The Catechism of the Catholic Church’s glossary entry for love says, "See Charity". Charity is defined as, "The theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God".

Paul tells us that love is the greatest of the theological virtues: "So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:13).

The Catholic Encyclopedia article Love (Theological Virtue) (http://oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Love) expands on this:

(1) Its origin, by Divine infusion. "The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost" (Rom., v, 5). It is, therefore, distinct from, and superior to, the inborn inclination or the acquired habit of loving God in the natural order. Theologians agree in saying that it is infused together with sanctifying grace, to which it is closely related either by way of real identity, as some few hold, or, according to the more common view, by way of connatural emanation.

(2) Its seat, in the human will. Although charity is at times intensely emotional, and frequently reacts on our sensory faculties, still it properly resides in the rational will a fact not to be forgotten by those who would make it an impossible virtue.

(3) Its specific act, i.e. the love of benevolence and friendship. To love God is to wish Him all honor and glory and every good, and to endeavor, as far as we can, to obtain it-for Him. St. John (xiv, 23; xv, 14) emphasizes the feature of reciprocity which makes charity a veritable friendship of man with God.

(4) Its motive, i.e., the Divine goodness or amiability taken absolutely and as made known to us by faith. It matters not whether that goodness be viewed in one, or several, or all of the Divine attributes, but, in all cases, it must be adhered to, not as a source of help, or reward, or happiness for ourselves, but as a good in itself infinitely worthy of our love, in this sense alone is God loved for His own sake. However, the distinction of the two loves: concupiscence, which prompts hope; and benevolence, which animates charity, should not be forced into a sort of mutual exclusion, as the Church has repeatedly condemned any attempts at discrediting the workings of Christian hope.

(5) Its range, i.e., both God and man. While God alone is all lovable, yet, inasmuch as all men, by grace and glory, either actually share or at least are capable of sharing in the Divine goodness, it follows that supernatural love rather includes than excludes them, according to Matt., xxii, 39, and Luke, x, 27. Hence one and the same virtue of charity terminates in both God and man, God primarily and man secondarily.

Some of my questions -

For atheists:
What does "love" mean for an atheist?
How do atheists value love?

For Christians:
Christ tells us that the two greatest commandments are based on Love and that everything else stems from it.


Mt 22:36-40 36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37 And He said to him, " `YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' 38 "This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 "The second is like it, `YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' 40 "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."


So - My question is, can we, as Catholics and as Christians, trace every rule back to this "rule of Love"?

Can you think of any rule that is not traceable to the "Law of Love"?

It will be interesting to see what members have to say on this.

First of all we don't love imaginary things. The love we don't use unnecessarily on invisible men (is that gay?), we instead use to love our spouse. That's maybe why atheists are usually more sexually exclusive with their partners than religious people.

love (n.): a strong positive emotion of regard and affection.

It has a few other meanings, too, but this one is the main one.

Why do you think that theists and atheists would value love differently? Everybody values strong positive emotions, don't they?

I guess it's when you put someone else above you like a spouse, a child or a dear dear friend. No reason to look in spellbooks to find an answer.

love (n.): a strong positive emotion of regard and affection.

It has a few other meanings, too, but this one is the main one.

Why do you think that theists and atheists would value love differently?
Love, as we speak of it is not an emotion although it can generate emotional responses. Emotions change with the wind and avail us nothing. If you wish to place love as an emotion, then how can anyone "love" their spouse for a lifetime. One moment you will "feel" love, another moment you might "feel" anger, even hate, and most of the time you will likely "feel" apathy.
Love, real lasting love, is a decision. It is to desire the greatest good for the object of our Love. It is love that lasts through all the emotional ups and downs of life. It is the clinging to each other in faith. This then is Love.

For Christians or anyone interested:
St Paul teaches us about Love:

1 Cor 13:
4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; 5 it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things...13 So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Christ taught us about Love too. By his selfless healing of others; by his teachings of gentleness and acceptance and giving; by his death on the cross. He tells us that, no greater Love has a man than he lay down his life for his fellow.

This then is "Agape" Love. Love that gives and does not take. Love that desires the highest good for another even though it require sacrifice from me.
It is not "Eros" love that one might associate with aphrodite. Love that is emotive and fickle.

Love stinks!

Love stinks!

then your using the wrong hole...

Lol

For atheists:
What does "love" mean for an atheist?

I call myself an agnostic, but that's close enough to atheist for Sciforums work.

'Love' isn't an easy word to define. I guess that it's affection or attachment for things or for people. There's definitely an emotional component to it, and many people would probably identify love with that felt emotion. Another common usage for the word 'love' makes it refer more specifically to sexual desire and attachment, but I prefer the broader usage.

I guess that I might distinguish liking something because of the pleasure it brings me, from truly loving something because of its own qualities. I like beer, because it makes me drunk and I like being drunk. (Or did, when I drank lots of beer.) But I love certain people because of their qualities as people. Beer in itself is basically nothing and I like it because of what it does to me. But the people that I love are far more important and I love them because of them.

That's probably about as far as my own philosophical thinking about love goes. Beyond that point, it's more a matter for psychology, I guess. I haven't really devoted a lot of thought to it.

Plato was a non-Christian who gave the subject of love a lot of thought. He derived his theory of love from how he understood aesthetics and from the attachment to beauty. Then he proceeded to distinguish different grades of love by their different kinds of object, placing love that transcends the physical higher than love of physical things. Christian theology has been strongly influenced by that.

But Plato's ultimate forms of love diverge from those of the Christians. Just as love of ideal things is greater than love of physical things, for Plato ideal love is greater even than personal love. So our love still needs to ascend above loving a person, even if that's been re-imagined as loving a divine person. For Plato, the ultimate form of love is 'Philosophy', a Greek word that literally means "Love of Wisdom". And I believe that elsewhere in his writings he gives it more of an ethical spin, favoring love of the Good. I'm not really sure that Plato would distinguish Wisdom from the Good.

"Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own." ~Robert Heinlein.

I've also been dubious of the requirements of the Christian God (e.g. as detailed by MoM above): if you love God with all your heart, soul and mind... it doesn't leave much for the wife and kids! :p

I've also been dubious of the requirements of the Christian God (e.g. as detailed by MoM above): if you love God with all your heart, soul and mind... it doesn't leave much for the wife and kids!

How not?

If you really love God, then you will be very grateful that He gave you wife and children, and this will in turn manifest in how lovingly you treat your wife and children. They will be much better off, the more you love God.

I can't explain what love is with words, it wouldn't do it justice or would end up being tedious and again remove the beauty of what love is.


Peace

If you really love God, then you will be very grateful that He gave you wife and children, and this will in turn manifest in how lovingly you treat your wife and children. They will be much better off, the more you love God.But then the wife and children are meaningless in and of their own right, and are merely loved for being gifts from God, not for who they are.
And if you say you can't love your partner and children then are you really talking about love at all?

But then the wife and children are meaningless in and of their own right, and are merely loved for being gifts from God, not for who they are.
And if you say you can't love your partner and children then are you really talking about love at all?

How can they be who they are without god?, unless you are an atheist and just deny god's existence, but then that's totaly not following the believers definition of love or even understanding his train of thought.


Peace.

What Chi says.

What Chi says.

you are a theist.

How can they be who they are without god?, unless you are an atheist and just deny god's existence, but then that's totaly not following the believers definition of love or even understanding his train of thought.


Peace.

that's not what he means. you are putting god first and loving them because of god, not because of them.

Love is placing your mental integrity and emotional well-being into the hands of another to do as they will.

Love is placing your mental integrity and emotional well-being into the hands of another to do as they will.

that's surrender, not love. you should never put yourself into the control of another unless they care for you or you could get hurt. actually you should never surrender yourself anyways. that's too co-dependent.

in some cases, it is not possible to stop. for instance, children.

you are a theist.

Signal is more like an agnostic theist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_theism). I personally hope he finds a religion soon so the philosophy forums feel a little less like his personal search for one :P

that's not what he means. you are putting god first and loving them because of god, not because of them.


Yeah what of it?, Nobody would be here if it wasnt for god how can I love somebody without giving god credit for them even existing or the universe even existing in the first place for them to reside in?.

I love god more than my own daughter, doesn't mean I don't love her, It just means I love god more and I understand that god is the reason for her being alive on this earth and for the earth even being here to begin with.

I love god more than my own mother and father doesn't mean I don't truly love my parents, I actualy love my parents even more because of god, he magnifies my love for them 10 fold no 100 fold x infinity.


Alhamdulilah im a muslim man, alhamdulilah I want to live in a muslim land, Alhamdulilah and take a muslim wife by the muslim hand.

“

Originally Posted by chimpkin
Love is placing your mental integrity and emotional well-being into the hands of another to do as they will.
”birch said:
that's surrender, not love.
Nevertheless, when I love someone I give them the power to hurt me at the same time. I just have to hope they don't abuse it.
I'm really surprised other people don't think of it this way as well.

Signal is more like an agnostic theist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_theism). I personally hope he finds a religion soon so the philosophy forums feel a little less like his personal search for one :P

Ouch.

Nevertheless, when I love someone I give them the power to hurt me at the same time. I just have to hope they don't abuse it.
I'm really surprised other people don't think of it this way as well.

Some do.

Ouch.

Im still laughing

Lol what Rav said to you was funny xD But dont rush take your time before comming to a conclusion (Im sure you already know I don't think you even need any teaching from me you seem like you are ont he right path regardless of what you want to call yourself)

The prophets are like ships sailing to jannah, you can board any of these ships, many christians will say "you must believe jesus pbuh died on the cross or you go to hell" don't listen to threats like that,

All of the prophets basicaly said the same stuff just in a way their people will understand them. plus he was sent to the jews and to convert the bad ones to the right path. I say things like *through my words are the way to heaven* jesus pbuh said simular things like *through me is how you get to the father* this was no different from what I say but people mistakenly thought he meant *im the only way* but he meant *my teaching is the only way* and his words have been corrupted by evil ones over the years.

Jesus pbuh actualy called god "Alaha" which most christians wont even believe when i tell them, but it's true he used the word Alaha not "god" god is a made up new roman/greek/western term and sounds ugly to me. The actual word jesus used when talking about god was "Alaha" which is old `Aramaic for "the most high/creator"

In islam we love all the prophets some of us have favorites who we use as role models which I guess is fine, but we are taught to respect all the prophets not just idolise one and neglect the teachings of the rest like some do.


May you find even further wisdom and in wisdom know peace.

I personally hope he finds a religion soon so the philosophy forums feel a little less like his personal search for one :P

To deeply long for a faith one can believe in, that you can reconcile all of yourself with...and not finding that faith....isn't a fun place to be.

People will always stick out at odd angles, won't they?;):rolleyes:

To deeply long for a faith one can believe in, that you can reconcile all of yourself with...and not finding that faith....isn't a fun place to be.

People will always stick out at odd angles, won't they?;):rolleyes:

that's kind of admitting one hates life or doesn't like this place the way it is which is odd because that is what religion/faith is about, dealing with a place while waiting to go somewhere else but claiming it's god's great creation. lmao

To deeply long for a faith one can believe in, that you can reconcile all of yourself with...and not finding that faith....isn't a fun place to be.

People will always stick out at odd angles, won't they?;):rolleyes:

I only started to have faith when i reached my mid 20's. it's never to late to have faith.


peace.

Paganism draws me because I look at the nonhuman-created world and am moved at times in a way I can't quite describe.
Buddhism draws me because of the way it frankly acknowledges and deals with suffering.

So these two schools are rather opposed in thought and action...but I sort of stand with one foot in each current.
This seems to be the best solution for my spiritual self I've found so far. YMMV.
Monotheism made me confused and unhappy, therefore it did not work, although I really tried hard to make it do so.
(And I need to go to bed now.)

Paganism draws me because I look at the nonhuman-created world and am moved at times in a way I can't quite describe.
Buddhism draws me because of the way it frankly acknowledges and deals with suffering.

So these two schools are rather opposed in thought and action...but I sort of stand with one foot in each current.
This seems to be the best solution for my spiritual self I've found so far. YMMV.
Monotheism made me confused and unhappy, therefore it did not work, although I really tried hard to make it do so.
(And I need to go to bed now.)


Good night ^_^


peace be with you

I only started to have faith when i reached my mid 20's. it's never to late to have faith.

It does seem to get more and more difficult the older one gets.

It does seem to get more and more difficult the older one gets.

Oh yes, the older you become without god in your life the more the heart hardens, until you end up a grumpy old atheist man shouting at the kids on your lawn and moaning about everything and end up having the face of an old trout that breaks when you try to smile, such is the earthly punishment for stubborn wretches.


This is why we try to teach our children when they are young and pure so they may dance a life of blissfullness and security knowing they are eternal and never having to look into the void of nothingness that some call non existence and total death.

See many scientists wont like to talk about this but it is a fact that believing in heaven makes you happier, believing you will die forever is a horribly sad fact that many people never show, they predend like everything is ok and it's all fine, but look into their eyes my brother and tell me do you see vibrance do you see happiness, do you see security?. Deep down your thinking Oh what about my mother what about my father? when i depart from this dunya i will never see them again never see them again. What about my wife and my kids? when I leave this world i will never hear another word fromt heir lips fromt heir lips. But alhamdulilah that isnt the case because we live on and go to a more wonderfull place!

Thank god for the day we are born thank god for the day that we leave this dunya, alhamdulilah im a muslim man alhamdulilah with a muslim plan!


peace be with thee

But Chi, one cannot force oneself to believe in God.

But Chi, one cannot force oneself to believe in God.

Nope you can't, but there are ways to increase your faith and inshallah you can earn belief. It is a gift that he gives those who deserve it.

God is verypersonal and interactive, Want to know how you can get faith? I can show you the get out of jail free cards and no none of them i will mention involves being a matyr or fighting in a violent war. you can take place in the spiritual war that's going on right now in this dunya.

Give faith to somebody else and he will give it to you ^_^, Pray for people and wish faith upon them. The christians are not totaly crazy when they talk about prayer and how it works it really does work if god wishes the same thing upon hearing those prayers.

Turn over a new leaf and start teaching people about god, you dont have to believe in god to teach people about him, teach people the sayings of the messengers and spreadthe good news of god. Take action and sieze your faith and show god even though you don't have that faith yourself you still recognize that it makes people happy and out of your mercy you want to give them happiness even if you don't have it yourself.


Increase your good deeds, pray to god get down on your face and tellh im "Look i know you are out there somwhere and i want you to guide me i want you in my life" show god your hungry for it and you are willing to humble yourself even in the face of humiliation.

Do you know howmany atheists probably laugh at me? and howmany read my posts and look down on me? do you know howmuch i give a D*** ? check Bells signature next to her avatar and check the care cup. mines more empty than hers. infact screw the cup thats not even there either.

I will make duaa for you inshallah your imaan increases!


Salam

If you want to know what love is what i just said is out of love, not just love for you, not just love for heaven and not just because i want you to go to heaven it is my love for god, and my love for his creations, you are one of his creations so i love you like i love others.

Even my enemy i love, loving your enemy now that is love.

peace.

then your using the wrong hole...

Love stinks no matter what hole you are using. Love lasts for moments then it fades away and reality sets in .

much like life

Complete romantic love (we will get to the others) is the appreciation of another’s mind (their complete state of self), heart (feeling/bonding), spirit (personality), and body (physical attraction). A suitable life partner.

Familial love is of heart.

Friendship is of mind, spirit, and heart at best.

Worker relations are of mind primarily.

Lust is of just body.

Brotherly love is unconditional.

Chi -

:)

Lust is of just body.

actually lust isn't just of the body. it's just that it doesn't have any consideration or care for the other by itself. it's completely about self-gratification.

Chi -

:)


Lol stop looking at me liek that your creeping me out bro :p


Peace be with you.

http://www.eastsidepatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/cat_eyes_animation1.gif

Everybody values strong positive emotions, don't they?Strong emotions are never good for scientists as they always cloud our rational judgement, much like drugs or alcohol.

Also, it is not clear what is meant by 'positive', as all things are a mixture of positive and negative and some of the grey area in between which is neither.

'Love', like 'hate' and other emotions are primitive reactions to the world that tend to make the world appear more like what we would like it to be like rather than how it is (hence their drug-like quality and the appeal of religion as the opium of the masses).

I remember once I asked my Nan what love is, and my Nan taught me something I will never forget.
She said: "You know, I've always thought of it as something very natural. And very organic, OH YES. On the oustide it's tough and ugly but...Let it grow naturally and look inside and you see it's soft, and it's gentle."
And I said: "That's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. Do you really believe that's what love is?"

And she said: "Love?....... I'm sorry I thought you said a melon."

Coffee keyboard!

Can be love without jealousy?

My take:
Love: When you are at least equally emotionally affected by the good and bad that happens to someone (or something) as you would have been if it happened to you.

One for the cynics:

"Love is a dung hill, and I am but a cock that climbs upon it to crow."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdIKEzr20fA&feature=related

"Love is a dung hill, and I am but a cock that climbs upon it to crow.":bravo:

The subordination of one's own interests to that of an other.

it does not seem you are saying much, glaucon
you could be defining a range of emotions and attitudes of a lesser intensity than what love typically denotes

kindness could fit the bill
goodwill perhaps?

so perhaps some qualifiers?
i mean, it could be a partial subordination of a minor interest, ja?

it does not seem you are saying much, glaucon
you could be defining a range of emotions and attitudes of a lesser intensity than what love typically denotes

kindness could fit the bill
goodwill perhaps?

so perhaps some qualifiers?
i mean, it could be a partial subordination of a minor interest, ja?

That's a fair cop Gustav.

I must admit, I was aiming for a sine qua non as opposed to an exact definition....

It's been my experience that, as I said, at the very least, that would qualify as love....

My take:
Love: When you are at least equally emotionally affected by the good and bad that happens to someone (or something) as you would have been if it happened to you.


i think the term empathy is better defined by that description rather than love
perhaps empathy is a component of love?

i think the term empathy is better defined by that description rather than love
perhaps empathy is a component of love?

Sure. And compassion, service, protection.

In nature, we have attractive and repulsive forces. Love is an attractive force which binds humans like atoms into molecules. Romantic love is a special case, which tends to be the most exothermic form of love attraction.

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/8687/mathlovea.jpg

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/8687/mathlovea.jpg

Was that for me Gustav?

:thankyou:

It is a question to which I much thought.
I think love is a complex feeling composed of several instincts and feelings.
Unfortunately instead find an answer, I found more questions.

What is friendship and if requires also respect?
Love for a partner: love is friendship and sexual attraction, or is yet another component? How important is sexual attraction?
Love for our child:How much is different from the instinct for protection of the baby, seen to animals?
Love for God:I have not so I can not describe.But I'm curious what people say those who love God and where is on the list of priorities, this love.

It is a question to which I much thought.
I think love is a complex feeling composed of several instincts and feelings.
Unfortunately instead find an answer, I found more questions.

What is friendship and if requires also respect?
Love for a partner: love is friendship and sexual attraction, or is yet another component? How important is sexual attraction?
Love for our child:How much is different from the instinct for protection of the baby, seen to animals?
Love for God:I have not so I can not describe.But I'm curious what people say those who love God and where is on the list of priorities, this love.
Love is commonly used word today. We see it on bumper stickers and sweetshirts. We hear it on the radio and in poetry. But what is love, really? What does love have to do with morality, personal relationships and responsibility?

Such questions are by no mean easy to answer. Love is, in a sense, a mystery and no one will ever be able to fully understand or explain it. For our purposes here, however, we can make a few remarks about love that can help clarify the place of love in our moral response to God.

The most simple and yet one of the most important things to say of love is that it is love that gives us all our personal relationships to one another. Love is that power in us that moves us to go out of ourselves, give of ourselves, and unite ourselves with the one we love. We may experience accidental relationships with others as when we happen to have the same color, or come from the same family, or go to the same school. But we become directly, deeply and personally related to another when we freely choose to love another and thereby no longer live for our own selfish needs alone but become concerned about and committed to the happiness of the one we love. Out of such love flow the relationships for which we are morally responsibe.

For us Christians, it is important to note that this personal love for others which gives rise to moral responsibility is not a love that comes primarily from ourselves alone, as though we were free to love or not to love and hence to be responsible for others or not to be responsible as we see fit. Rather, this personal love has existed in God from all eternity, for God is love. And God gives this love to us in Christ for us to accept or reject.

Such questions are by no mean easy to answer. Love is, in a sense, a mystery and no one will ever be able to fully understand or explain it.

There is quite a bit of literature on love coming from the fields of positive psychology and neuroscience. Here is a lay article that differentiates between romantic love and long term pair-binding love (in the context of the discovery that a rare few of us can keep romantic love for our long term partners alive over decades). It also discusses how rare long term pair bonding is in the animal kingdom.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120243044114252137.html?mod=hpp_us_inside_today

Arthur Aron (cited in the article, but not about this) also found a recipe that greatly improves the odds of two people finding one another attractive. Sit and share your moist intimate details with a stranger for 90 minutes, then stare deeply into one another's eyes without talking for four minutes. There is a statistically significant increase in the number of people who rate their partner "deeply attractive" after this. We're a remarkably predictable species.

In short, I'm not certain it's true that love will never be understood. Love has a physical element arising in the brain and triggering neurological and glandular responses that we interpret in a particular way.

It *could * be that "no one will ever be able to fully understand or explain it"...but that strikes me as reminiscent of Auguste Compte's statement in the 19th century that we would never know the chemical composition of a star because he couldn't imagine how such a thing could be discerned (spectroscopic analysis not having been developed when he said it). We are still in the infancy of scientific inquiry into the topic, and brain imaging and molecular biology has helped us make significant progress already.

It could be that in 100 years you'll be able to buy love in pill form or otherwise have love firmly implanted in your brain when you get married or your parents may implant a genuine love for God in children's heads when they start attending church.

(Edit: One also has to consider the four types of love from Greek philosophy, though I myself have never considered their typology to be satisfying.)

Arthur Aron (cited in the article, but not about this) also found a recipe that greatly improves the odds of two people finding one another attractive. Sit and share your moist intimate details with a stranger for 90 minutes, then stare deeply into one another's eyes without talking for four minutes. There is a statistically significant increase in the number of people who rate their partner "deeply attractive" after this. We're a remarkably predictable species.


Have they done those tests on monks and nuns too?

Have they done those tests on monks and nuns too?

To the best of my knowledge, no.

Then they were not working with a representative sample of humanity, and their results are not reliable, much less obligatory.

Then they were not working with a representative sample of humanity, and their results are not reliable, much less obligatory.

Yeah, because "monks and nuns" are representative of large swathes of the population. :rolleyes: If positing a "monk/nun necessity" in all such experiments is all there is, then his study is more scientific than your refutation of it. I do, however, await the day they start Draize testing on nuns...because tests could never be valid unless they're involved (or, at least, actual humans of some sort).

I point out, I do not know that there weren't monks and nuns involved in the study, but to be safe, the paper should of course have a footnote saying "Caution: results may may not be valid for monks and nuns."

My guess is that this experiment was performed on college students (the usual university test subjects). And students, as we all recall from our own student days, are in an almost continuous state of sexual arousal.

The human race is an extremely diverse collection of individuals. When we are considering behavior as opposed to anatomy, the range of variation is even broader. So problems are likely to arise when somebody tries to generalize small and inevitably biased samples as if they are somehow representative of a whole phenomenon of 'love' and therefore generally applicable to everyone on earth.

There are other questions as well. We still need to better understand what "deeply attractive" means. How can the effects of physical attraction and psychological attraction be teased apart and measured independently? Are the results repeatable in different age cohorts? In different cultures?

And perhaps most importantly, what relationship does 'attraction' really have to 'love'? They seem to be two related but nevertheless distinct matters. I suspect that it's possible to be attracted without love, and conversely, to love without attraction.

I guess what's making me nervous about this is the feeling that social "science" is trying to elbow into philosophy's turf, without necessarily having the competency to do so. What we are likely to end up with are crude descriptions of what some researcher assumes is typical behavior, treated as if they are definitive of an entire phenomenon. And just as descriptions easily turn into definitions, definition slides into prescription, with the implication that individuals who aren't behaving in the typical way don't really know or feel love at all.

I guess what's making me nervous about this is the feeling that social "science" is trying to elbow into philosophy's turf, without necessarily having the competency to do so. What we are likely to end up with are crude descriptions of what some researcher assumes is typical behavior, treated as if they are definitive of an entire phenomenon. And just as descriptions easily turn into definitions, definition slides into prescription, with the implication that individuals who aren't behaving in the typical way don't really know or feel love at all.

Exactly, this is my concern as well.
The "science of love" does give instructions (based on empirical research) on how to have "better love" and such.

One of the problems with this is that there is a great number of such theories/prescriptions out there, which to lesser or greater extent contradict eachother. So the question is, inevitably - what is the use of them? How does a person choose which one to apply in their lives?

Moreover, psychology's theories are used for personality tests in the school admission process, in job interviews and such. People are judged based on those tests, and their futures decided.
And then, when a few years later, the older theories are discarded and newer ones used, the damage is already done. Then what?

Thirdly, the "science of love" is presenting love into yet another commodity. Which is in total contradiction with what love is usually thought of and desired as.

It is a ghastly Stepfordian notion that there should be a pill one can take that will make one forever love a certain person.

Yeah, because "monks and nuns" are representative of large swathes of the population. If positing a "monk/nun necessity" in all such experiments is all there is, then his study is more scientific than your refutation of it. I do, however, await the day they start Draize testing on nuns...because tests could never be valid unless they're involved (or, at least, actual humans of some sort).

I point out, I do not know that there weren't monks and nuns involved in the study, but to be safe, the paper should of course have a footnote saying "Caution: results may may not be valid for monks and nuns."

Let's not go crazy.

To this day, ordained clergy (often celibate) is the one resource that many people seek advice from for various life situations, including love.
That makes the clergy an important population, even though it may be numerically relatively small.

In Buddhist cultures, for example, it is not uncommon for people to go to a monk to be advised about a romantic situation.
Similar with Catholic lays seeking advice from priests and nuns.

So people who themselves may have no romantic or sexual experience, are nonetheless seen as good sources of advice on these matters.
Which suggests that love is perceived by people to be something that has primarily to do with spirituality, with morality, and not mereley the flesh as some psychologists would like us to believe.

indefinite, absolute and resolved lust for another being- in particular a parterner or loved one.

Vested empathy.

Mt 22:36-40 36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37 And He said to him, " `YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' 38 "This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 "The second is like it, `YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' 40 "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."

So - My question is, can we, as Catholics and as Christians, trace every rule back to this "rule of Love"?

Can you think of any rule that is not traceable to the "Law of Love"?

It will be interesting to see what members have to say on this.

Very interesting question. I worship God, not Jesus. This in and by itself makes me a non-Christian, but so it seems worshipping the Lord first is where I should be. In other words, I don't want to piss Jesus off but I do not worship him- I worship his Father even though I believe in Jesus.

Regarding "love"- I think the word is applied too liberally, meaning, it should have more than one definition. True love is God, everything else is second to one's love for God.

"Tyrants come and go" said Gandhi, but religious people tend to stick out as examples of humanity at it's best. Gandhi was more ethical than say George Washington, if you will. Both led their nation towards independence but only one did it peacefully.

As we look back through history we see benchmarks of people who changed everything a little bit and nudged history along.

So what is our purpose?