
By the way. I enjoy your choice of topics.
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
Should the morals/values of life be revolved around spreading and teaching the ideas surrounding love?
Thanks for the appreciation. I jumped from "What is love?" To "Why we love" because of this conversation. It then led me to cognitive science. Which I am fascinated with no end in site about. I will be starting conversations about the topic as soon as I get good questions formulated.. AS of now they would be to broad "Why do we do what we do?" lol
inthegarden beyondthecave
Should the morals/values of life be revolved around spreading and teaching the ideas surrounding love?
Yes.
Good action is action that serves "spirit" (defined as conscious beings with cares and concerns). The best attitude one can have is the attitude that disposses one toward serving spirit. Love that takes spirit as inherently unconditionally valuable is that attitude that disposes one toward serving spirit. Serving spirit entails serving the cares and concenrs of spirits. Since different spirits often have varying and conflicting cares and concerns, right choice entails choosing the best method of serving the totality of cares and concerns.
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
Tim blackburn 30+
Lucas Avelleda 500+
As you said here, love is undervalued, I agree with you. And because of that, it has somehow lost its meaning. I suggest you to read a book called Blindness, written by a portuguese writer called Jose Saramago. You can watch the movie too, but the novel is much much better.
Take a look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindness_(novel)
Here's some quotes from the book, I think they are related to your topic:
"I think we're blind. Blind people who can see, but do not see"
"Perhaps only in a world of the blind will things be what they truly are"
"Inside of us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are"
"We made our eyes into a kind of mirror turned inwards, with the result that they often show without reserve what we are verbally trying to deny"
So...
Are we "blind"? Yes. Our eyes "distract" us, and we can't feel the spirit, the soul. This way, how can we truly love something? How can we stop being "blind"? (I think that's another conversation, haha, I'll think about it and maybe I'll create a topic)
Colleen Steen 500+
(Marcel Proust)
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
I would think people were worried about intra-personal love before interpersonal love, especially when looking at art.
Egyptians were renown for using intoxication as the feeling in parallel to personal love.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/2000egypt-love.html
As money became more of a value due to economic systems, expressing love began the tradition of materializing love.
Originally a (wo)man would create the expression of love for another, taken over by materialistic thoughts before love.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/arlo/hd_arlo.htm (I posted this for example of jewelery art in which love was depicted and/or use to demonstrate love through gifts.)
Today love is undervalued for some reason, divorce rates are at an all time high. Why? What does this mean? Do we now have too much freedom to explore? Or are we allowing our emotions to run ahead of ourselves? What is causing love to idolized more than personalized? Who said monogamy is the only way to love? Where did love die?
I feel people are thinking with "what sounds" good far more than thinking "what is good", when involving love.
Comment deleted
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
Surrealism (best example) questions reality!
American history holds the "beatniks" as a valued source of how french surrealism began in America. The people from the "beat generation" inspired the Beatles and Pink Floyd (off the top of my head) and who ever was inspired by them and who they inspired so on and so forth. This is the philosophy/history of art.
Art questions just as much as it dictates.
Anything involving art is of value..
Sky F
For the record it won't let me thumb you up anymore! :D
Sky F
"Today love is undervalued for some reason, divorce rates are at an all time high. Why?"
A couple things. Feminism and the fact that women no longer play a submissive role in a marriage, the rise of individuality, and plain and simple stupidity. Also, from another angle, it goes to show that love does not have to be forever for it to be real, and perhaps more and more people are realizing that. In which case, hell yeah.
"What does this mean?"
It means that people get divorced more often than ever.
"Do we now have too much freedom to explore?"
No. As I said, why does love have to last forever? This is a lesson I believe is taught way too often. Too many people think love is only real if it last's forever. I'm more in love than I ever thought I'd ever be right now, yet we're both healthily aware that it probably isn't going to last forever. This allows us to enjoy the present that much more and really place a stronger value on our love.
"Or are we allowing our emotions to run ahead of ourselves?"
I can agree with the idea of this one. I think too many people jump the gun on marriage. I think marriage should, strangely, be decided with your brain and not your heart. Your hearts a liar that falls in love too quickly and ends up creating bad marriages when time takes its toll. The brain is the reasonable one that can decide whether or not, marriage is a good idea for the heart.
"What is causing love to idolized more than personalized?"
What makes you think it's being idolized?
I don't necessarily agree, but to answer your question pretending I do agree: Fairy tales.
"Who said monogamy is the only way to love?"
No one. Society. What ever.
"Where did love die?"
It didn't die. It's just not what people think it is so it seems to mess up more than it should.
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
"What is causing love to idolized more than personalized?"
Pop-Culture = television, movies, celebrities, media, or where ever people seek entertainment love tends to be a popular topic to surround a story/theme around. The way in which society presents love. So yeah fairy tales lol.
"It didn't die. It's just not what people think it is so it seems to mess up more than it should."
Agree, but why do you think it resulted that way?
Sky F
Read De Profundis. That's where I quoted from. Oscar Wilde goes over board in his glorification of sorrow, but it's a very thick heavy nice read.
Anyway, I have finals to study for. Sum sum summertime.
Budimir Zdravkovic 20+
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_logic
Ethical behaviour can be treated like a complex system, with multiple "values" that takes into account consequence, intention, consent, etc. Rigid definitions of "good" are just too static and impractical in the real world.
Just to add I think fuzzy logic also applies to behaviours like love, Our definition of love is also fairly complex and unclear.
Sky F
Great post. I'm going to save this. It is not limited to this discussion. Hell yeah.
Budimir Zdravkovic 20+
I don't know how I would begin to categorize it, love has some visible characteristics which we immediately recognize. If someone asked you to describe love what kind of words would you employ. You could say true love is responsiblity, care and compassion as Erich Fromm did, You could say love is a masochistic desire to be controlled as Jean Paul Sartre did or you could just call it evil like Slavoj Zizek. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg7qdowoemo
There are so many interpretations, because it's really a word that represents something abstract. Something that can represent both the greatest joy in our lives and the worst suffering,
Budimir Zdravkovic 20+
Budimir Zdravkovic 20+
Question? You mean question our integrity or something like that?
Budimir Zdravkovic 20+
Sartre says that masochstic love is the result of an individual who becomes complacent in the gaze of the other. The other makes you feel good about who you want to be and you are mislead to believe that this person is wonderful and great but you don't necessarily love this person for who they are but for how they make you feel.
The existential idea makes love a pretty miserable condition. And maybe it is but I think people willingly give their freedom away to love others, it just what drives and this drive is irrational. And if we as individuals are lucky to have healthy "models" of love we end up being with people who genuinely care about us.
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
"Love is an inherent right of all creatures, with intrinsic value.
-----
One can only truly love one's self; but when someone realizes we're all a part of the same picture compassion can reign."
I am going to read through fuzzy logic later, sounds good.
Budimir Zdravkovic 20+
I partially agree with his second quote, loving someone else starts we loving the self and projecting the self onto another individual. But I don't think every human has the capacity for compassionate behaviour especially highly narcisstic people.
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
Doesn't narcissism form from accepted values and not pre-constructed values? Do you not have to learn first what it takes and involves to become selfish? (Actuality prior to potentiality)
I would think that selfishness and/or greed is a learned trait through cognitive educations throughout life, not something people are naturally without influences from environment.
Budimir Zdravkovic 20+
Budimir Zdravkovic 20+
Value to me is a conscious reflection. A choice of what we desire in our lives. I am not arguing whether humans have free will, but lets assume they have something similar to what we experience and call free will.
We can choose our values with conscious reflection. Our value doesn't have to involve love although our instinct may drive us otherwise.
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
Sky F
This is why I disagreed with your claim, Nicholas, that "We all want love." in the last version of this thread. We may all tend to, but there exists diversity, and therefore the inability to create completely universal truths.
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
The claim "We all want love" is starting point not a finish point in thought.
Of course there are exceptions, there are allows exceptions to everything universal, always.
Even that "everyone requires 2000 calories a day" is not a reality, many people live on under the deemed/studied amount of calories humans are considered to need to survive, yet they survive just not to the fullest and their lives become surrounded by the need of survival.
To disprove that claim is no huge task, if I was defending it hard it was because I still know all do want love, just a few may rather kill their loved ones to stay alive and eating. Of course there are few universal truths, but I still believe love is the most universal truth (if that makes sense).
Sky F
Incorrect by definition. Yawn. What's the point of language if you bend it to your will? Conventions are important.
Universal
"of, affecting, or done by all people or things in the world or in a particular group; applicable to all cases"
"everyone requires 2000 calories a day" is not a universal truth. If you change it slightly it could be: "2000 calories a day is a healthy amount of calories for the average person" Voila. It's universal.
Yawn. You get so upset that all I do is trash everything you say instead of talk about whats being talked about but its because every single thing you post is chock full of just things that are... wrong.
(Formally wrong.)
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
I shouldn't have rush the comment, you are right about me being wrong, but only in "love" have I been proved to be wrong often, because I am lost in thought with this idea. I am in between survival tactic and actual universal value. It's tough for me.
Also "interesting" and my thumbs up for Budmir meant he was pretty much right, what was fascinating was his simplicity not the information.
Sky F
Maybe for you :P :P :P
Budimir Zdravkovic 20+
They were surprised saying stuff like wow, you are making this sound like it's made for everyone. I was like of course, that shouldn't be a surprise.
This is where I stand with truth as well. I think it's relative, comprehending something like universal truth means we have to jump beyond our perception. But that doesn't mean we cannot enjoy a fulfilling relative life and do all the things we wanna do like love, create and enjoy yourself. An ongoing search for truth is what makes life exciting.
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
Point?
Budimir Zdravkovic 20+
Sky F
Love is at the core of our beings, so much that when we inevitably lose loved ones we never are able to fully recover.
Love is an evolutionary toy designed to trick us into reproducing. It is designed for us to strive for it, and as such, it is a distraction so that our wise brains don't question our existence to the point of nihilism, and likely suicide. Without love, life has no great reward.
Love is at times a perpetual curse of yearning. Love, for many, is a source of sorrow.
Love is what causes us to favor our in-group more than an out-group, creating things like ethnocentrism.
Comment deleted
Sky F
Ultimately, it is the pathway to true happiness and true love.
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
Sky F
"Prosperity, pleasure and success, may be rough of grain and common in fibre, but sorrow is the most sensitive of all created things. There is nothing that stirs in the whole world of thought to which sorrow does not vibrate in terrible and exquisite pulsation. The thin beaten-out leaf of tremulous gold that chronicles the direction of forces the eye cannot see is in comparison coarse. It is a wound that bleeds when any hand but that of love touches it, and even then must bleed again, though not in pain.
Where there is sorrow there is holy ground. Some day people will realise what that means. They will know nothing of life till they do, - and natures like his can realise it."
Sorrow requires much more critical thinking to embrace than love does by simple fact that most people attempt to avoid sorrow and are readily accepting of letting love in their heart. That's why it is so important for sorrow to be taught and love to come naturally.
Sky F
Every thing else you say probably makes sense only in your head but isn't doing anything outside of it. "Allowing love to come naturally makes love so questionable, so much time wasted on abstract ideas instead of ideas that already exist into the lesson of morals." What?
Yawn. You're not even listening to my idea still. You just smother it with your own thinking. This thread isn't how others' ideas fit in with your ideas is it? Sure seems that way. You're not being open at the moment...
Scott Fischer
Chris Aldon 20+
Austin R 20+
- A chemical reaction that is characterized by a bond between two living creatures.
- An abstract term that describes a bond between two or more subsisting entities.
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
And, can this bond exceed just two living creatures? Example question: Do you feel a relationship involving 3 or more people would be possible?
Good answer.
Colleen Steen 500+
Is love the chemical reaction? Or Is the chemical reaction caused by love? Can there be a chemical reaction that draws us to one another without love?
What about love of life...love of nature? How does that fit in with your definitions?
Can love only be expressed with people? Is it only a bond between "subsisting entities"?
Or can love move farther out than that?
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
Chris Aldon 20+
Austin R 20+
Absolute love is completely unconditional love. Yes
"... 3 or more would be possible?"
I don't see why not.
@Christopher
No.
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
Side-note: ... lol on the inside I was hoping you would say no to "three or more in a relationship", would of been fun to suggest swinger couples. lol
Austin R 20+
I sensed you were hoping for a certain answer on that question :)
Continue how? Are you unclear, or are you just asking me to elaborate?
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
Austin R 20+
Sky F
I think even parents have conditional love.
Like "I will love you under the condition you don't murder every person I love, spit in my face every time you see me, set fire to my house, trick me into forgiving you for all that only to do it to me all over again."
I guess unconditional love may exist, but only in fools. Luckily people who are able to claim unconditional love do so so carefully that they don't have to worry about conditions to remove the love from ever coming to existence. Thus the amended version of 'unconditional love' could have the extension 'within the abilities of their character.'
Like saying "I can love you unconditionally as long as you are who you are." Thus, when conditions like described above, it would remain true because odds are they wouldn't be acting within their character that the unconditional love was applied to.
But that amended version is inherently conditional upon never changing. So. Eh.
Anyway. Pointless thought process alert.
Colleen Steen 500+
I'm wondering why you keep saying this conversation is wrong, pointless, and things like that, and you also keep coming back to it. You're making a choice to participate in a discussion you think is pointless? Or, you think it has a point, and you want to disagree?
I believe unconditional love exists, and I don't see those who practice it as fools. You're right that all parents do not practice unconditional love, and some do. I claim to be unconditionally loving. That means I respect, appreciate, encourage and support you as a fellow evolving human being. I don't like the way you communicate sometimes, but that doesn't stop me from loving you. I understand that you are an individual, and will behave as you choose. I am not attached to the way you communicate and will not withdraw my love because I don't like one of your characteristics. You see? With conditional loving, I would say "Sky, if you don't change the way you communicate, I will no longer like you, love you, respect you, encourage you or be your friend in this life journey because you are not doing what I want you to do". That's conditional.
Eimhin shortt
Unconditional love does not really apply to parents, at least not all parents, but then thats obvious. The point I would like to make is that parental love can often be an unprecedented attatchment to the child as extension of 'self'. But perhaps thats just the possessive form, I can only speak from experience.
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
Chris Aldon 20+
-----
One can only truly love one's self; but when someone realizes we're all a part of the same picture compassion can reign.
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
And, does that mean you do not believe in altruism?
Chris Aldon 20+
You can only be selfless when you realize the lack of selfness.
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
Consider even the altruist, to do good for others would come with the rewards of feeling good for helping others. No one would do anything if there was no reward to an degree attached to it, agree or disagree?
What are more examples of "rights"?
Chris Aldon 20+
Consider secret good deeds of Zen monks.
I've got plenty of examples for "rights" but I think the writers of the "Declaration of Independence" put it best.
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
Zen monks do nothing and in return cause nothing. They are neither a problem nor a benefit. They meditate on understanding nothingness/oneness as the ultimate answer.
Even if the Zen monks were truly selfless, does that not require immense enlightenment to achieve?
But, I agree selflessness only exist in levels or degrees not in totality.
Chris Aldon 20+
I am not suggesting an instinct to love, just that love is an inherent right (To take it away is morally indefensible).
By helping the homeless you help yourself, there is no doubt in my mind to that. But the motives are what defines selfless acts, If I help the homeless in order to feel better about myself it is not a selfless act. If I help the homeless because I realize through compassion the world can be a better place not just for me but for everyone... I would say it is a selfless act.
Austin R 20+
Who can take away love? ...
Amily shaw 10+
who benefits from helping others? its ourselves!!!
Chris Aldon 20+
You could also make an environment where love is difficult to grow or be found, again as an inherent right this is indefensible.
Austin R 20+
Chris Aldon 20+
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
You have indeed nailed personal love and communal love to the philosophical understanding, but you said "...but when someone realizes we're all a part of the same picture compassion can reign."
Is compassion limited? How far does the community reach in which love exist?
(Communal a bad word to use?)
Colleen Steen 500+
What could limit it? A choice we make? Then it becomes conditional, so we are actually limiting ourselves. That's pretty silly!:>)
Chris Aldon 20+
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7e5r3X0IOI