by caliber 42 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
These are all emotions does that make them a delusion? .....But they still happen....so what are they nothing,
they can not exist?
Can you prove with quantifiable data that they happen?
If not, then yes, they're all in your mind, and are entirely subjective.
You can't prove to me with solid evidence that you love, hate, fear or are angry etc, therefore the emotion only exists in your mind.
jgnat: ...and a defining question is needed as well. Which love are we talking about? The most interesting might be, "Is there such a thing as unselfish love?"
Indeed - there are many subtle (and not so subtle) distinctions that we might label as being different kinds of love (we have some Biblical examples).
Yes, I have experienced "unconditional love" - what Greg Bear (an author) termed "love without desire". I have felt this within myself as the object of love, and have experienced it - briefly - at times as the extender of this love. My "human frailties" - fears and inferiorities - interfere, but knowing I have had these experiences in the past allows me to recreate the sense they leave me with. Often my "head" (thoughts) must be disciplined to allow me access to these expansive feelings.
Sad emo: Yes, love is just "all in your head" - where else do you suggest it comes from?
The brain is a focal point of chemical messenger activity - but so is the gut, the large intestine in particular, where some research has been made easier by the prevelence of receptors there. One could argue that parts of the brain coordinate somatic sensations and body-based feelings into a cognitive landscape, and therefore it is "all in your head", but it really is originating from a much larger canvas - much of the body seems to be involved in emotional response. This is perhaps why we often language love as coming from the "heart" - many often experience these feelings as being located not in the head, but in other parts of the body.
Hi Awakened: no arguments here!
You can't prove to me with solid evidence that you love, hate, fear or are angry etc, therefore the emotion only exists in your mind.
Candace Pert establishes "the biomolecular basis for our emotions".
Yes, yes - creation itself, love itself etc. could be such manifestations, but they can also be explained naturally.
A skeptic will always find a plausible naturalistic explanation. Thousands of witnesses to a miraculous event? Why it's a mass hallucination!
Any theory can be made to fit the facts if enough "epicycles" are thrown in. As "natural" as the world is, it came from somewhere that is not "natural".
A God directly involved in all our lives, in a universe consisting of only the necessary stars and our planet, with no good explanations available for their formation, would be quite good evidence. Better yet; a stationary angel providing the light and heat the sun now provides, with no harmful radiation as a result. Perhaps.
Whoa there! Who says the rest of the stars etc. aren't necessary? All you are really saying is that you don't know why they are necessary! And "harmful radiation" is such a subjective term, isn't it? We've put such radiation to great use--not to mention that some of it drives our climate in a fundamental way. You are saying that a Universe that is "just enough and no more" would convince you as to the existence of a Creator. It seems that if God created less, you would believe more! LOL
BTS
Sad Emo,
Now I don't understand how can you believe in soul mates and yet love is a delusion? Scratching head......
h40
Now I don't understand how can you believe in soul mates and yet love is a delusion? Scratching head......
Easy - the connection between soul mates is an emotional response too - it can't be proven to anybody else, only the two know that the connection exists - or maybe they only imagine it because they want it to exist? Who knows?
Hey, it sounds a bit like an individual's experience of what they might call God/higher power/Great Spirit....!
CALIBER - You're asking that question- and you just celebrated your 30 year anniversary with your lovely wife ? My god man - do you have amnesia after 2 days- so soon ? LOL! Just teasing
Hell I had to pop my damn head up for this one...
I think a great question that can keep one going for forever is what measures love? Some may give everything (Kind of like the widows two cents) and it is but a silly offering to another. Yet others may have a surplus of all kinds of crap to shower upon others and it is just that surplus. Like crap you really want out of your house or could not care less if you ever saw it again. So to sum it up, really who is to say who loves more and who gives more or who feels more, or what? Truly...how does one know. I think it is a case of really knowing a person and knowing if the two cents is really all they have to give... or if the two cents is just they dont give a crap and that is all they are gonna give. And people have all kinds of game faces to fool ya.
You know, I think you would think one would have to know another really well for that and I really don't believe anyone at this point in my life. To a point as best as I can I will, but fully, I think that trust is gone for me and it is about damn time. Just saying.
So does it exist? Can you measure it? Who knows? But the effects are for real if you let it be. Good or bad. It either feels like the best thing in the world like a childs hug or the worst thing in the world like a friends death.
And how is this different from a religious experience?Love, as any other emotion, exists as a complex chemical reaction within the body. See Molecules of Emotion by Pert (though there is also a lot of diversions). This is scientifically quantifiable.
Love, as any other emotion, exists as an experience within the body. Emotions are often triggered by somatic responses to the environment as well as thoughts and beliefs. This is subjectively expressible.
Not different at all. And just like love exists only in the mind of the lover, god exists only in the mind of the believer.
When the two lovers die, their love dies right along with them. When you die, so will your imaginary friends.
Love, like any other emotion, is "just" an experience. It may or may not lead you to action. People are complex things and not all are capable of responding to their emotion's motivations.
Love, at it's heart, is opening - a "yes", an acceptance. Only when judgment or attachment enter can love morph into "a kind of love", or something less than the universal "yes".
We do not grieve because we loved those lost to death, we grieve because we are attached to them (and rightly so). We cry because of our sense of loss, for ourselves and for them, for what might have been yet in the future and for their absense in the present. Because we loved them, we miss them now - but it is not the love that causes us pain. It is the loss that causes us pain.
When we see someone give, we don't know what their motivation is. It may be compassion. It may be empathy for someone's plight. It may be guilt. They may be coerced by another.
In some sense, love is not a reason to do anything. "If you loved me, you would __________". Love is not something you can hold hostage, nor is it something that would motivate you to action in that kind of scenario.
In some sense, love is a realization that you are part of something larger than your self.
Love is also a word, like God, that is often spoken with an implied understanding, only to find that no one is speaking about the same thing.
