Atheists: Is love a choice?

[Audie]

But say you suddenly felt no love for someone you now love. Would you still feel like you could say 'I love you' or do you need the feeling of love to be present to be able to say it and mean it?

When I was married, whatever I felt for him went out like a candle when I discovered he'd been cheating on me. Zero, gone.

Sorry to hear that happened, Audie
It must have been very painful.

Do you feel you could love someone without feeling something?

Im not wanting any sympathy, but thanks. I just said it as an example of how love
can end rather abruptly.


Love without feeling?
Love is a feeling, so that is quite contradictory.

Asian and Western ideas about love are quite different,
probably more so that for two Westerners, one of whom is
religious, the other not.

So do you dont feel love is a choice? But maybe you can choose to carry out loving actions etc?

I dont see how I could "choose" to feel hot, cold, happy, scared, awed, worried or in love,
then fool myself into thinking it is real.

[RickD]

Is love(verb) a choice?

Do I choose to love my wife? My neighbor?

[Nessa]

I dont see how I could "choose" to feel hot, cold, happy, scared, awed, worried or in love,
then fool myself into thinking it is real.

Do you agree that you can feel hot or cold when in actual reality you are not?
Or you can't feel hot or cold and in actual reality you are?

In primary school, there was a girl who had this condition...
She might pour hot tea over herself but not feel it.

I talked to an atheist awhile back who said love essentially is just a bunch of chemicals that cause
reactions that create feeling.

If we reduce love down to being a feeling alone then how is it anymore meaningful than taking a daisy and playing 'He loves me, he loves me not".

Feelings are so fickle at times and do not always represent the truth

How can we let something so fickle dictate alone what love is?

[Audie]

I dont see how I could "choose" to feel hot, cold, happy, scared, awed, worried or in love,
then fool myself into thinking it is real.

Do you agree that you can feel hot or cold when in actual reality you are not?
Or you can't feel hot or cold and in actual reality you are?

In primary school, there was a girl who had this condition...
She might pour hot tea over herself but not feel it.

I talked to an atheist awhile back who said love essentially is just a bunch of chemicals that cause
reactions that create feeling.

If we reduce love down to being a feeling alone then how is it anymore meaningful than taking a daisy and playing 'He loves me, he loves me not".

Feelings are so fickle at times and do not always represent the truth

How can we let something so fickle dictate alone what love is?

Your friend in primary school was not "choosing".

The "just chemicals" is a dumb bit of reductio ad.

Love that is fickle is not love.

[Nessa]

I dont see how I could "choose" to feel hot, cold, happy, scared, awed, worried or in love,
then fool myself into thinking it is real.

Do you agree that you can feel hot or cold when in actual reality you are not?
Or you can't feel hot or cold and in actual reality you are?

In primary school, there was a girl who had this condition...
She might pour hot tea over herself but not feel it.

I talked to an atheist awhile back who said love essentially is just a bunch of chemicals that cause
reactions that create feeling.

If we reduce love down to being a feeling alone then how is it anymore meaningful than taking a daisy and playing 'He loves me, he loves me not".

Feelings are so fickle at times and do not always represent the truth

How can we let something so fickle dictate alone what love is?

Your friend in primary school was not "choosing".

The "just chemicals" is a dumb bit of reductio ad.

Love that is fickle is not love.

No, my point to bringing up the primary school girl was not to demonstrate "choosing".

It was to demonstrate that going by feelings alone is a poor way to define what love is.
Feelings can not always tell us the truth.

Correct me if Im wrong but it seemed to me you were saying that love is simply a feeling.
An emotion. So if you do not possess that then you can't truly say you love someone.

[Nessa]

My logic was that if you cant define something purely by feelings or lack of them, then it needs to be defined by something else.

[Audie]

My logic was that if you cant define something purely by feelings or lack of them, then it needs to be defined by something else.

Poets, I believe, have been trying for some time.