"Love"

[ChrisS]

Well, in the christian only-section I've been debating whether love exists or not. Thus I thought I might discuss this in the all members section as well.

Note, I'm not talking about love as in love your neighbor, I'm talking about this fairly new concept, in which two individuals must be involved in some sort of romance in order to marry.

My argument is that love is an invention a man, a god of man, and therefore doesn't exist. In hebrew times, parents chose who their children married. To propose that love existed then is to propose that back then, everyone was miserable. Which isn't true.

What's y'll intake on this?

 

[TeddyKGB]

Unless one believes that love is a transcendent force or some such, I am not sure how it can be considered anything more than a system of thoughts and emotions.

 

[ChrisS]

Unless one believes that love is a transcendent force or some such, I am not sure how it can be considered anything more than a system of thoughts and emotions.

I've actually talked with some christians who believe that it's an invisible force ... lol. They never get past the question "What is love?".

It's not something that should have any impact over marriage.

 

[Freodin]

Well, in the christian only-section I've been debating whether love exists or not. Thus I thought I might discuss this in the all members section as well.

Note, I'm not talking about love as in love your neighbor, I'm talking about this fairly new concept, in which two individuals must be involved in some sort of romance in order to marry.

My argument is that love is an invention a man, a god of man, and therefore doesn't exist. In hebrew times, parents chose who their children married. To propose that love existed then is to propose that back then, everyone was miserable. Which isn't true.

What's y'll intake on this?

Every abstract concept in an invention of man: the romantic love as well as the "love your neighbor" love, or truth or beauty or height.

But if such a concept exists, the question has to be why it was "invented". (Note: this "invention" is usually non-intentional. I will continue to use this term and drop the quote-marks from now on. You know what is meant!)

Romance, infatuation and affection exists. They are philosophical expressions of a biological situation - a complex interaction of physical and chemical stimuli that assures our species will go on.
But beyond the biological need to reproduce, there are other - social - needs that have to be fulfilled. The invention of "marriage" was a means to fulfill some of these needs: how to make sure that your children grow up in a stable enviroment; how to ensure generational support to the clan; how to establish a lasting method of relationship between clans. (And certainly a lot more.)
Now that this concept has been invented, ways would have to be found to make it work. And as with all complex systems that humans have invented or discovered, there is a basic rule that most people just cannot accept: simple solutions do not work! That is: do not work always and forever.

So it is with marriages as well. Arranging marriages for your children can work, or not. Marriages based on "romantic love" can work, or not.
The methods change, the goals stay the same. But why do the methods change? Simply because they are not guaranteed to work.

Our modern society places a lot of emphasize on individuality. The "striving for happiness" is though to be important enough to insert it into political documents. Can this personal search for happiness be reconciled with a arranged, lifelong - forced! - relationship with another human?
Most people in western societies today say: no. So it is not done.

 

[Freodin]

I've actually talked with some christians who believe that it's an invisible force ... lol. They never get past the question "What is love?".

It's not something that should have any impact over marriage.

Why not?

Consider what should have an impact on marriage... everything that ensures that the marriage is successful.

Problem: you cannot see the future. You can make plans, and provide, but you cannot see if it really worked out. You are left with extrapolations.

So, "love" is as good a way to start a marriage on than anything else.

 

[ChrisS]

Every abstract concept in an invention of man: the romantic love as well as the "love your neighbor" love, or truth or beauty or height.

But if such a concept exists, the question has to be why it was "invented". (Note: this "invention" is usually non-intentional. I will continue to use this term and drop the quote-marks from now on. You know what is meant!)

Romance, infatuation and affection exists. They are philosophical expressions of a biological situation - a complex interaction of physical and chemical stimuli that assures our species will go on.
But beyond the biological need to reproduce, there are other - social - needs that have to be fulfilled. The invention of "marriage" was a means to fulfill some of these needs: how to make sure that your children grow up in a stable enviroment; how to ensure generational support to the clan; how to establish a lasting method of relationship between clans. (And certainly a lot more.)
Now that this concept has been invented, ways would have to be found to make it work. And as with all complex systems that humans have invented or discovered, there is a basic rule that most people just cannot accept: simple solutions do not work! That is: do not work always and forever.

So it is with marriages as well. Arranging marriages for your children can work, or not. Marriages based on "romantic love" can work, or not.
The methods change, the goals stay the same. But why do the methods change? Simply because they are not guaranteed to work.

Our modern society places a lot of emphasize on individuality. The "striving for happiness" is though to be important enough to insert it into political documents. Can this personal search for happiness be reconciled with a arranged, lifelong - forced! - relationship with another human?
Most people in western societies today say: no. So it is not done.

This is a good point, however, as a christian, I find that this love cannot ( should not) be needed in the christian house-hold, it being a creation of man and all.

Marriage without love or choice, yet still staying together, that's a real marriage. It's truly a shame marriages can't be tested like that anymore.

I really don't care for hapiness though. It's never been something I've had, or strived for.

 

[ChrisS]

Why not?

Consider what should have an impact on marriage... everything that ensures that the marriage is successful.

Problem: you cannot see the future. You can make plans, and provide, but you cannot see if it really worked out. You are left with extrapolations.

So, "love" is as good a way to start a marriage on than anything else.

For you, yes it is. But as a christian it's a horrible way. As a christian, each indiviual should be focused on God, not eachother. Therefore love should not have an impact on a christian household.

What is love anyway, is it not the same as a crush, only a little stimulated?

 

[Freodin]

This is a good point, however, as a christian, I find that this love cannot ( should not) be needed in the christian house-hold, it being a creation of man and all.

Marriage without love or choice, yet still staying together, that's a real marriage. It's truly a shame marriages can't be tested like that anymore.

But the concept of marriage itself is a "creation of man"! Even if you insist that it was introduced by God, the execution is left to humans.

Look at all the exceptions to the insolutability of marriage! Look at all the cases that humans had to introduce to be able to state: "Whoops! THIS marriage was not made by God. Sorry, our mistake!"

I really don't care for hapiness though. It's never been something I've had, or strived for.

That´s your problem. Don´t think that you are the absolute standard for this.

 

[ebia]

As a christian, each indiviual should be focused on God, not each other.

Rubbish. If you are called to marrage, then you are called to love each other. Love isn't butterflies in the stomach. Love is putting the other person ahead of yourself everytime. Love is listening and understanding their feelings. Giving the other what they need. And God is in all that.

Do you thing Christ doesn't love his bride, the church? The analogy works both ways.

Therefore love should not have an impact on a christian household.

What is love anyway, is it not the same as a crush, only a little stimulated?

If that is honestly what you think love is, then I guess your post was exploding a straw man.

 

[ChristianCenturion]

Well, in the christian only-section I've been debating whether love exists or not. Thus I thought I might discuss this in the all members section as well.

Note, I'm not talking about love as in love your neighbor, I'm talking about this fairly new concept, in which two individuals must be involved in some sort of romance in order to marry.

My argument is that love is an invention a man, a god of man, and therefore doesn't exist. In hebrew times, parents chose who their children married. To propose that love existed then is to propose that back then, everyone was miserable. Which isn't true.

What's y'll intake on this?

If your circular logic leads you to the conclusion that something that has a descriptor of love (in this case, I believe you are addressing Eros love) doesn't exist, then you can't really expect to discuss it in philosophical or moral terms, can you? One may as well be discussing flying pink elephants on the same grounds and with the same results. BTW - no, it isn't a "fairly new concept".

 

[The Seeker]

What is love anyway, is it not the same as a crush, only a little stimulated?

from St. Pauls Letter to the church of Corinth (1 Cor 13:1-13, NIV)
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

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

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Well, I've got to agree with him about something

 

[ChrisS]

Guys, I'm not talking about self-sacrificing love, what do ya'll think I am, a hypocrit? lol

I'm discussing spontaneous love, "falling in love". This is what I'm attacking.

 

[Ledifni]

Marriage without love or choice, yet still staying together, that's a real marriage. It's truly a shame marriages can't be tested like that anymore.

Why? What benefit is there in testing yourself that way? If I can be happy marrying somebody I love, I don't see why I should try to be happy marrying somebody I don't love.

 

[ChrisS]

Why? What benefit is there in testing yourself that way? If I can be happy marrying somebody I love, I don't see why I should try to be happy marrying somebody I don't love.

Love is a choice, not a trap door. Real love is a choice. You will only find yourself hurt, along with your spouse, if you believe you have fallen in love.

" I have fallen and cannot get up." lol

 

[Ledifni]

Love is a choice, not a trap door. Real love is a choice. You will only find yourself hurt, along with your spouse, if you believe you have fallen in love.

" I have fallen and cannot get up." lol

I don't think I get what you mean by "falling in love." It almost seems to me that you have divided love into "real love" and "falling in love," where "falling in love" is a meaningless and shallow impulse of infatuation. When you insist on defining love in that way, then of course it's pointless.

But why would you want to define love that way? We have a perfectly good word for that kind of feeling -- we call it a "crush." I think your thread should be entitled, "Crushes."

 

[Harlan Norris]

I gather that your talking about romantic love. I can say from personal experience that it does exist. However it doesn't have the strength to carry one through a lifelong marriage. So i'd have to say that a lasting love would be Godly in nature. If there is also romance, well so much the better!

 

[FSTDT]

My argument is that love is an invention a man, a god of man, and therefore doesn't exist. In hebrew times, parents chose who their children married. To propose that love existed then is to propose that back then, everyone was miserable. Which isn't true.

What's y'll intake on this?

The thing about love is that people treat it like its a physical object, an actual property of other objects, a force the moves around in the world, or otherwise a concrete "something" that exists in the world. Thinking of love like this is very poetic, but its a reification of something that isnt concrete in itself.

If you want to be absolutely technical about it, love is what we call a certain process in the brain. Love has a real meaning and a real purpose, but at the most basic level love (like all experiences) is nothing more than something the brain does.

Its really a quirk of language that we can say things like "love exists", when in reality is just a process. Think of this analogously to the way we can also say "a choice exists" - we dont mean there is an object called "choice" floating around, what we really mean is that the process of a making a choice can occur; likewise, "love exists" really means "the process of love occurs or takes place".

(Describing love this way is accurate, but its a foreign idea to many people, so it might seem that this description of love makes it seem hollow or empty. I dont believe its hollow or empty at all, and I dont recommend anyone taking this post to mean that love is any less special - because it is )

 

[ChrisS]

I don't think I get what you mean by "falling in love." It almost seems to me that you have divided love into "real love" and "falling in love," where "falling in love" is a meaningless and shallow impulse of infatuation. When you insist on defining love in that way, then of course it's pointless.

But why would you want to define love that way? We have a perfectly good word for that kind of feeling -- we call it a "crush." I think your thread should be entitled, "Crushes."

Yes, that's what I believe the love I descibed is, a crush. But many disagree with me. Self-sacrificing, commitment. That's love, though we should be that way towards everybody. That kind of love is needed in a marriage. However, love in the terms of a crush, is not needed.

Really I came here to see what you all think, and get some counter arguments to the belief that crushes are love.

 

[Ledifni]

Yes, that's what I believe the love I descibed is, a crush. But many disagree with me. Self-sacrificing, commitment. That's love, though we should be that way towards everybody. That kind of love is needed in a marriage. However, love in the terms of a crush, is not needed.

Really I came here to see what you all think, and get some counter arguments to the belief that crushes are love.

But you argue that because crushes are fairly meaningless, people should have arranged marriages. I don't see how it follows. If you admit that there is such a thing as meaningful love, then why shouldn't you marry somebody for whom you have that feeling?

 

[ChrisS]

But you argue that because crushes are fairly meaningless, people should have arranged marriages. I don't see how it follows. If you admit that there is such a thing as meaningful love, then why shouldn't you marry somebody for whom you have that feeling?

Oh, no, you misunderstood my point.

I argued that, crushes ( "falling in love")aren't needed in marriage because that would mean every arranged marriage ever failed, except for maybe a few lucky ones. Not that we should have them.