Atheists, is love real?

Love can only exist where god abides. Atheists only know one very simple form of love. They can only love in human terms. To atheists, love is a feeling, it's not a way of life as the bible teaches.

'Love' is basically a word used to describe a shared need between two people to copulate and raise strong offspring that will survive. Strong social support, provided by the family unit, make for emotional and psychological stability. This produces higher odds that offspring will thrive, survive and breed, thus contributing to the survival of the species.

Love is romanticized because the chemicals/hormones involved in this process are incredibly powerful - I call it the 'life force'. It's the most important, tangible part human essence.

The feelings associated with love are real. As another answerer pointed out, love describes a number of complex emotions, from happiness to desire to concern. To me, love is real when your foremost desires involve the happiness of the person you love, regardless of how it makes you feel. When you take selfishness out of the equation as much as possible, love seems to emerge. People sacrifice their lives to save those they love.

So, your comparison is: if love is real, and God is love, then God is real?

Well, the problem with that is it's indicative of an abusive relationship. People who claim to love God are in the relationship for a reward or to avoid punishment. They claim to love God because that justifies in their minds the way they treat themselves and others. How is it love to degrade and avoid other human beings because they have a different belief structure? Would you love another human who tortured and killed people who didn't worship him?

There are arguments that God gave us life, gave us the beauty of nature around us, etc. Ask someone who abused their child if he/she loved the child. They will undoubtedly say yes, and they will give nearly convincing examples of how they did this. Most of the time, other people who haven't witnessed the abuse will agree that this parent loved his child. Just because someone can give life to another does not mean that he or she is loving. A lot of abusers give their victims gifts in order to 'make up' for what they've done, so that they can continue to abuse another day.

Show how God is love without using gifts as examples, including life in heaven (which is another 'gift'), and then we can talk. Otherwise, comparisons like this only work in geometry.

Love and God do not share any commonalities, other than those that people mistakenly ascribe to both. God is non-existence, will love is both an emotion and a mental state. Love can be shown to exists both through brain activity and in electrochemical reactions. God has no evidence, whatsoever.

Love as I understand it derives from need. As humans, we are a gregarious animal - we rely on our society to fulfil our needs, and the existence of society allows each individual to focus on a specific role, rather than having to do everything for ourselves (as, for example, a leopard does). This means that we actually depend for our own survival on other people, so we need to build up a level of trust for those people. To maintain this trust, we develop and improve, and work on relationships with each other, and so develop a personal interest in them. The ultimate relationships we have are those which allow us to pass on our genes. Since raising a child is the most important part of our lives, and the one which requires the highest level of cooperation, it is the one which requires the highest level of trust, and therefore the one which hangs upon, and engenders, the strongest feelings of mutual interest and respect, i.e. love.

Haha Ray, you got owned!

If God is love, then why call God God, why not call God love. Say Love sent his only son or Love is omnipotent.

Because God is not love, you dummy. Love is an emotion and "God" is a fictional character in a book called The Bible. Also in the Oh God! movies and the Almighty movies. And in parodies in the Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, etc.

Learn logic before you try to debate, you just made a fool of yourself.

Love is something I'm sure the majority of us have experienced but it has nothing to do with God! Just because we are Atheists it does not mean we cannot love something, we do not need to believe in God to experience these feelings!

Love is a hard thing to explain to anyone, you just gotta experience it for yourself!

Here we go again! Another Christian states we are lesser than them for being Atheists! That our love isn't on the same level as theirs! Jeez get over yourself, we are all on the same level on this earth and no-one is better than anyone!

"God is love" is a belief about your god. It is not a statement that love cannot exist without your god. It is not proof that your god really is the definition of love. It is not an argument for belief in your god.

is this a real question?

whats 'god is love' doing there?

its got no place in such a question and makes your question look like you are not actaully wanting any answers, you just want to make a statement about god

love is real, of course, its biology, and biology is real

there is plenty of studied evidence of biology and the chemicals and functions that cause us too feel and react when we 'love'

theres no lack of evidence for biology or the reactions and effects when we love

they are all measurable, and have been measured and studied

Love is an emotion, an idea. It does not have mass or energy because it is a thought, not a physical object or force. Since it is an idea, a concept, merely speaking of it or thinking about it is proof of its existence. Saying that there is no proof of the existence of love is like saying there is no proof of the existence of happiness, sadness, education, atheism, or belief.