What meaning does love have to an atheist?

[Entropist]

An analogy: When I listen to Bach, I can break down the individual motifs out of which the music is constructed. I can examine the score and show how the composer made certain shifts in different keys and how this gives the composition a particular structure. This is what music theory is all about: breaking down and examining the different elements of music and how they combine to create a unified whole. Some of these elements I can detect by the ear alone (certainly not everything!). But, whether I am aware of these structural elements or not does not diminish my emotional enjoyment at all.

Years ago, one of my music theory teachers said something that had a profound effect on me: Music is not a piece of paper with notes on it. Music is not a record or a CD. Music is an event that occurs, that is experienced in time.

Love is experienced no differently by atheists than by anyone else. Atheists just don't need to dress it up in metaphysical jargon. Its the experience of love that matters, not its supposed "meaning."