is irrationality always bad ? i need help !

[Ace Otana]

I'm not just talking about sexual attraction. That is an absurd conclusion. Do you only Love those you are sexually attracted to? I love dogs, and motorcycles and many things/ people I am not in the least sexually attracted to. Love can easily be spiritual, although it cannot be quantified, therefore is too easily dismissed. I have several 'Jessicas' in my life. I love them still, despite letting them go. I think science is only too quick to dismiss Love as having any real meaning beyond chemical reaction.
My God is Love. Its reality can be measured by its effects. They are all around you, and easy to see if you can get your head out of your own desires.

I'm not just talking about sexual attraction.

Nor was I.

I think science is only too quick to dismiss Love as having any real meaning beyond chemical reaction.

Science concludes based on available evidence. It doesn't do belief, superstition. Religion does that.

They are all around you, and easy to see if you can get your head out of your own desires

It's not my "personal desires" to believe in a scientific conclusion. I think you are opting for a more satisfying answer than a more scientific and realistic one. I don't believe in things because I want them to be true. I want the truth even if I don't like it. It's because I want to know the real truth and not my own delusional version of it.
Love is just a chemical reaction. Might sound a bit sad and disappointing to conclude but reality isn't about what we want reality to be but what it is.

I have several 'Jessicas' in my life.

Several? Jeese, I only had one and she's trouble. She went off and had sex with someone else and had his child. Now she's a single mum and thought I'd be happy to jump back in and play the role of "daddy".

---

"Since the lust and attraction stages are both considered temporary, a third stage is needed to account for long-term relationships. Attachment is the bonding that promotes relationships lasting for many years and even decades. Attachment is generally based on commitments such as marriage and children, or on mutual friendship based on things like shared interests. It has been linked to higher levels of the chemicals oxytocin and vasopressin to a greater degree than short-term relationships have.[10] Enzo Emanuele and coworkers reported the protein molecule known as the nerve growth factor (NGF) has high levels when people first fall in love, but these return to previous levels after one year."

I've been doing my homework.

Love is chemical.
Saying god is the reason or it's some spiritual reason doesn't give us a greater understanding of it. No details to how it works. God is a useless answer. Because it doesn't get us anywhere.
Let's say for argument sake that you were right and that all those chemicals that have been reacting that has been tested, measured, repeated and confirmed and that it really is all spiritual. Were does that leave us? How does that boost our knowledge of understanding of it? How does that help us in anyway? How does saying "it's spiritual" give us any greater understanding of it? How can we gather knowledge from that conclusion? What use is it to us to conclude that it's spiritual?

[Rwandrall]

yeah but realising Love is chemical does not make you happier, it makes you feel like what you are: a mass of flesh and blood whose only purpose is to live and reproduce, and that is frankly depressing. How is making yourself depressed good ? living a happy life is what a lot of people want to do, so is pure rationality bad in that way ?

and i know, thats very naive, but im starting to see more good points for irrationality than for rationality and i dont want to unknowingly convince myself to get back to religion.

[Ace Otana]

yeah but realising Love is chemical does not make you happier, it makes you feel like what you are: a mass of flesh and blood whose only purpose is to live and reproduce, and that is frankly depressing. How is making yourself depressed good ? living a happy life is what a lot of people want to do, so is pure rationality bad in that way ?

and i know, thats very naive, but im starting to see more good points for irrationality than for rationality and i dont want to unknowingly convince myself to get back to religion.

yeah but realising Love is chemical does not make you happier, it makes you feel like what you are: a mass of flesh and blood whose only purpose is to live and reproduce, and that is frankly depressing.

It all depends on how you look at it. Knowing I'm in love with someone all because there are chemical reactions reacting in my brain doesn't make me less happy. It just means I know what causes me to love. It doesn't cause me to become less happy. Just makes me more knowledgeable.
We are flesh and blood, so what?

How is making yourself depressed good ?

It is entirely based on how you look at it. It isn't depressing to me.

living a happy life is what a lot of people want to do, so is pure rationality bad in that way ?

I AM living a happy life. I still love and shag despite the knowledge I have of it. Still makes me happy. It's all about how you look at it.
If you'd rather opt for a more satisfying but less realistic look on reality then there is nothing wrong with that. Not everyone wants to know how the body works or it's mind.

[The_Flying_Skeptic]

I am starting to doubt that rationality is the only way to think, i mean outside religion there are phenomenon that we believe in although there is direct evidence contradicting it. An example is love. It has been proven to be a chemical reaction created by hormones, is it the best thing to believe that ? If we all believe that everything we do is only due to chemicals running around our brain, and that life is not really more than anatomy... It is a bit sad is it not ? In that way i can understand people believing in a soul, a purpose, or even a sky daddy. And since we are all, in one way or another, irrationalists, are we athiests any better than those who believe in God ? Is blissful ignorance always wrong ?

The truth isn't always romantic. I've seen people have no problem blaming a woman getting angry on 'the hormones' ignoring the fact that all emotions are based on hormones. My best advice would be to take these facts lightly and not let them get in the way of being romantic. Rationalism doesn't have to lead to the Dr. Manhattan syndrome or 'detached from humanity way of thinking'. Unless your girlfriend is a biologist, or has that knowledge of biology, I wouldn't say 'it's not love, it's just a cocktail of chemicals' or we should never use the phrase 'it's just' as if reality were 'less than' magical thinking. You may be with a girlfriend that hasn't a serious understanding of biology and is literal when she says 'I feel it in my heart' but if this girl is making you happy and you don't need deep understanding of science in a girl then you shouldn't throw away that moment when she says that to you. I'm single now but I'd prefer a woman that is on the same grounds with me on religion and science so I can say 'I feel it in my heart that I love you' knowing she'd understand that I'm being poetic and romantic and don't actually believe that any feelings are produced by the cardiovascular system.

Scientific Romanticism works, baby. - parallel to science works bitches

[RedFish]

I'm not attributing Love to God, and trying to use it as evidence for 'its' existence. Some of you are automatically assuming I am. I'm not. God is Love. The diagram depicting the physical processes is merely that. Part of mankinds endless desire to quantify and control. Love summarised in an a4 poster.You confuse Love with being in love. Not necessarily the same. And too much focusing on sexual relations= Love. Sex without Love is as possible as Love without sex.
The value of it?? Well, I can aspire to Love the whole of existence. I can realise that other peoples' Loves can be as different to mine as the language we may speak. I greet strangers with a smile. I am tolerant.(yes, several Jessicas, and worse.) The hardest bit is trying to Love those who Hate. Sometimes impossible, but I'm no (insert name of well-known V.good geezer.) I just try.
After all, it really is the only thing that binds us all together, isn't it? Whatever, whoever, we all Love.

[Ace Otana]

I'm not attributing Love to God, and trying to use it as evidence for 'its' existence. Some of you are automatically assuming I am. I'm not. God is Love. The diagram depicting the physical processes is merely that. Part of mankinds endless desire to quantify and control. Love summarised in an a4 poster.You confuse Love with being in love. Not necessarily the same. And too much focusing on sexual relations= Love. Sex without Love is as possible as Love without sex.
The value of it?? Well, I can aspire to Love the whole of existence. I can realise that other peoples' Loves can be as different to mine as the language we may speak. I greet strangers with a smile. I am tolerant.(yes, several Jessicas, and worse.) The hardest bit is trying to Love those who Hate. Sometimes impossible, but I'm no (insert name of well-known V.good geezer.) I just try.
After all, it really is the only thing that binds us all together, isn't it? Whatever, whoever, we all Love.

God is Love.

There is no evidence to suggest that god exists.

You confuse Love with being in love.

Doesn't matter what kind of love it is. Every emotion is based on chemical reactions.

Sex without Love is as possible as Love without sex.

I should know. Some of my most joyful nights was being with the girl of my dreams that had nothing to do with sex. Some snogging though.

I can realise that other peoples' Loves can be as different to mine as the language we may speak.

Love can feel stronger for some and weaker for others but either way the chemical reactions in the brain are the same. There are differant ways to feel love but they are all still based on chemical reactions. There is no evidence to suggest it is anything more than that.

Love summarised in an a4 poster.

Pretty much. That's all there is really. Don't bother me though. We are just a pile of walking meat who has an extremely limited time in existance and is very easily killed by just about anything. We are tiny, unimportant and nothing more than living meat in clothes. So what? Holding your girlfriends arm is just you holding living meat. Lots of blood cells flowing through it. Not very romantic I know but hey that's what it is. Several layers of skin that is easily damaged and infected and behind that soft tissue carring lots of important things. And yet, having knowledge of this doesn't bother me. Maybe I'm just strange.
I wish I was biomachanical. That would be so cool!

yes, several Jessicas, and worse.

My gawd! hock:

All in all, there is nothing to suggest that love is spiritual and also concluding that it's spiritual does not futher our understanding in anway. No knowledge is gained as there is no useful infomation to analise. That is the major problem I have with your answer. There is no detail infomation, like how does it work. How does "spiritual" give me deep knowledge to how it works. Where is the data? What is there to analise? Neuroscience has given me the infomation with detail and evidence. Something to look into and analise. Religion hasn't. It's fine to conclude that it's spiritual but I want the deep knowledge and understanding of it. How it works. Also it needs to contradict what science has given. See the problem? I need data, not claims.

[RedFish]

''Religion tells you what to believe, science tells you what it's found. Religion demands that you follow by their rules or else, science demands nothing of you. It offers you free knowledge. This is why I trust science and not religion.''
Science demands data, does it not? Your 'rules'? I don't claim any 'religion', that is your false assertion.
''A closed mind is like a closed book, merely a block of wood.'' If you look for the evidence for Love, you will find it. Demanding data is the domain of machines. I look with my own eyes, and feel with my own heart. Not wikipedia.

[Ace Otana]

''Religion tells you what to believe, science tells you what it's found. Religion demands that you follow by their rules or else, science demands nothing of you. It offers you free knowledge. This is why I trust science and not religion.''
Science demands data, does it not? Your 'rules'? I don't claim any 'religion', that is your false assertion.
''A closed mind is like a closed book, merely a block of wood.'' If you look for the evidence for Love, you will find it. Demanding data is the domain of machines. I look with my own eyes, and feel with my own heart. Not wikipedia.

Your 'rules'? I don't claim any 'religion', that is your false assertion.

Huh? Where you going with this?

If you look for the evidence for Love, you will find it.

I already have.

Demanding data is the domain of machines.

If you can only claim but cannot provide data and evidence then why should I take any of it seriously? I want knowledge so to understand more but without any infomation/data I cannot. My heart will not give me data nor knowledge.

feel with my own heart.

If that is good enough for you then that's ok. Whatever floats your boat. I on the other hand wish to look far deeper than personal feelings ever could. Because only in movies do feelings go far but not in reality.