What is love?

[kurtney64]

I was recently talking to a friend of mine who has also been struggling with her faith. She mentioned to me that one of the reasons she has issue believing in God is because she was always taught that he is love. She said that in college she had learned that they can actually pinpoint the area of the brain that feels love, and have shown that love is actually a chemical reaction. She made the point that if God was actually love, why would our brains be having a chemical reaction to feel it? She also went on to say, that if they can now prove that love is a chemical reaction.... she believes that they will soon pinpoint a chemical reaction for morality.

Now I am not sure I completely agree with what she is saying, but to me it does have some valid points. Wondering if anyone could help me out with a rebuttal to her.

[cslewislover]

We are physical beings as well as spiritual beings. All of our physical functions operate by physical means, and of course God made them that way. There are all different kinds of love, but spiritual love and knowledge comes through the spirit.

[Cross.eyed]

I was recently talking to a friend of mine who has also been struggling with her faith. She mentioned to me that one of the reasons she has issue believing in God is because she was always taught that he is love. She said that in college she had learned that they can actually pinpoint the area of the brain that feels love, and have shown that love is actually a chemical reaction. She made the point that if God was actually love, why would our brains be having a chemical reaction to feel it? She also went on to say, that if they can now prove that love is a chemical reaction.... she believes that they will soon pinpoint a chemical reaction for morality.

Now I am not sure I completely agree with what she is saying, but to me it does have some valid points. Wondering if anyone could help me out with a rebuttal to her.

Perhaps the chemical reaction is because of the state of being in love rather than love being caused by the chemical reaction. I don't know this as fact but it seems to work this way in that we are smitten and then love grows from that point.

GOD is love and He is the one who gave us the ability to love.

[Gman]

I was recently talking to a friend of mine who has also been struggling with her faith. She mentioned to me that one of the reasons she has issue believing in God is because she was always taught that he is love. She said that in college she had learned that they can actually pinpoint the area of the brain that feels love, and have shown that love is actually a chemical reaction. She made the point that if God was actually love, why would our brains be having a chemical reaction to feel it? She also went on to say, that if they can now prove that love is a chemical reaction.... she believes that they will soon pinpoint a chemical reaction for morality.

Now I am not sure I completely agree with what she is saying, but to me it does have some valid points. Wondering if anyone could help me out with a rebuttal to her.

I think that is where the problem is... If love is only a chemical reaction in the brain, then it sounds to me like it is a very fragile weak love that is controlled by substance. And once that chemical reaction dies, like you get alzheimer's disease, or you die, then it's gone. Love stops and is gone forever in the naturalistic mind... But if love is spiritual, then it can live inside OR outside the body.. Love can permeate though body, mind, and soul and though others. Love is strong and lasts forever.. It does NOT necessarily need the body or chemical reactions to function because it is spiritual..

Think about it.. We will probably live till or 70's, 80's? So if you are 50, you may have 20 years left to live, maybe 30, maybe less if you die in a car accident. And for what? A chemical reaction in the brain? A picture on a wall? No... It's way more than that...

We don't fight to get into the memory banks of a computer where it slowly rots away and breaks, we fight to get into the memory banks of God who sees all and records all... It is timeless.. And that can only be accomplished through love...

[Gman]

I thought these articles were good too...

http://www.godandscience.org/love/outrageous.html

Or...

http://www.godandscience.org/love/greatest.html

[Kurieuo]

I was recently talking to a friend of mine who has also been struggling with her faith. She mentioned to me that one of the reasons she has issue believing in God is because she was always taught that he is love. She said that in college she had learned that they can actually pinpoint the area of the brain that feels love, and have shown that love is actually a chemical reaction. She made the point that if God was actually love, why would our brains be having a chemical reaction to feel it? She also went on to say, that if they can now prove that love is a chemical reaction.... she believes that they will soon pinpoint a chemical reaction for morality.

Now I am not sure I completely agree with what she is saying, but to me it does have some valid points. Wondering if anyone could help me out with a rebuttal to her.

There is a distinction between mental and physical properties.

For example, mental events such as thoughts, feelings of pain and sensory experiences do not contain physical qualities like mass, spatial dimensions and space location, are not composed of chemicals, and do not have electrical properties. It is by no means a settled issue. Here is what Keith Maslin, a monist philosopher who is by no means accepting of dualism, writes: “physical occurrences do not just appear to be different from consciousness; they are utterly different, so utterly different in fact, that it is inconceivable how the physical could produce the mental.” (An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind, p.180)

It is widely accepted there is a link between mental and physical (brain) states. For example, in a journal Bruce Hinrichs writes: "When a person reads a sentence, hears a speech, experiences an emotion, or thinks a thought, a cluster or network of brain cells fires in a certain pattern with particular intensity and timing." ('The Science of Readings Minds', Humanist Vol. 61 Issue 3 (2001): 25) It has further been observed that when a part of one's brain is touched with an electrode, it may cause a mental experience such as a memory to occur.

Some, like your friend, might classify this as evidence that mental states are reducible to physical states (or the brain), however this only demonstrates that the mind is causally connected to the brain and not that they are identical. The distinctiveness of mental and physical properties lends itself more favourably to substance dualism, rather than a monist position which attempts to reduce mental properties to the brain or physical body.

Hope this helps.

[Harry12345]

I was recently talking to a friend of mine who has also been struggling with her faith. She mentioned to me that one of the reasons she has issue believing in God is because she was always taught that he is love. She said that in college she had learned that they can actually pinpoint the area of the brain that feels love, and have shown that love is actually a chemical reaction. She made the point that if God was actually love, why would our brains be having a chemical reaction to feel it? She also went on to say, that if they can now prove that love is a chemical reaction.... she believes that they will soon pinpoint a chemical reaction for morality.

Now I am not sure I completely agree with what she is saying, but to me it does have some valid points. Wondering if anyone could help me out with a rebuttal to her.

That's lust, the chemical reaction thing.

Might I suggest 'The Four Loves', by C.S. Lewis?

Affection (Genetic bond between family members)
Eros (Chemical reaction leading to sexual attraction (hey that rhymes! ))
Friendship (Emotional bond between two people linked by something seperate from themselves)
Caritas (Spiritual action - epitomised by Jesus dying on the cross for humanity, attempted humbly by Christians doing good things to others in their everyday life)

All loves eventually fail unless you use Caritas. The three Earthly loves are like flowers, all beautiful in their own unique way, but without water (Caritas) they will wither and die. The garden is us, the gardener is God - let's hope God sprinkles Caritas over our bonds with friends, family and humans around us.

[cslewislover]

That's lust, the chemical reaction thing.

Might I suggest 'The Four Loves', by C.S. Lewis?

Affection (Genetic bond between family members)
Eros (Chemical reaction leading to sexual attraction (hey that rhymes! ))
Friendship (Emotional bond between two people linked by something seperate from themselves)
Caritas (Spiritual action - epitomised by Jesus dying on the cross for humanity, attempted humbly by Christians doing good things to others in their everyday life)

All loves eventually fail unless you use Caritas. The three Earthly loves are like flowers, all beautiful in their own unique way, but without water (Caritas) they will wither and die. The garden is us, the gardener is God - let's hope God sprinkles Caritas over our bonds with friends, family and humans around us.

Aww. "From the mouth of babes . . ." That's really great, Harry. It's funny, but that's one book of Lewis' that I still haven't read.

[zoegirl]

I don't have a problem whatsoever in seeing that there is a connection between love and and physical response in our bodies, although I would say the sum is greater than the sum of our parts.

We see Christ working WITH our bodies in the NT.

[Cross.eyed]

The For Loves by C.S. Lewis? I didn't know there was such a book.....now I'll have to find it.

[zoegirl]

"The Four LOves"

and my comment should be "THe *whole* is greater than the sum of the parts"

[Davidjayjordan]

I was recently talking to a friend of mine who has also been struggling with her faith. She mentioned to me that one of the reasons she has issue believing in God is because she was always taught that he is love. She said that in college she had learned that they can actually pinpoint the area of the brain that feels love, and have shown that love is actually a chemical reaction. She made the point that if God was actually love, why would our brains be having a chemical reaction to feel it? She also went on to say, that if they can now prove that love is a chemical reaction.... she believes that they will soon pinpoint a chemical reaction for morality.

Now I am not sure I completely agree with what she is saying, but to me it does have some valid points. Wondering if anyone could help me out with a rebuttal to her.

Not so Kurtney..

You are misunderstanding manipulative science..

You can pin point the pleasure area of the brain, but that does not equate to love. Manipulative science can pin point the emotional center of the brain, to give false tears, or the emotions that are associated with love, but that is not real love, just the external superficial results of love.

For like real life, morality can not be legislated. Laws will not change mankind. Only real love enters our hearts and changes our minds and then our hearts, so that we have love connections conditioned by our personal choices that consistently choose the pathway of love and caring.

Those synapsis can not be done artifically, it takes repetition of choosing love from different circumstances that solidifies a pathway of synapsis in our brain. It can not be done externally.

That microspace of a neural synapsis, is our choice, an immortal quality the Lord gave us where our spirits choose the pathway.

If we go against his love principles then we harden our hearts to his voice, and scientifically that means we literally physically choose a different pathway or connection other than real love.

So NO< brain scientists can not illicit love or the actions of love. Ha, maybe some knee jerk ones but nothing that consistently shows the depth and reality of love in the real world.

Altruism being another fact that shows we did not evolve.... altruism or love is not inherited, it is an individual choice of an individual.

Don;t you agree ?

[Zebulon]

- The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.

- Do not wonder to see simple people believe without reasoning. God imparts to them love of Him and hatred of self. He inclines their heart to believe. Men will never believe with a saving and real faith, unless God inclines their heart; and they will believe as soon as He inclines it. And this is what David knew well, when he said: Inclina cor meum, Deus, in ...

- Suppose a man puts himself at a window to see those who pass by. If I pass by, can I say that he placed himself there to see me? No; for he does not think of me in particular. But does he who loves someone on account of beauty really love that person? No; for the small-pox, which will kill beauty without killing the person, will cause him to love her no more.

And if one loves me for my judgment, memory, he does not love me, for I can lose these qualities without losing myself. Where, then, is this Ego, if it be neither in the body nor in the soul? And how love the body or the soul, except for these qualities which do not constitute me, since they are perishable? For it is impossible and would be unjust to love the soul of a person in the abstract, and whatever qualities might be therein. We never, then, love a person, but only qualities.

Let us, then, jeer no more at those who are honoured on account of rank and office; for we love a person only on account of borrowed qualities.

- The love of God is enjoined in the whole of Deuteronomy. Deut. xxx, 19: "I call heaven and earth to record that I have set before you life and death, that you should choose life, and love God, and obey Him, for God is your life."

Blaise Pascal