Do You Believe In Love?

[Godhead]

A house is a number of bricks assembled in a certain way. It's also a place where you live. There's a difference between whatever you might think is the building blocks of love, and the experience itself. My view is that love, the experience, reflects the self and the state that it's in. If you love one thing, you love everything, because love is acceptance. I love absolutely everything and if I didn't it would be because I don't love myself, I don't accept myself. Love is closely linked to self esteem, self love. It's your esteem of yourself which reflects outwards.

[Jaysyn]

So if it doesn't exist in a tangible way, paul, surely it doesn't truly exist? That is what you would say about god, is it not?

As others have already stated, it does exist in a tangible chemical reaction in the brain.

[Cecco]

paul - i agree, it would not at all prove that jesus exists. and i would add that it doesn't prove that love exists either. for god is a function of the brain too, just like love.

[Paul the Human]

Too philosophical for my tastes. Emotions are real. One of them is named love. God is imaginary and rather than being a 'function' of the brain, is a side effect of letting emotion and desire color imagination that has been stimulated by superstition.

Very, very closely related, I'll grant you, but not quite the same thing.

[Jaysyn]

paul - i agree, it would not at all prove that jesus exists. and i would add that it doesn't prove that love exists either. for god is a function of the brain too, just like love.

I see what you are trying to do, but you may be closer to the truth than you want to be

http://www.sangraal.com/neurochemistry.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyltry...peculation

[AtheistPhil]

love is not the chemical reaction. love is just a name we give the feeling the reaction brings us. love is an abstract concept, is it not? nobody defines love as a chemical reaction. the chemica reaction is the chemical reaction. love is a name for a feeling created by man. it doesn't exist as a thing.

Love is the chemical reaction, there is no differences between the feeling and the chemical effect happening in the brain. Besides you can apply this reasoning to every human feelings. Anger is a chemical reaction, does that mean people who don't believe in Love don't believe in Anger either ?

[Cego_Colher]

God is supposed to live outside of the brain. Whereas we all know that love lives, well, in our heads. Now, if someone said that God was the feeling you get when you punch someone, then he would have to say that god is an emotion and emotions are chemical reactions in our brains. Therefor god would exist, but god isn't defined as an emotion. He is defined as a supernatural being who created the universe (usually).

I feel like that didn't make any sense, oh, well.

[Cecco]

god, the christian god, is supposed to exist everywhere. i don't believe there is any point in the bible where it says god exists everywhere but in your head.

and of course there is a difference between a chemical reaction and a feeling. the chemical reaction is chemicals reacting, and the feeling (love, anger, etc) is the name we humans choose to associate it with. a chemical reaction is a real physical thing that can be measured in science. love is just a manmade concept.

[Shell B]

love is not the chemical reaction. love is just a name we give the feeling the reaction brings us. love is an abstract concept, is it not? nobody defines love as a chemical reaction. the chemica reaction is the chemical reaction. love is a name for a feeling created by man. it doesn't exist as a thing.

Argh, semantics! That's like saying skyscrapers don't exist because 'skyscraper' is just a name we give to a building.

[Cecco]

i hear what you're saying shell. and indeed it is semantics here, that's my point. in pure science talk there is no such thing as a skyscraper, what a skyscraper really is is a big block of specifically arranged atoms that humans name a 'skyscraper' making it a convenient reference point.

and there is no such thing as love in science terms, just lots of elemental things reacting to create something that humans name 'love'.

you could write-off all criticism's of god's existence as mere semantics too, it's all just the study of meaning.