I agree! eagerly awaits his hug 
::calls Aunt Bertha over to give BK a massive bear hug:: 
The OP:
What is love? It’s a question whose answers tend to be laden with idealisms, so it’s hard for me to come up with an answer that satisfies both the hopeless romantic and the jaded cynic in me. I’m not a fan of literal definitions when it comes to emotions, and since I’m not religious, the Bible’s definition doesn’t mean anything to me either. So, to be honest: What is love? I dunno.
I don’t even feel a need to formally define what love is. Giving it a verbal description takes all the joy and allure and mystery out of it. I tend to think it’s one of those things you have to experience, and then you know what it is.
Whether or not I’ve experienced it for myself, I’ll let you guys decide.
I read once that some psychiatrists consider love to be a form of mental illness, often irrational at the onset, genetically approved by nature to encourage the safe propagation of the species by creating a protective family bond.
I like these, too:
“Love is a slippery eel that bites like hell” - Bertrand Russell
“Love is a perky elf dancing a merry little jig and then suddenly he turns on you with a miniature machine-gun” - Kierkegaard
“Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.” - Nietzsche
Okay I read most of the answers to my thread “What is love?”. I truly enjoyed some of the answers. Now I will give you my response:
Love is a driving force that allows two people to bond and grow together and eventually become one person. Instead of two. Love can also be the unselfish giving of oneself to make the person you care for feel better about themselves, or just plain happy.
I know when I am with muffinman I am happy and feel woderful. I truly care more about him than I do about myself. I can’t wait to be with him again!
Just to add to Lazarus Long42’s collection of Greek words for love:
Philia is the love of friends: “brothers” and “sisters” in the metaphorical sense. It is, of course, also the bond between caring siblings in the literal sense as well, but in this category it blends into:
Storge: Familial love. The emotional feeling, often subliminal but generally present, between members of a kin group – nuclear or bonded extended family.
Agape is self-denying, sacrificial, transcendent love, ranging from what Christians believe God has for humans and why Jesus died on the cross, to the mother cat facing down the pitbull to save her kittens. It is the Greek for which caritas is the Latin, and what Paul wrote to the Corinthians about. It’s the love that any god worth the name commands his followers to have for one another and for mankind (though I don’t know if Mick reciprocates ;)).
Eros is romantic love as well as sexual desire, given that the two are usually mixed but can be seen as distinct (and in some sad psychological cases are indeed felt towards separate persons).
That gives the fourth category Dr. Sheffield forgot to mention and clarifies two of the ones he did.
However, why was it left to Jonathan Chance to quote Heinlein (which I would have done if he hadn’t beat me to it!)?
Joel, the concept of “charity” has changed immensely since the times of King James, and while “love” carries unwanted freight, it is closer than today’s usage. Caritas, borrowed straight from the Latin with no Anglicization, is often used to make the distinction between “love” in the sense of what a 14-year-old girl feels for the Backstreet Boys or her father for a large, juicy steak and the theological virtue of which you speak.
Me, I find that the various flavors of love often blend into each other in ways that make no careful categorization acceptable. And so I stick with the English word and don’t try to fence it with categories unless I absolutely have to specify or clarify.
But one final comment on agape, from the Christian songwriter Don Francisco:
[quote]
Love is not a feeling; it’s an act of the will.*
You may be swept off your feet by romantic love; you may feel the urge to stand by your family or friends in time of trouble. These are feelings, and you may or may not have them. And the sense of responding in love to unconditional love is another feeling.
But the commandment to Christians (and not a bad idea for anyone else, whether or not they buy into any theology) is to practice the art of loving others – not to build in your heart a given emotion, but to keep on keeping on showing them love, regardless of whether you feel it. (And, strangely enough, the effort turns into the feeling over time.)
Evidently every man that has been in my life, starting with my father, has a completely different view of what love is than I do. I’ve come to the conclusion that somehow I must either be totally wrong about what love is or completely unworthy of it. Sorry can’t help you on this one.
Needs2know
Um, in my last post, the one line was all there was to the quote. I find I have broken one of Gaudere’s Commandments.
Which gives us occasion to see caritas at work. I, being a mere unworthy poster, am not able to repair the sin against the board which I have inadvertently committed, repent though I may. But a superior being, with Gaudlike powers, can act to right the wrong I committed, to atone for my false posting and make it right with the Administrators. David, Gaudere, I beseech thee, please amend my foolish post!
Thanks for an enlightening post.
Is agape also translated as caritas in the Latin text for the “do you love me” conversation between Jesus and Peter?
I’m not sure the word charity has changed meaning that much. Love of God above things seems to have always been its meaning to some extent although it’s meaning may have drifted after the Reformation in England I suppose.
Gee, Polycarp – I thought those made lousy song lyrics!
I remember when I fell in love. It was the morning after a particularly rambunctious night of partying (Spring Fling at UPenn, '98). We were watching The Wall & eating Milky Ways. I was sitting on the floor, and when those hammers were marching across the screen, I glanced over at him sitting on the couch, & I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. Like, I really had to pause to catch my breath. I had this sudden realization that, although I had gotten through many things in my life, now something could happen to me from which I would never recover - I could lose him. That’s how strong my feelings were.
Unfortunately for my sense of cynicism, he had the same feelings for me, & we are currently in the process of living happily ever after. Kind of makes me want to barf, but oh does it feel nice.
Well, y’all read the Bible one way, and the Philadelphia Church of God (founded by Herbert W. Armstrong) reads it another. They say that executing a murderer is an act of love for the murderer.
I’m not joking. And I don’t agree.
Uh oh. Let’s not get into a debate over the existence of Gaud… (We knowest Ye exist, O Great One; Our faith in Thee is sufficient, and Ye needest not dirtieth Thy hands with Polycarp’s post.)
But yes, thanks for the great clarification. Not knowing Greek or Hebrew puts one at a distinct disadvantage on Biblical interpretation.
As for the meaning of “charity”, I doubt that Paul ever intended it in the context of the United Way “pay a buck a week so they’ll stop harassing you”, which is how many people nowadays would interpret it.