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If love stopped, procreating would drastically decline, death would drastically increase and mankind would become extinct. So how would love not be the core of human existence?
If love stopped, procreating would drastically decline, death would drastically increase and mankind would become extinct. So how would love not be the core of human existence?
I'm not denying that we should love anyone. Nor would I suggest that it ISN'T a good thing...but let's look at it logically. So is procreation and the carrying on of the species the only reason we exist? What makes you believe that?
I see no reason to think "procreation would drastically decline" in the absence of love. Procreation is primal and it happens lovelessly throughout the animal (and plant) kingdoms.
I would say that the ability of humans to choose to give primacy to love, in procreation and otherwise, is one of the core aspects of what makes us human, but more fundamentally, it is our highly developed empathy and self awareness which enables love in the first place.
Of course that same highly social / empathic / self aware nature also enables hatred, tribal rivalries, and a lot of other things, including awareness of mortality and the angst associated with that, so living an examined and disciplined life is important. An important aspect of THAT in my view is not affording belief to the unsubstantiated.
I'm not denying that we should love anyone. Nor would I suggest that it ISN'T a good thing...but let's look at it logically. So is procreation and the carrying on of the species the only reason we exist? What makes you believe that?
I see no reason to think "procreation would drastically decline" in the absence of love. Procreation is primal and it happens lovelessly throughout the animal (and plant) kingdoms.
I would say that the ability of humans to choose to give primacy to love, in procreation and otherwise, is one of the core aspects of what makes us human, but more fundamentally, it is our highly developed empathy and self awareness which enables love in the first place.
Of course that same highly social / empathic / self aware nature also enables hatred, tribal rivalries, and a lot of other things, including awareness of mortality and the angst associated with that, so living an examined and disciplined life is important. An important aspect of THAT in my view is not affording belief to the unsubstantiated.
I disagree about procreation not drastically declining. I think most children in today's world are typically born because of love, not primal instincts.
Basically, you are conflating the different aspects of love that are distinguished in the Greek but not in English. Procreation has nothing to do with the kind of love Of which Jesus and the Apostles taught.
I disagree about procreation not drastically declining. I think most children in today's world are typically born because of love, not primal instincts.
Love is a primal instinct.
I have three children, love them dearly, and wouldn't change having had them. That said, I am an animal and I can clearly see basic instincts operating in my actions, either overtly or below the surface.
Love is an evolutionary adaptation. Really, that word encompasses two different types of bonding - romantic love, which results in children, and parental love, which promotes the nurturing of one's children. In both cases, this bond is a mechanism for making copies of our genes. Both of these types of love are particularly important in Homo sapiens, because the more self-aware a creature is, the more it can game the evolutionary system, so to speak. An oak is unthinking. A fish is an instinctual automaton capable of some very simple learning. Only in a minority of mammal and avian species is there any degree of self-awareness, and even then the abstract thought necessary to overcome evolutionary impulses is all but impossible.
However, a human being has the capacity to reason out the disadvantages of having children. The come with a variety of costs. A human can rationally observe that without children they are less encumbered and can enjoy for themselves more of the resources that they somehow have to acquire (because they don't have to spend the better part of two decades sharing their time and those resources with a child).
In comes love. We seek sex. We seek romantic love, which results in sex. We see another's child and wistfully want one of our own. That's evolution's way of enticing us to make genetic copies of ourselves. Augmenting the sex drive, love brings together a potentially procreating couple. It also helps create the bonds that keep that pair together during the time required for the resulting child to become independent and that result in the nurturing of the child.
We like to think of love being a special, altruistic human attribute. But really, it's just a way for us to perpetuate our genetic legacy.
I disagree about procreation not drastically declining. I think most children in today's world are typically born because of love, not primal instincts.
I didn't say love wasn't in the mix, simply that you're misidentifying it as necessary to enable procreation. Animals routinely rut without regard to consent or anything other than instinct.
If love stopped, procreating would drastically decline, death would drastically increase and mankind would become extinct. So how would love not be the core of human existence?
Not stopped. But emotion is the more primitive part of the brain and if we have to much nothing gets done.
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