What meaning does love have to an atheist?

[LastPoet]

And what if love is just a chemical/neurological reaction? Does this removes love from its value? Does love cease to be real if its just electricity? Yeah, its a slippery slope you have there. I happen to accept that my counscousness, my personality just the product of chemical/Neurological along with life experiences. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy love...

[Jaysyn]

Hey, idiot. I think you know who I'm talking to. Don't even try to manipulate me into, "Oh, that's not what I meant. I dddddidn't mean that." Because I don't give a shit. My words stand as I have written them. I'm not responsible for whatever slant you want to put on them to build your stupid strawmen.

By the way, our pity dance is over. Go bug someone else.

Did anyone else read this as "Wow, I'm furious that I just got my ass handed to me."

[Bull Poopie]

If God does not exist, if there is no eternal spiritual realm beyond the temporal material realm where reason and emotion have their ultimate foundations what meaning does love have? In an atheist worldview where love has no spiritual/non-material foundations what is the difference between the love of a man for his wife and a couple of pigs mating? If love only exists in a material form and is just a series of reactions of chemicals in our brain than what is the difference between a parent's for their child and a junkie getting high?

Love has nothing to do with being an atheist.

[Paul the Human]

Love has nothing to do with being an atheist.

Except that many theists contend that love comes directly from their god, and many others contend that if one believes in an intangible thing, such as love, then one cannot disbelieve in 'god' on the grounds that 'he' is intangible (and therefore cannot be proven to exist).

Or some such nonsense.

[KichigaiNeko]

Love has nothing to do with being an atheist.

Except that many theists contend that love comes directly from their god, and many others contend that if one believes in an intangible thing, such as love, then one cannot disbelieve in 'god' on the grounds that 'he' is intangible (and therefore cannot be proven to exist).

Or some such nonsense.

^^^
All part of a slave mentality I feel.

As for rybak..?? I doubt very much if he/she will be responding to this thread

[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."