h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Some say that the opposite of Love is not hate
but indifference.

That's understandable if you know how compelling
and overwhelming love can be. Indifference is a
lack of interest, a willing ignorance.

(Hate is sometimes defined as being a variant of love
because it too is so involving, compulsive and irrational.
Indifference would also be the opposite of hate.)

But the question here is Love and Faith.
Are they the same thing?

They seem to be. Both infect us with a willingness
or even just an inability to resist surrendering our
personal will to some object of desire or wonder.

There comes a comforting and fulfilling release of
basic body chemistry that floods and soothes the
mind and heart when one submits to Love or Faith.

What follows is a (possibly) illusionary state of mind
in which otherwise seemingly trivial incidents, phrases,
looks and actions take on a great importance and the
brain convinces us that these are proof of some pre-
destined, pre-ordained state of grace resulting from
our giving over to an emotional dependence.

Love songs and hymns have the same appeal to the heart.
I have often been surprised to learn that some pop love
ballads are actually hymns of praise and devotion.

Devotion... that's the word I was looking for.
Devotion, compulsion, obsession, fixation...
That's what love and faith have in common.

Right?


~jwf~

Do you really get a "comforting and fulfilling release of basic body chemistry that floods and soothes the mind and heart" with faith?

Must try it some time.

Not with faith per se, but some hymns affect me deeply. Just start playing "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring," and it's hard for me to resist singing along. J. S. Bach has been called "The Fifth Evangelist" because his music expresses such fervent belief.

Roses are red
Violets are violet
The heart is a pump
And love is a chemical imbalance in the brain.

Comte de Dawkins.

Recommendation: Go to "Johnson & Dawkins Star Trek Enterprises" and pick up some Chemical Balance Pills. Take two every four hours until the sensations of faith and love go away.

I have a short list of words that I never use because they have so many definitions that they're confusing, and often lead to talking at cross purposes. One of those words is /faith/. I don't mean to say that no one should use it (of course), or that the word is useless. I'm just saying that it's a word with many meanings, and so it's likely we all have somewhat different pictures in our head, which can lead to a confusing and disjointed conversation. (It may also, of course, lead to interesting insights and connections, and we've never thought that disjointed conversations are necessarily a bad thing on hootoo.)

TRiG.

Love… what the H is it? [rhetorical question]

If faith has many meanings, Love seems to me to many more.
The meaning of Love, especially in English, has been thoroughly corrupted by way too many poets. Then there is innuendo. Now, add to that idea that where I live it is a rather pervasive custom to say things with multiple meanings, i.e., double and triple entendres.

The word “love” gets a major dose of all of these treatments.

The Greeks used different words, all of which we translate to love.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love


AE

"Do you really get a "comforting and fulfilling release of basic body chemistry that floods and soothes the mind and heart" with faith?

Must try it some time."

My mother kept asking me to try it a bit less...

Lots of interesting responses so far.


Last night I tried to tackle the definitions
of Love and Faith with lots of examples and
went off on a bit of tangent about Belief and
Trust trying to explain how they all involve
some neuro-chemical change that suppresses
Doubt and Fear.

But the site went down and I lost it.

I'm still getting strange 'the disc is full'
and 'event object not discovered' messages
when I try to preview, post or open other
pages in Alabaster.

That is to say, I don't Trust or have Faith
that my efforts will not be sent into oblivion.
I have Doubt and Fear. But I still Love h2g2.

Hopefully, I can get into this again later.


~jwf~

OK... I can't really immerse myself in recreating the lost post
but let me offer up the popular notion that young lovers seem
to be enveloped in a mystic state of grace where all things
contrive to be a confirmation of their love.

Take for example the idea that 'they were meant for each other'
which seems to suggest some higher order, some external working
of the cosmos that predestines and predetermines partnerships.

Rationality might deny this, but experience is a different thing
altogether. It's as if the 'chemistry' involved in mating rituals
also distorts perceptions of reality such that the very laws
of physics and nature seem bent to accommodate 'true love'.


~jwf~