Is Love a religious belief?

Well is it? I have often wondered as to whether I have felt anything such as love, and as to whether it is rational to believe in love? Is it ok to believe in love? Can the belief of love be beneficial simply by serving as a means to an end, even though it is a pretense? Does anyone get these incredibly natural feelings in the bottom of their belly that could only be described as love? and why aren't the philisophical implications of this idea discussed more often?

Many questions, many ways to look at it, what is love? Am I clinging to a dead concept?

 

Liaf

Such a great question.
Is not jesus a paradigm in the west cause he taught love.
Not hate.
Even when the christian church destroys ITS reputation
by being a self centered human power trip.

Jesus sails clear through this cause we all know
The christian church DOES NOT SPEAK FOR JESUS.

Occam thinks jesus saw the structure of the world.
And saw god.
not in buildings of stone or wood.
But IN the stone and wood..
When the pharasies asked where was the kingdom of god
jesus said
within us.

Pretty radical comming from an agnostic like occam.
But not really. Cause occam thinks jesus was a human
like any one of us. Maybe the most important human to ever live.
And occam can see something similar to what jesus saw.
In the stone and the wood.

Occam


PS
And LIAF
No you dont cling to a dead concept.
you see the only path we have to be human.

A world without love is not a world worth living in

 

I think love incorporates and transcends religious belief. I don't know what that's worth, but...

No you are not clinging to a dead concept. Love isn't a concept; it is a reality. It is everything. Unconditional love is the greatest thing a person can possess.

 

Yes, Jesus was a whole lotta love.

But what of buddha? Did he reject the notion of love...or is the emotion of love manifested from our realisation of the interconnectedness of all things?

And should an athiest love? For if you let go of the belief in something bigger than yourself could it mean your ruin, or the ruin of others?

 

Love needs no belief. When the self is transcended, even in an instant, when you feel for another, not out of selfish desire or comfort, that is love. It needs no dogma, no religion, no belief. It stands alone. It stands free. You can't grab onto it or attach to it, it is intangible, yet it is. Love is.

Love is a word which is synonomous.

 

No. It's not a religious belief. Just as many non-religious people never feel true love, many religious people never feel true love.

Yes, it's okay to believe in it, yes, it's rational to believe in it.

Yes, it can be beneficial even if used only as a means to an end, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily love.

Those natural feelings are not necessarily feelings of love, they are often other feelings which we consider lesser than love.

And it's not discussed that often because love is a chemical reaction. More correctly, however, love is a feeling caused by a complex series of chemical reactions that cannot (currently) be emulated artificially.

And also, many people don't like to discuss love because many don't rightfully know what love is themselves.

The Buddha, like Jesus, taught his followers to love all sentient beings, animals included. To treat all with respect, to overcome negative feelings such as jealousy and contempt, which curtail our ability to love one another.

That being said, the Buddha also taught that attachment to love, like any other emotion, is a part of dukkha, and ultimately leads to great suffering.

Who said that atheists don't believe in something bigger than themselves?

The Universe. Certainly it is bigger, more complex, more expansive, and contains more knowledge than a mere human being could ever hope to conceptualize.

 

Believe or know?

Hope and experience

Is love a consequence or a cause when it happens in you?
Take this love and recieve
Give this love and recieve

Is love a goal or a reason to achieve one?

 

Not me

Sometimes atheism is accompanied by a disrespect for the greater environment, hence the shortfalls of science in the past few hundred years. But this is not always the case. I guess...they often tinker with the parts without looking at the whole. And whats the point of ordering a pizza if you're only going to eat the bacon? Lets love the pizza.

 

Shortfalls of science in the past few hundred years?

PLEASE tell me you're joking.

If you're talking about pollution, it's not scientist's fault that companies can dump toxic waste and pay the fines, and it costs LESS than properly disposing of the waste.

If you're talking about resource depletion, alternatives are WIDELY available, but they are pressured into an unstably high cost by oil companies and such.

Tinkering with the parts is a part of the process of understanding the whole.

And pizza sucks.

Just kidding.

 

I feel that religion is not love it is actually the opposite ...... religion is only a set of rules, a set of movements that are rehearsed, it has actually nothing to do with love, there is no feeling in religion, relationship is love and ... love is just love.


interesting thread.

 

Love is just other peoples(things) dreams.

Think about it.

 

Chemical farming, monoculture, pesticides. (How is it just to grow food for humans while killing every other living thing, pollute the surrounding river systems and render the soil unusable for future generations. As far as I see thats a huge shortfall of modern agricultural science)
Overpopulation due to misguided medicinal aid. (Bleeding heart science)
A heavy focus in western culture on trying to cure cancer or other medical conditions without looking at diet or lifestyle. (More bleeding heart science)

Just a few examples.

By the way, maybe you misunderstood, by using the word shortfall I didn't in any way connotate that science has no benefits. Understanding the world we live in is high on my list of priorities. Science is good Science without the whole pizza is bad. You're a pantheist aren't you? isnt that what pantheism is about, eating pizza? sorry, that was a bad joke, seriously, isn't it about having a healthy respect for the world we live in? Which isn't necessarily always the way of science.

 

LiaF

Did'nt think it was required. Buddhism has no conflict with love.
It's creed has no revenge or wrathfull gods. no reward or punnishment
No hell for the 'unbelievers'

Hicky pretty much hits the nail on the head with his comments
on buddhism.

Occam

 

233

Have done so. And came out with no result.
Dos'nt explain why one that loves will give their very lives to
protect those they love. As occam would for those he loves.

How is this 'other peoples dreams'?

Please explain and also the [things] comment..which occam made no sense of.

Occam

 

LiaF

C'mon man..bleeding heart science?..woohoo..thats a new one.

There is overpopulation because humans are not rational as a race.
A product of ignorance perpertuated by ourselves.
If we were rationa as a race, we would all AGREE without objection to limmiting our own numbers. Have heard 2 billions would work just fine. Sustainable for eons
even without mining the solar system.

Occam

 

I love buddhists. I was speaking rhetorically. And yes, hicky did hit it on the nail.

 

Bleeding heart science, whats wrong with that? There is rational science, and crazy misguided bleeding heart science...like overfeeding and providing medicine for people in impoverished third world countries (oh yes and with little focus on infrastructure), which ultimately increases the population to unsustainable numbers, therefore creating further need for medical and nutritional aid. Funny, these scientists completely ignore one of the golden rules of biological science, the amount of one species one area can sustain is finite. Can you see where i'm going with this...

Hikaru Zero I see nothing conflicting in our attitudes towards science. Maybe facts, but not the pizza. Maybe i'm being unfair on science...perhaps I should say that its the people and not the science, after all I always argue that its the people and not the religion....

Anyway, back to love...has anyone seen "Before Darkness Falls"? What a beautiful movie...we must fight for the right to express our love at all costs!

he he he, I still laugh everytime I see stuey as Sadamn hussein in my sig pic...and did I mention, that I....

Love you all! and so does my mother.

 

ALL are scientific ADVANCES that have been ABUSED because our human minds were not capable of using them properly and morally.

That's not a shortfall of science. That's a shortfall of human BRAIN POWER. A select few people are able to understand and responsibly use science as it should be used. The rest of us, when exposed to it, go "hey I can exploit this shit" and use it improperly and without regard for life or health.

It's not a shortfall of science.

MISGUIDED medicinal aid/science.

Not *unadvanced* medicinal aid/science.

Actually, no, I'm not exactly a pantheist, lol ... more of an agnostic, but if some kind of God does exist I'd imagine it'd be a pantheistic or panentheistic world. Lol but anyway ...

Yes, it is all about having a healthy respect for the world we live in. But SCIENCE does not have a "way." Science doesn't do anything on its own. WE HUMANS use (and abuse) science as we see fit. Science isn't bad, or immature, or incomplete, or unadavnced, just because we are a bunch of idiots that use it improperly and immorally.

Yeah, that's *exactly* my point. Science is perfect, not us. You and I and the rest of us are the ones to blame.

Yeah, my roommate and I were laughing at that for a while the other night.

 

I think we have come to a nice agreement. I really wasn't attacking science, I was attacking the reasoning, (the stupid human reasoning) behing some scientific decisions.

 

Oh yeah.

Human reason (or rather, lack thereof) is the worst downfall of humanity, in EVERY single instance.