Unconditional Love

[Der/die AtheistIn]

I don't think there is such a thing like uncoditional love, there is always a reason why you love someone. Maybe you love someone because he/she is part of the family, maybe you like someone's personality and so on. Unconditional love may be figurative, but I don't think it makes sense even as a metaphor.

[ignoramus]

I think evolution has given a mother a fierce unconditional love for her babies.
Many mothers in nature will fight to the death to protect them.

[Brian37]

I don't think there is such a thing like uncoditional love, there is always a reason why you love someone. Maybe you love someone because he/she is part of the family, maybe you like someone's personality and so on. Unconditional love may be figurative, but I don't think it makes sense even as a metaphor.

I wouldn't say yes or no to that. I think some individuals can be deluded into thinking it is always good to blindly support others. 

I think it is also possible to love someone even if they've done something horrible while still not excusing it. 

I think a more realistic naturalistic view of this is to first of skip this cliche all together.

I'd put it like this. I do value our species ability to be non violent and compassionate, that is a provable observation. It is not that humans always default to that, we most certainly do not. 

I do not unconditionally love anyone, but most certainly value our species ability to have empathy and compassion. 

The truth of our species is we far more often than not think locally and value that which we live in and under and get handed down to by our parents. It is an unfortunate side effect of evolution in that it is hard for humans to see this globe as being one home, and hard for us to see our entire population as the same species sharing the same DNA.

But I most certainly value our species ability to be compassionate, but I also don't ignore our species ability to be horribly cruel. 

So I do unconditionally know that evolution produces compassionate individuals, and that I will always value. But I also unconditionally know that evolution produces very cruel individuals. Loaded cliches which are always a "point of view" issue are a distraction of our real biological evolution which is where our species behaviors come from.

[Alex K]

I don't think there is such a thing like uncoditional love, there is always a reason why you love someone. Maybe you love someone because he/she is part of the family, maybe you like someone's personality and so on. Unconditional love may be figurative, but I don't think it makes sense even as a metaphor.

Unconditional love for my children seems to be hardwired into me by evolution, I wouldn't hesitate to wrestle a tiger to protect them, as would most parents I presume. If you say, them being my children counts as a condition then sure, if you go to that meta level, nothing in the universe is unconditional.

[Brian37]

I don't think there is such a thing like uncoditional love, there is always a reason why you love someone. Maybe you love someone because he/she is part of the family, maybe you like someone's personality and so on. Unconditional love may be figurative, but I don't think it makes sense even as a metaphor.

Unconditional love for my children seems to be hardwired into me by evolution, I wouldn't hesitate to wrestle a tiger to protect them, as would most parents I presume. If you say, them being my children counts as a condition then sure, if you go to that meta level, nothing in the universe is unconditional.

I wouldn't call even that unconditional. Some parents are crappy parents, some humans as individuals don't want kids. I wouldn't even say that is unconditional. I do agree however, as with other species, adults will protect their young.  Even dangerous animals like alligators. Again I don't think you need a loaded cliche to describe evolution.

I'd only agree that humans buy the social norms of the societies and or the families they made in. In that context parents can buy such a script so much that they can become blind to the behavior of their children. 

It is a simple matter of our evolutionary grouping, and our tendency to protect offspring and our tendency to protect that which we are familiar with.

[Alex K]

Unconditional love for my children seems to be hardwired into me by evolution, I wouldn't hesitate to wrestle a tiger to protect them, as would most parents I presume. If you say, them being my children counts as a condition then sure, if you go to that meta level, nothing in the universe is unconditional.

I wouldn't call even that unconditional. Some parents are crappy parents, some humans as individuals don't want kids. I wouldn't even say that is unconditional. I do agree however, as with other species, adults will protect their young.  Even dangerous animals like alligators. Again I don't think you need a loaded cliche to describe evolution.

I'd only agree that humans buy the social norms of the societies and or the families they made in. In that context parents can buy such a script so much that they can become blind to the behavior of their children. 

It is a simple matter of our evolutionary grouping, and our tendency to protect offspring and our tendency to protect that which we are familiar with.

It may not be universal, but it still can be unconditional in those who have ot.

[bennyboy]

I think evolution has given a mother a fierce unconditional love for her babies.
Many mothers in nature will fight to the death to protect them.

Yeah but they won't jump into a fire or into the water if they can't swim.  I know, because my mother almost let me drown because she couldn't swim.

[Brian37]

I think evolution has given a mother a fierce unconditional love for her babies.
Many mothers in nature will fight to the death to protect them.

Yeah but they won't jump into a fire or into the water if they can't swim.  I know, because my mother almost let me drown because she couldn't swim.

^^^^^^^ This is why "unconditional" is a loaded cliche. Not even the evolutionary drive to desire to protect something will cause someone to act on that desire, self preservation is also part of evolution. 

For example everyone talks of the bravery of the first responders of 9/11, but it never got widely reported that many fire experts watching it and after had made the comments that if they had been making the call, they would have told them not to go in. 

I had a former landlord who was a x firefighter whom told me when he saw the heat and all the damage being caused he highly suspected, which ended up happening, that the metal support beams would soften and break. 

And even with say a dangerous job like lifeguard. Back in my teens I took a pool lifeguard safety class. Certainly not as dangerous as say an ocean lifeguard. But in both cases you ARE taught to try to calm the victim so that they don't panic  and pull you under as well. You are also taught that if they are panicking and have a grip on you to break it off. Point being no point in two people dying.

Parents even with a desire to protect will not always do it because of their own self preservation for the same reason a lifeguard may have to break off contact, or why a firefighter wont go into a burning building. Even on issues of say hostage taking in a domestic dispute, cops while trained to communicate, will not always go into a building off the bat.

So everything is conditional, even with some individuals their is more of an unselfish personality that would have the intent to do something, even if they cant always pragmatically do something.

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Alot of prey for lions for example, will not protect a calf all the time even if one is sure they would want to. Often they will TRY to surround the young ones, but if that calf get's separated the adults may not confront the lions because their own self preservation kicks in, even if they have that desire.

[brewer]

You first have to be able to understand love, I don't.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Admirable honesty, Brewer.

I do think there's such a thing as unconditional love.