What is Love?

[KingandPriest]

This topic is vitally important to those who accept and maintain a belief in Jesus Christ. As such, the topic of love must be understood before one can even attempt to understand or know God.

So in short, I ask:

I. Non-theistic definition of what is love?
or
Theistic definition of what is love?

II. What is the greatest expression of love one can have for another?

[Talishi]

The most famous scripture in the bible which tells us that God did a loving act BECAUSE he loved us. Thus love must be a feeling he had to begin with, which drove him to perform the loving action.

What is loving about turning your only son over to be tortured to death? That there would be a demand for such a sacrifice in the first place is not rooted in love, let alone the injustice of a scapegoat suffering it.

[JLB32168]

You can't [command a husband to love his wife and vice versa.] It's not possible to command someone to love another.

I can see how someone who regards love as little more than you make me feel good would say that an arranged marriage begins as a loveless marriage.
The ancient and modern Middle Eastern mind doesnt see love that way. They see love as action " bringing home the bacon for one while s/he cooks it for the other. Its being kind in spite of the fact that one might not know the other too well. The feelings come but they begin w/the actions. In your mindset, you can have actions that masquerade as love but you cannot have love w/o the requisite actions that people call loving.

IMO, it is a shallow, vapid love which says, I love you because of how you make and have made me feel.

Who said there had to be any sense in love? There isn't any sense in love.

Yup " if you define love the way you do " an emotional response, a feeling " then I would agree that there is no sense of love.

The ancient and modern east dont see it that way. They see the western form of love as vacuous and one of the reasons that the west A)dont get married like they use to and B)divorce over reasons they regard as stupid.
Its the perfect example of cultural imperialism " our definition of love is better than yours, which isnt really love.

That's not true. There are many circumstances where you can love someone but be in no position to provide loving actions. I have been in that situation before.

How can you love someone but not want to provide loving actions to evince that love?

Your deep feelings drive you to doing loving actions. Of course if you love someone you will want to perform loving actions for that person and you should.

Yes, you should want to do those things so theres never a point where you cannot do them. What can prohibit a person from at a minimum wanting to do loving things?

However actions alone do not prove you love someone.

Yup " but you dont love someone if you arent doing those things or at least wanting to do them if some extenuating circumstance keeps you from doing them.

You can perform so-called loving actions when it comes to someone you despise, but if you love someone you will be doing loving actions for them and if youre not then saying you love them is sentimental sounding claptrap and nothing else.

Works alone are not going to save you. You must have faith.

Then virtuous Muslims and pagans who have been taught the wrong things about Christ still go to Hell.

Perhaps that was your version of Christianity. It isnt mine.

They volunteer their time and money to charity to make them feel better. That's not love. But yet according to your logic it is.

Yes, one can volunteer their time and money to charity and in spite of not knowing them can love them.
1) I dont think that everyone who volunteers time and money to charity does it out of guilt.
2) I believe that most who volunteers time and money to charity love the people theyre helping because they want to be kind and loving to them.
You cannot work in a home for battered women and not love the women your helping, IMO.

And what if you are far from that person and cannot perform those actions?

Then you have to at least want to do them. That is an extenuating circumstance.

Certainly not by performing loving actions. That's not going to change your feelings for them.

I disagree. Doing loving things for people " even when theyre irritated with you or you with them " changes the relationship with most people.

This sounds like the attitude of someone who may lack compassion and empathy.

Okay " then most Middle Easterners lack compassion and empathy " traits who sole repository is the West.

[JLB32168]

What is loving about turning your only son over to be tortured to death?

God has one will. God turned God over to be tortured to death makes no sense from a Trinitarian perspective.

[KingandPriest]

Why does the question of love include so much vitriol from non-theists?

Why is the first reaction of providing one's own definition of love, come along with disdain and hate towards the expression of love found in the bible?

Can a person describe love without attacking Christianity?

[marco]

So for example, a man could beat the stuffing out of another, rob and rape an innocent young lady, kick someone's cat, just because, and go home and care for his aging mother, and feed his two akitas. That person has love?

Are you actually arguing AGAINST the love of God? God acts in precisely the way you describe, and you rhetorically ask - has this person love? One would say that God no more shows love than does your robbing, raping, cat-kicking philanthropist.

[Kenisaw]

[font=Times New Roman]So you understand that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son to die for us, good. Do you also understand that God doesn't will evil? Who crucified God? People.[/font]

(Isaiah 45:7) - "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things."

(Amos 3:6) - "Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?

Your god doesn't will evil...un-huh, sure.

[Kenisaw]

[Replying to post 4 by Divine Insight]

As far as I can see the concept of love is a human concept. Therefore it's open to the subjective opinions of humans. Different humans will most likely have different definitions for what the concept means to them. In fact, this appears to be precisely the situation we observe.

So DI, you are saying that love does not exist outside of man's mind, am I correct?
In that case, love can be like a light switch that someone can turn on and off, have one minute and then the next minute, not have it. And it is dependent on who is in front of them.
So for example, a man could beat the stuffing out of another, rob and rape an innocent young lady, kick someone's cat, just because, and go home and care for his aging mother, and feed his two akitas. That person has love?

He has love for his aging mother and two kids. And possibly a case of schitzoprenia. Or a disassociation disorder. But it doesn't mean he doesn't have love. Does a bomber pilot who dropped bombs on Dresden and set it ablaze and then went home and tucked his kids into bed and held his wife tenderly have love? How about a cop that kills a suspect getting ready to shoot him and then visits his grandmother for a few hours in a nursing home? The world isn't so simple as you like it to be...

Love is a human concept, and it used to group similarly defined things together. Like pretty or ugly or good or evil, it's not an objective thing. It's an idea.

The way it looks to me is that this kind of love lacks coherence and consistency. What I mean is that a person is either honest, or they aren't. A person can't be honest and at the same time be dishonest. They can't steal John Doe's sheep, and claim they are honest, because they don't steal Jane Doe's.

So like someone who constantly posts other people's material word for word in their posts, yet doesn't give credit to that other person for being the source for it, and therefore plagiarizes it? That kind of dishonesty?

How can someone say they have love, if it is only limited to those whom they choose?

The same way they don't find everything pretty, or ugly, or good, or bad. It isn't an objective, all encompassing thing.

Perhaps I am not understand this definition. Probably it's because it's so dependent on how each person views it.

I agree, it is definitely dependent on how each person views it. Same for each culture and society as compared to other cultures and societies...

Thankfully that's not the way my fellow spiritual brothers and sisters view love, otherwise I could just see how so disunited they would be - as the world and its religions are.
https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesse ... nmar-2014/

Not sure I see how this proves your point. Did your brothers and sisters explain to those folks that pi does not equal 3?

[Kenisaw]

What is loving about turning your only son over to be tortured to death?

God has one will. God turned God over to be tortured to death makes no sense from a Trinitarian perspective.

That's right, your version of Christianity is the right one. I keep forgetting that...

[Kenisaw]

Why does the question of love include so much vitriol from non-theists?

Because of the inaccurate way you define it I suppose, and the fact that you think some baseless being is responsible for it. Maybe it's because so many Christians think it is an objective thing when it is a constantly changing, subjective concept. Who knows exactly.

Why is the first reaction of providing one's own definition of love, come along with disdain and hate towards the expression of love found in the bible?

You even have a Christian in this thread saying that the killings of your god's son is nonsense because there is no trinity. Why don't you cultists get your 20,000 sects together and figure out what is what before you worry about what atheists think...

Can a person describe love without attacking Christianity?

Can a Christian define love without crediting a baseless creature for inventing it?

[KingandPriest]

Why does the question of love include so much vitriol from non-theists?

Because of the inaccurate way you define it I suppose, and the fact that you think some baseless being is responsible for it. Maybe it's because so many Christians think it is an objective thing when it is a constantly changing, subjective concept. Who knows exactly.

Why is the first reaction of providing one's own definition of love, come along with disdain and hate towards the expression of love found in the bible?

You even have a Christian in this thread saying that the killings of your god's son is nonsense because there is no trinity. Why don't you cultists get your 20,000 sects together and figure out what is what before you worry about what atheists think...

Can a person describe love without attacking Christianity?

Can a Christian define love without crediting a baseless creature for inventing it?

I never provided a definition for what is love. I only posed the question.

I have found the responses interesting because in the response to the question: What is Love?, I see a lot of hate.

This is ironic, which prompted the followup questions.