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Love as a Fallacy

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posted on Jan, 30 2016 @ 10:09 PM
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1 Corinthians 13:4-8New International Version (NIV)

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.


This is what I found when researching 'love'. It's an accurate description of how I feel about my offspring.

But really, what is love? Lust? Sacrifice? Commitment?

Or does it even exist beyond the natural parental inclinations we feel towards our children? To protect and sacrifice and give.

Or for that matter, the inclinations of our groins when with the opposite sex? To procreate, and have pleasure.

Really, beyond ourselves and our selfishness; does love exist? Can people just love someone when they have nothing to give back?
edit on 30-1-2016 by ghostrager because: (no reason given)



posted on Jan, 30 2016 @ 10:23 PM
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a reply to: ghostrager



Or for that matter, the inclinations of our groins when with the opposite sex? To procreate, and have pleasure.

THAT is a gift of love.


Really, beyond ourselves and our selfishness; does love exist? Can people just love someone when they have nothing to give back?


Of course!

it is not self-seeking


Peace!



posted on Jan, 30 2016 @ 10:33 PM
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a reply to: ghostrager

Yes love exist.. This thread just goes to show
Well done sir ..



posted on Jan, 30 2016 @ 11:02 PM
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a reply to: ghostrager

When you love something like a song... you are not asking the song to be something else or do any favors for you, you are merely experiencing the song and the feeling that it inspires/gives you may please you. But still, you're not demanding that the song be anything other than what it is.

Or when you love a thunderstorm, you are not asking the thunderstorm to be something else... the very idea is preposterous. It is a force of nature that you can only appreciate and accept and observe in all it's glory. Similar to the song that's already written and recorded and made and fully accepted in the state that it is in.

And you can love a person just like a song or a thunderstorm, by observing them as a force of nature that you can't exactly control, and like a song or a force of nature... you're not needing or asking that person to be anything else other than what they are.

But still, all these things invoke emotional responses. There's some kind of emotional response happening no matter what and if the emotional response is pleasant, or just stimulating and exciting, you're more likely to "love." So if the experience of the song, thunderstorm, or person is pleasant to you... then sure you'll love em without needing much else from them.

But would the emotional response constitute as someone or something giving something back to you? If so, then I think, yes, it has to do with the self (having to do with self = selfish) and furthermore, it's inescapable. Is it wrong? Nah, just like eating isn't wrong (eating has a lot to do with self). Does it mean it's not love just because it has to do with the self? Nah, cause when you love your body you'll take care of it/feed it/etc. And those things are very "selfish" and yet very positive. When you love anything you'll do what you can to preserve it and take care of it. Love shows in your work, too. When you love anything, it just f-cking shows. Can't hide it. Yeah, I'd say it has everything to do with the self.



posted on Jan, 30 2016 @ 11:14 PM
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a reply to: ghostrager

I just wanted to reply with a song, which actually uses that text, or most of it at the very end of the song. Lyrics are in the description for your viewing just go to Youtube. Rather nice song, though I prefer their older work, more poetic then, but let me know of your thoughts on the rest of the lyrics.
EDIT: That part, from the OP happens to be very softly said.

edit on 30-1-2016 by Tiamat384 because: (no reason given)



posted on Jan, 31 2016 @ 12:50 AM
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There are two different questions implicit here imo. 1) "Is there any compelling reason to believe love is more than biology/behavior/neurology? And 2) "Irrespective of the nature of what we call 'love,' can that feeling or acts inspired by it ever be more than pure reciprocity toward those who improve, enrich, or render more bearable our own lives?"

Going purely with the biological and behavioral evidence, if you're speaking of love in the sense of the "feeling," I would say the answer to #1 is... no. In the cold, harsh light of what empirical knowledge we have, I would describe love as a subjectively experienced emotional state resulting from evolved, neurologically and hormonally mediated bonding behaviors, neurotransmitters, and psychosocial dynamics. Barring other evidence we have yet to discover, any magical meaning or significance we ascribe to that feeling is contrived and a subjective delusion.

That's not how I choose to view it personally, but that's probably a delusion as well lol. (That's okay though - it's a hallmark of human behavior to cope with reality through self-delusion or, as some might prefer, exercising our evolved capacity for imagination.)

#2 is imo trickier to address, and is contingent on your definition of selflessness. If you're capable of sufficient empathy as to be able to give a total stranger something - sacrificing some small or great measure of your own capacity to ensure your own comfort or survival - purely because you care about that stranger's well being and desire to ameliorate their suffering - then on a philosophical level, I would say, "Yes." On the other hand, if you view empathy of that sort as a modern remnant of an evolved trait which arose to trade immediate benefit for longer term potential benefit in circumstances where that might be prudent, and/or you view the exercise of such morally compelled behavior as serving the individual's sense of "being a good person," then the answer would be, "No, because even if we don't realize it, we're doing it for at least partially (or fully) selfish reasons."

Personally... I suspect a great many of our behaviors are born of delusion or, at the very least, realities we can't prove and thus have no compelling reason to treat as truth. Yet we all do this. It's just part of human nature. I used to torment myself about these issues, because I was hung up on needing to find meaning and proof for such meaning. I couldn't accept that everything I believed in so fervently (love, egalitarianism, humanism, compassion) might be meaningless ultimately. But I also couldn't accept that there was no proof those precepts themselves were little more than delusional meaning attached to simple biologically mediated behaviors. It sincerely drove me mad for years.

At last, I concluded there is simply no escape from the human nature that is the creation of contrived meaning. Even if we take away everything else, short of simply laying down and waiting for death (because really, there's no proof any of this means anything at all anyway, so why do we persist? Survival instinct alone isn't sufficient for beings conscious of their own nature and desiring meaning beyond that from it. At least it wasn't for me,) we are always engaged in belief of some sort or another anyway. Always. Belief is a shortcut to being able to function well enough to survive, if nothing else. There's no way to ever get to a 100% empirically validatable source of meaning in our lives that isn't purely utilitatian. In the harsh light of pure empirical knowledge, the universe and our existence appear nihilistic and intrinsically meaningless.

If we want meaning beyond that, it is our nature that we create it for ourselves. So I have surrendered to my nature, chosen to embrace my potential delusions, and believe in love. Because my desire for sanity and to not be in a perpetual state of agonizing cognitive dissonance demands it of me.

I hope whatever solution others find to this question is a comfortable one.

As always, this is just my two cents.

Peace.



posted on Jan, 31 2016 @ 03:10 AM
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originally posted by: ghostrager


1 Corinthians 13:4-8New International Version (NIV)

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.


This is what I found when researching 'love'. It's an accurate description of how I feel about my offspring.

But really, what is love? Lust? Sacrifice? Commitment?

Or does it even exist beyond the natural parental inclinations we feel towards our children? To protect and sacrifice and give.

Or for that matter, the inclinations of our groins when with the opposite sex? To procreate, and have pleasure.

Really, beyond ourselves and our selfishness; does love exist? Can people just love someone when they have nothing to give back?


No. People can't fully experience loving other people who have nothing to give back because love is a visible outward presentation and generated between 2 or more people in a giving and recieving of love generating. Genuine love is bonding and feeling free in the bond instead of feeling restrained or confined in a bond or fearful of it. Genuine love keeps lasting friendship and families strong.

Love cannot be love if it is not of positive value to the receiver or there is no witness to the expression of it, other than standing as valuable to the giver which is value to themselves, which goes back to self and standing as the self in a 2 person aspect as both a giver and receiver of it, which is the way it unfolds to correct the flaw of love not having been recieved by a seperate person. Recieving another's love with expressing that it was received manifesting positive vibes that can actually be felt is the reciever giving back. Love does not involve sex, although some advanced high tuned adults do include it.

In Cor 13:4 a receiver of love would have to have experienced some of what is said and then been neglected by it in some way to appreciate the statement made about it, then hope to be both a giver and a reciever. But the statement therein, while meaning well and being honorable, utilizes one word, that being love, and defines it using other words where to each, stand at their own merit and are only what they are. Such as, patience. That is what it is but not love because love is love, and any attempt to really describe it , while beautiful, fails.

What is known about love in the Holy Bible is that when 2 or more people gather in Christ, real genuine love can be generated. And that goes back to what I was saying, which is love has to have a willing reciever to fully be experienced. Love is the second most highest positive vibration, right behind holiness which stands as the highest, with a continual energy flow of giving and recieving. Love is a generated energy flow specially created for them by the true spirit of light within the human being that is not meant to be self contained, unshared or not acknowledged positively by recievers.



posted on Jan, 31 2016 @ 03:12 AM
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a reply to: ghostrager


But really, what is love? Lust? Sacrifice? Commitment?


Selflessness...

Knowing you would do anything for said person without asking or expecting in return




posted on Jan, 31 2016 @ 05:31 PM
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a reply to: ghostrager

Love is a difficult subject for me. There are people in my life that I love of course, friends, family, the like. And I have a great deal of love for my fellow human beings besides that, because it is the stuff that makes the world go round. But there is not just one kind of love. The love I have for my friends and family is entirely different to the love I once shared with the women I have dated, and different again to the love that I have for my countrymen and for other human beings all over the world.

The only fallacy, is to try to discuss these things as if they are the same subject, when they are most assuredly entirely removed from one another, despite their obvious similarities.



posted on Jan, 31 2016 @ 05:52 PM
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an accurate description of how I feel about my offspring.


its not a coincidence that every parent just so happens to love their child.
it is hardwired into brain.

as for love between man and women, i think its more lust, infactuation and dependancy.

i think the word love goes alongside evil, as in its just a word from a biblical mindset.
it dosnt mean anything.
people arent evil, and people dont love.



posted on Jan, 31 2016 @ 06:29 PM
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a reply to: Rikku

People do love.

They share themselves and their space, their time, their resources with others, the contents of their hearts and minds, and it is these I call friends. The best one I have ever had, that a person could ever have, took me in when I was on the street, and all that she had to her name was a rented room out the back of a pub, in which there was just space for a single bed, a wardrobe, and me, crammed into the gap between the two. This small space, she shared with me. That is a loving, kind, compassionate and beautiful thing she did. I will spend my whole life in her debt, although she would probably shake her head and swear at me for saying so, exclaiming that we have shared too much as besties to consider debts between us either paid or unpaid. That is love, pure, unfettered by romantic nonsense. She took me on as if I were her kin, when I had nothing to give in return but my presence and friendship.

I could very well weep when I think of the service she did me in those days. So many people fall by the wayside when in the position in which I found myself back then. Since then, we have stood beside one another, held each other up when we were broken, mopped each others brows when we were sick, and been the voice of reason for one another, when one of us was so flustered by the events of life that we lost our reason.

We are friends, and we love one another as if we were of the one blood. There have been, and are others who have affected me in similar ways, those who inspire me to love them because when we are around one another, we are family, despite our differing heritage. These are the ones upon whose shoulders one may weep, and who will be taken up in warm embrace when they are weary and sad, without a moments hesitation. They are people who make life worth the living, without whom this world would be merely grey and depressing, rather than a vibrant, humming thing, full of opportunities for simple joy, gladness and merriment. They are my heartbeats, my family, as necessary to life as the next breath in my lungs. We love one another, would fight, kill, and die for one another. We are manifold hearts entwined, bound by the simplest love imaginable.

I hope that your fortunes alter to provide you with an opportunity to encounter such love as I have. For all my loneliness from lack of romantic involvement these last few years my heart is always full of love, both given, and received, a blessing for which I am ever thankful.



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