[Dr. Krent]

Originally Posted by YB*

So in essence, love does not exist outside you, but within you

Naturally love should not exist. I am purtubed slightly by your example of a nurse nursing my wound. Why is it not love?

Why should it be love when my wife does the same? Somehow, naturalism seems to be wrong.

[YB*]

Originally Posted by Dr. Krent

Naturally love should not exist. I am purtubed slightly by your example of a nurse nursing my wound. Why is it not love?

Why should it be love when my wife does the same? Somehow, naturalism seems to be wrong.

What perturbs you! Like i said its pereption, you want to interpret her action as love? You can do that easily, just look into her eyes and see all the care and love flowing!

On the other hand, someone else was in hospital during the nurses strike, and they refused to touch him until they got an increment, he saw the cleaning for what it was, duty, will be paid, chore, task, no love.

Again someone else might have the same wound because the wife inflicted it on him, and because of keeping family feuds secret, the wife is cleaning the wound in public so that the relatives around don't smell a rat, but in actual sense, she loathes him.

Bottom line is love is user defined, it exists in the person, not outside him, how many times do you know of both sexes labeling others 'stalkers' just because a particular person is on their case, while will label the same stunts on another as 'persistent', and reward the individual with affection after some time?

So it is love if you want it to be, not because the person giving it intends it.

Teenager: my mother hates me, how deeply we hurt our parents coz of our perception of love, s/he loves me, we spend time together and smoke weed, he even lets me stay at his place when I skive school.

Perception: Subjective

unfortunately because of its subjective nature, i will not accomodate a debate on this topic, it would be a long drawn one

[YB*]

In my post above I looked at love from a receiving point of view, the same can be looked at from a giving point of view, almost with the same arguments.

E.g. that nurse who cleans the wound with love, the man who has experienced the nurses strike.

That new lover to be, whose presents and attention are interpreted as a game by the recently hurt woman.

Love is abstract, Christians believe that God hurts us 9by punishment) coz he loves us, and then go ahead and condemn wife beating, in cases of the woman misbehaving (dont get me wrong am not condoning it).

We can go on ad infinitum

[Atabong]

Originally Posted by ernestombayo7

A dualist who is a theist,will recognise such acts as acts of love because God created us to have a self awareness of whats good or wrong.We have a moral code engrained in our hearts which makes us aware of evil or good acts.These good acts,can be qualified as acts of love.

Well, I really don't seem to follow. Maybe I'm the only one lost, but earlier on you said Loving parents nurture loving children (and vice versa); my assumption at this point was that a child is born blank in thought and reason and is up to the parents, society/ culture to nurture knowingly/unknowingly anything on the child's memory; which I really agreed with you and was in fact leaning towards discarding my inclination towards any sort of genetic link. Now you are saying we have a moral code engrained/engineered in our hearts which makes it sound very confusing.

Originally Posted by ernestombayo7

1.Why do we recognise some acts as acts of love and others as not acts of love.
2.Is there an objective standard?
3.If there is an objective standard,then where did we get this objective standard.

A sadomasochist refers to some one who loves, or receive sexual gratification through inflicting/submitting to physical/emotional pain. These same acts thrill the masochist yet will send chills down the spine of an 'straight' onlooker.

Maybe Love is after all just feelings but as we already know, feelings are very relative; for example while Westerners believe that classical music is sooo romantic, so beautiful, so lovely etc, non Westerners find it too boring or even irritating to even listen to. Which is very understandable because of social/cultural differences.

Visiting, praying or burning incense and candles at a loved one's grave stone is commonly considered to be an act of love or remembrance, but a skeptic wonders if the person carrying out these acts is not just doing this for his/her own sake i.e driven by a desire (derives pleasure) for reassurance that the lost one is doing fine in the netherworld, in which case it's all about 'me' (How I feel), and got nothing to do with my lost one, thereby showing feelings to be deceptive and unreliable

So maybe our environments just ruthlessly dictates these things to us. The 'feel good' factors of st. Valentines day

Originally Posted by ernestombayo7

Humans were made in God's image,and so we have an innate ability to recognise such acts of love.

2.Is there an objective standard?

Yes.This can be demosntrated by the vast majority,if not all,recognising that acts like, Child rape are not acts of love.

3.If there is an objective standard,then where did we get this objective standard.

[b]If there exists an objective standard,then it means that this standard was set by a transcendent being,which is God

I think It's simply a matter of common sense to recognise that such acts as child rape are not in the best interest of the society as a whole. Such acts very clearly cause distress not only to the victim but to the parents and the broader society, so they are vigorousely discouraged. So, common sense tells us that such acts got nothing to do with absence of love but merely a matter of dictates from a civilised society.

In the same token another person would say death penalties are there to discuourage such crimes that are are deemed most undesirable by a particular society.

Let's not get this discussion drawn out unnecessarily, when a boy tells a girl, a man tells a man, a woman tells a woman, a man tells a girl, a woman tells a boy I LOVE YOU what does it mean?

[ernestombayo7]

Well, I really don't seem to follow. Maybe I'm the only one lost, but earlier on you said Loving parents nurture loving children (and vice versa); my assumption at this point was that a child is born blank in thought and reason and is up to the parents, society/ culture to nurture knowingly/unknowingly anything on the child's memory; which I really agreed with you and was in fact leaning towards discarding my inclination towards any sort of genetic link. Now you are saying we have a moral code engrained/engineered in our hearts which makes it sound very confusing.

What i meant is that in a theistic dualist view,every Human has an innate knowledge of good or wrong/love or hate i.e morality.Whether this person lives upto those morals is another issue.that depends on nurture of parents,societal influence etc.

A sadomasochist refers to some one who loves, or receive sexual gratification through inflicting/submitting to physical/emotional pain. These same acts thrill the masochist yet will send chills down the spine of an 'straight' onlooker

But we do regard such people as having psychological/mental problems.society/upbringing or many factors can warp someones view of love or morality.Thats why we regard such behaviors as abnormal.

I think It's simply a matter of common sense to recognise that such acts as child rape are not in the best interest of the society as a whole

And this just supports my point that there is indeed an objective moral standard.The question is why and how are we able to distinguish between acts of hate or acts of love.It is indeed clear that Child rape is wrong,but why is it wrong?or whty would for instance burning to death or executing all lepers,beggars octogenarians i.e people who serve no active role in society,people who are liabilities to society,why would such an act be wrong.
It is clear that elimination of such people would greatly ease the burden from the society,and ensure the society survives better.

Just don't see how you can speak of Love without appeal to some moral standard.
but without going to the philosophical issues of love,then love between people are just a collection of acts/behaviors which attach meaning and significance to each partner.

[Atabong]

Originally Posted by Dr. Krent

That is, as a naturalist, love doesn't exist.

What is the term I give to the affection, care, attraction, passion, understanding, and sharing I give to my wife, my only daughter, my mother, my father, my siblings, my best friend, my best pet, my trees, my life?

Dr. Krent,
To state nonchalantly that Love does not exist is to dismiss the subject without even trying to face its reality(apparent/ real reality) and 'cunning' influence on our daily lives as humans.
Whereas the naturalist has his/her right to draw these conclusions, it will greatly benefit this discussion if you went ahead and convinced our readers why this is supposed to be the case.
What does it mean by -to exist? What does love mean? Is it affection, is it a feeling, could it be that we are just under some sort of illusion? False reality?

[Atabong]

Originally Posted by YB*

Love can never be defined, because you can never define everybody, situatio, circumstance, relation and many more.

Well, I do believe that EVERTHING we conceptualise can be well understood and also has a definition. To say it can not be defined tells of an inclination towards escapism.

Originally Posted by YB*

Love is an umbrella, whether as a word or in another form as an action. Its also subjective, it can only be interpreted by the receiver to its definition.

Under love, depending on which type, we have everything, care, understanding, empathy, sympathy etc a collection.

When love is directed to parents it morphs to something else, the qualities are different than when its directed to a lover / wife, same as to children etc

There are those who say when we 'spare the rod we spoil the child'. This, in essence is a parents way of showing LOVE and care for their child -to not let the child go astray; whereas others believe that when we don't spare the rod we spoil the child -we don't show LOVE.

These two views very clearly don't shelter under the same umbrella; besides, if you say it can only be interpreted by the receiver then we see very divergent interpretations here.

[Atabong]

Originally Posted by ernestombayo7

What i meant is that in a theistic dualist view,every Human has an innate knowledge of good or wrong/love or hate i.e morality.Whether this person lives upto those morals is another issue.that depends on nurture of parents,societal influence etc.

Most people agree that what a child grows up to become depends entirely on the child's environments i.e education, friends, parents etc and that this is why we have rules, laws to govern these environment in a civilised society. What will you say to the atheist or Naturist who claims that there is no such thing as innate knowledge of good or evil and that it all depends on these environments the child grow in.

I think this view sounds very convincing and practical because when we come to look at it we find that where a child is born into a Muslim family, goes to Islamic school and lives in a Islamic society, it becomes very clear to see how that persons environments shape his/her perceptions of LOVE and even world view. Add to that, we are also very aware that what the newborn baby gets comes directly from both parents i.e including genes, sickness and health so everything just follows a natural course.

Keeping in mind the fact that we haven't yet reached an agreement on what love is, I'll like to ask: is it Love that depends on morality or the other way round; or they are mutually exclusive?

[Atabong]

Originally Posted by ernestombayo7

But we do regard such people as having psychological/mental problems.society/upbringing or many factors can warp someones view of love or morality.Thats why we regard such behaviors as abnormal.

In effect you are saying that lesbians and gays really don't show or understand love and that they suffer some kind of psychological problems?

Originally Posted by ernestombayo7

And this just supports my point that there is indeed an objective moral standard.The question is why and how are we able to distinguish between acts of hate or acts of love.It is indeed clear that Child rape is wrong,but why is it wrong?or whty would for instance burning to death or executing all lepers,beggars octogenarians i.e people who serve no active role in society,people who are liabilities to society,why would such an act be wrong.
It is clear that elimination of such people would greatly ease the burden from the society,and ensure the society survives better.

Proponents of eugenics and survival of the fittest believe that they are doing a 'good job' to their society. Whether eugenics is right or wrong is another issue, but basically this has been vigorously discouraged by the broader human community and international law, so we only see it taken place behind the scenes.

Originally Posted by ernestombayo7

Just don't see how you can speak of Love without appeal to some moral standard.
but without going to the philosophical issues of love,then love between people are just a collection of acts/behaviors which attach meaning and significance to each partner.

If you know that when you do certain acts you will get a growling, or even a prison term then you better don't do it, this is a matter of common sense which becomes implanted in our memory as law in which case LOVE (as we assume) stands only a very precarious chance at the best!

[Atabong]

Let's for the sake of this discussion and for convenience hypothesize a case where an English marries a Masai. This marriage takes place in the face of bitter disagreements between the families of the engaging couple; all the same, the wedding comes to fruition due to the insistence of the couple that they 'love' each other.

A month passes by, two, three ...but a few weeks before their second wedding anniversary the man turns schizophrenic. Out of guilt and loyalty the woman perseveres for close to a year as she sees her tall handsome strong Romeo gradually turn to a 'vegetable'. She gets fed up and decides to quit all together.

Western Philosophical thought and media seem to confuse love and attraction. A critical take on love reveals that it certainly got nothing to do with attraction!! yet this is what passes around for LOVE