Is “love” significant?

[bennyboy]

Then no. Since emotions are temporary states, they do not have lasting meaning or value.

I've got to argue against this because the long term affects of emotions can easily outlive the emotions themselves. I have loved many people, some as friends, some as family, some as lovers. I would not be the person I am today without those experiences in love, even though the emotion (for most of them) ended long ago.

Yes, Love is significant. Of course, so is hate, pride, joy, sorrow, empathy anger, compassion, happiness, etc... All the things we feel help to shape us, even if we don't feel them any longer.

Yes, but in this case, love isn't "worthy for its own sake." It is worthy for the long-term cascade of effects in which it participates.

Love is a motivator-- in the long run, it means only as much as the behaviors it influences. Therefore, if the behaviors it motivates are significant, then love is significant. Whether ANY behavior of any human is ultimately significant is an arbitrary philosophical position, unsupportable by logical assertions. Would, for example, the complete obliteration of all life on the world be "significant?" To us, yes. To the universe possibly not.

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[if] emotions are temporary states, they do not have lasting meaning or value.

I think you could define love in other ways. For example, if something about someone inspires in you feelings of altruism, you could call that love, and that would be significant in that it has affected the lover's world view. In some cases, love can mean a complete abandonment of the sense of importance of the self in favor of the other. I've argued that Christianity has this advantage-- that it places something other than pleasure at the center of a person's world view. And when multiple people are defining their center around the same idea-- myth or not-- that establishes a special community. Atheism doesn't do this, though certainly there are many altruistic atheists, or those who share common goals.

Personally, I'd keep maybe half a dozen Christian values, and right at the top would be "love your neighbor as you love yourself." The goofy history, wrong science and fear mongering, I'd cut.

So love as an action –devoid of self-interest- is a meaningful endeavor? Hmm, yes. Good. I would completely agree if that’s what you’re getting at. Benny I think that comment just cut across the board; unless someone here would be inclined to disagree I think we’ve found some sort of consensus?

I wouldn't define love as any particular kind of action or non-action. I'd define it as a feeling which rewrites selfish values with altruistic ones. It's a trivial difference, but I wouldn't want to get away from the idea of love as an emotion.