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Define Love?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
A friend and I are having a hard time defining love and are at opposition to one another on the subject of romantic love.
Anyone willing to help with any opinion of your experience of love?
I belive its a bond between two people which can happen to any people who are close and compatible. Where as they belive its a once in a lifetime thing, to be done only when older. Is age a factor?
Any input would help =D
Anyone willing to help with any opinion of your experience of love?
I belive its a bond between two people which can happen to any people who are close and compatible. Where as they belive its a once in a lifetime thing, to be done only when older. Is age a factor?
Any input would help =D
0
Comments
Lust is when you have sexual feelings towards someone.
I like that definition. It is very simple though. Can you feel emotional feelings and closeness for someone (going beyond sex) without being in love also?
I have emotional feelings towards some in my family that are not love or anything like it!
Love is about constantly putting another person before yourself.
Their feelings and other needs come before your own.
Theres love of brother (as in friend) ...theres love of family ...theres love of mate which has sexuality mixed in there too.
Theres love of sport love of life love of art etc.
I even love my dog for Gods sake but ...I would only go so far in putting her needs before mine.
Difficult innit.
It is difficult. When you think about it, it seems easy. But when trying to make a point of it is real tricky.
“Love is patient; love is kind
and envies no one.
Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude;
never selfish, not quick to take offense.
There is nothing love cannot face;
there is no limit to its faith,
its hope, and endurance.
In a word, there are three things
that last forever: faith, hope, and love;
but the greatest of them all is love.”
From memory, affection is the kind of natural love one feels for people close to you, relatives, neighbours and the like. Friendship is self-explanatory, but is more a give and take relationship. Eros is about sexual attraction or romantic love, and charity is a more general love for humankind.
Its a lovely book. Quite spiritual. I'd recommend it to anyone.
One of the problems with the English language is precisely that there is only one term for 'love', whereas in many other languages, they have different words for 'love' according to their context.
So in English, I may 'love' my mother, 'love' my partner, 'love' my pet and also 'love' Kentucky Fried Chicken (which I don't by the way
A Walk To Remember
I don't think KFC is as good as it used to be. I think it's defo changed.
While I agree with you that the English language is slightly impoverished in its inability to distinguish numerous different types of love, nonetheless I think there are some features which are shared by many of the different types that can form the basis of a definition of love.
I think what distinguishes the emotion of love from just liking something or someone is that when we love someone, we believe that our lives would be considerably worse if that person were not around any more. This is what unites love of children, love of a sexual partner, love of your pet, love of your nation, love of your football team....to say that we love them is to say that they bring such value to our lives and are so significant in our lives that if they were gone, we would suffer. We would experience their loss as a harm, and would be significantly worse off. None of that's true of liking someone - there are lots of people that I like, and yet if they died tomorrow, I would be largely unaffected.
This makes me inclined to think that while you do indeed love your mother, your partner and your pet, you probably don't really love Kentucky Fried Chicken! That's just a rhetorical, stylistic use of the word love, which is also commonly done in English.
Unless of course you care so deeply about KFC and the value it brings to your life that you think you would be significantly worse off without it!
Check out Katralla's unambiguous reply.
I understand where you are coming from - but would you 'love' your pet in the same way as you would 'love' your child? I'm sure you might have a deep-rooted 'love' for your pet but is it indistinguishable for the 'love' of your child?
You have to not have it very often, and then have it twice within a short time - the second time is best. Weird but true.
No, I didn't say all types of love are the same. I didn't suggest all types of love are indistinguishable - in fact, I said the opposite.
What I did say is that the feature I identified is the one thing that all the different types of love share. That's what makes them all different types of the same phenomenon - love. So my claim is that the feature I identified is the defining characteristic which makes an emotion love, rather than something else. But there will be other elements to parental love which distinguish them from the love of my dog, say.
Ah ok. I can go with that. I don't think it contradicts my post though. You've correctly raised the notion that there is some level of 'shared emotion' in each instance of the word 'love', which I think is probably correct. All I was saying was that bit of 'shared emotion' does have different names in other languages.
:yes: This was a reading at my friend's wedding.
:yes: this
Story of life
There are words that are used in English for describing different kinds of love, like eros, philos and agape. Intimate love, love of friends or family, and then unconditional love (though I think it's normally like God's love).