Love, Sex, and Chocolate Ice Cream

A conversation with  Blü and subsequent posts on an otherwise useless thread. Quoted in full and in order.  

Apologist:

If you think love and sex are the same thing, I feel sorry for you.

BlüIf you think love and sex aren't connected then I suggest you have a private talk with your parents about where you came from.

I have to agree with the apologist on this issue. 

Scripturally love and sex are two unrelated issues.  Scriptural sex is the means by which men exchange protection and support for bearing his seed, raising his children, and satisfying his lust once a week. 

Love is an emotion reserved for God and occasionally other men, but only once in the bible is it associated with sex and even that is danced around by most Scriptural analysis. (1 Samuel 20:41 KJB)

Love associated with a male-female pair bond is a modern invention, still resisted by most religions as empowering women, although given lip service in modern wedding vows. 

Love associated with a male-female pair bond is a modern invention

Romantic love's a relatively modern notion - the flowery troubadour kind from the 11th century and the bodice-ripping RITA Award kind from the 18th century.

Meanwhile, pair bonding, and the emotions associated with it and with child protection and nurture, are as ancient (and as practical) as can be.

I would suggest that neither the troubadour nor the romantic kind has anything to do with the love discussed in Scripture that El Cid is posting about. 

Also the oxytocin mediated pair bonding for child protection and nurture bears little resemblance to either Scriptural love or courtship love.  Once the husband cleaves unto his wife and forsakes (sort of) all others, the oxytocin kicks in at the birth of the first child and never really lets go.  Particularly where there is little opportunity for the man to stray, which for practical purposes is most non-elite married men.  Scientists are even finding oxytocin bonding in empty nesters long after the fires of love and sex are mere embers. 

For practical purposes in the postmodern post religious world love is such a muddied concept as to be useless in any sense other than the vernacular love for movies or chocolate ice cream.  

Love associated with a male-female pair bond is a modern invention

Romantic love's a relatively modern notion - the flowery troubadour kind from the 11th century and the bodice-ripping RITA Award kind from the 18th century.

Meanwhile, pair bonding, and the emotions associated with it and with child protection and nurture, are as ancient (and as practical) as can be.

But you know that.

love is such a muddied concept as to be useless in any sense other than the vernacular love for movies or chocolate ice cream.

The commercialization of love (movies, TV and magazines, Valentine's Day, Mothers Day, cosmetics, fashions &c) may indeed bring the familiarity that breeds contempt.

But having been in love myself, I can describe what I mean by the term, how I figure it relates to my biochemistry, how much I've enjoyed the trip and why I think it's important.

Or, from another angle, there's some wonderful love poetry out there, not to mention great songs. And how about Rodin's The Kiss? They can resonate with us deep in our human make-up.

Been there, done that several times, many times if you include art.  I just don't call it love.  I have simply internalized Heinlein's "that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own."  I manage to cram in "and welfare" after happiness and it is still a single concept.

More on Living and Dying

A well integrated atheist has a different view of death.  It is a natural result of not being able any longer to continue working on one's legacy which is an atheist's reason for living. There is no fear of consequences, they have already happened.  At any point at need I can and do remember the valuable life lessons taught me by my atheist predecessors which I have passed on to their and my successors.  When I have nothing more to pass on due to pain or infirmity, there is no reason to want to continue.   As a well remembered member of the DA community, Charles Fiterman/Gaius_Caesar, expressed it so well I ask daily what am I doing with my time that justifies the pain and expense and inconvienience to others of going on. When the answer becomes bad enough I will do the right thing.  Not surprisingly he was working on his legacy up until the right thing was necessary.

Recycling Churches

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Don't forget performance spaces and restaurants.  I know of a few churches, still conducting services for a handful of parishioners to keep their tax deduction that are prime concert venues.  Others have revamped their service to appeal to the SNBR and basically are run by a minister, a custodian, and a booking agent.  A trend I highly approve of as an Indie performer. 

Many SNBRs like the Sunday Country Club and will support a church that doesn't demand compliance with doctrine and/or bigotry.  On any Church Street you will find several places where you will feel quite comfortable as an atheist (if you like that kind of stuff and can put up with references to the Greater Being.)  They will even host your Celebration of Life and cater the party afterward at very competitive rates compared to a commercial venue. 

Criminal Justice

I tend to categorize crimes into at least three different categories. 

Victimless crimes: All of which are behavioral issues best treated as "illness."  Society may have valid reasons for prevention, but treatment in secured facilities if necessary is the only humane solution.  

Crimes against other people: Possibly behavioral issues, but society cannot afford not to have severe deterrence penalties.  Up to permanently removing the behavioral issues from the gene pool if possible, and from society if not.  

Crimes against society: Up to and including treason.  Deterrence penalties appropriate to the crime are the only possible solution.  Legislators may argue about "appropriate" but deterrence is the only solution.  Note that the deterrence is a cost benefit issue for the criminal.  Most famously "I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country,"

Community Moral Origins.

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In the cultural and moral history of humanity multiple communities are an almost insignificant part of our heritage.  Certainly not enough to affect the basic moral conditioning we recieve. So for practical purposes the face group of your parents is your community.  It is rare even today for mama's face group to extend beyond the parish, village, etc.  Even dad's community was generally local, the store the smithy, the farm.  So culturally one can be confident that the basic community values are those of mama. 

Multiple communities really began in the 19th Century when the schoolmarm with an out of town education came to influence the children.  Cohesive community morality began the slippery slope to competing community moralities.  We are still just beginning to learn how to deal with them.  Some still don't. 

Is Religion Useful?

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I find fundamentalism to be a victimless crime as long as it stays in the community of fundamentalists.  I am not convinced that bringing a child up to fit into herm community is child abuse if the community is large enough to provide for the needs of all in the community.  In the well connected cosmopolitan society in which they are embedded I suspect that they are non-competitive, but that is their problem not the larger society.  Political proselytizing can and should be discouraged politically, but most societies are able to do so long term.  

Other than political activity I have no issues at all with believers in some supernatural focus for their lives.  It provides a prepackaged social and ethical structure that can be at the very least comforting and satisfying, and relieves them from the difficult activity of making sense of being alive and having to die.  If the great mother Goddess or the misanthropic God takes care of all the spiritual needs one can devote ones attention to the social and material needs of living with greater focus.  

I find deconversion activity is useful for the community, but I suspect that SBNR is the reasonable expectation rather than atheism. 

Terra Nostra

I recently performed Part I of a newly composed Oratorio called Terra Nostra, by Stacy Garrop. 
She selected an interesting collection of creation myths to introduce her Oratorio:   

(KJB) In the beginning, in the beginning,
The earth was without form and void.
God said, Let there be light, and there was light.
...

(India) This universe existed in the shape of Darkness.
Then the divine Svayambhu appeared, dispelling the darkness.
With a thought, he created the waters, and placed his seed in them.
...

(North America) All the earth was flooded with water.
Inkonmi sent animals to dive for dirt at the bottom of the sea,
....

(Egypt) I am he who was formed as Khepri.
When I formed, only I existed.  Everything was formed after me.
Numerous are the forms that came from my mouth.
....

(Walt Whitman) A blade of grass is the journeywork of the stars.
....

The idea of a creator seems universal. From the old myths from around the world to the atheist Whitman.  Science seems to support Whitman as all the elements needed by a blade of grass were created in the early universe stars and novae.

I found it to be an interesting collection of creation myths.

If, as Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land asks:  What if they are all right? Are we the ultimate creators?  Is Ouroboros the right analogy?

Moral Development at Different Levels of Society

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It is important to understand that moral behavior is not necessarily "good" behavior.  Morality is simply the selection of behavior that agrees with the infant's genetic sense of good and bad.  

If a very young child is abandoned and survives, moral actions are those that promote survival.  Society may judge those actions to be dysfunctional and control them but that has nothing to do with moral development.  See Bloom et. al. 

A child brought up by members or a member of an identifiable social group will associate behavior that promotes the welfare of the group with "good" and that which is contrary to the welfare of the group as bad.  The morality so developed may or may not be judged moral by a larger society, but ultimately it seems that compliance with face-group standards is the natural morality of humans.  

Moving up the chain to associations of face groups, either religious or secular, commandments, laws and rules of behavior are established to define minimum standards of behavior that promote the welfare of the larger group.  These commandments, laws and rules are not to be confused with morality, as frequently these commandments, laws and rules will conflict with the genetic sense of what is good and what is bad as it relates to the face group.  The face group at that point may withdraw to the extent possible from the larger group.  See the Amish and other Anabaptist groups who live by their own moral standards ignoring the laws of the larger society except where there is unavoidable conflict. Or they may be forced to withdraw from the larger group as the Native Americans were.  Again, nothing to do with the morality of the larger society, simply rules to make the larger society work. One could make a strong case that the laws of society are by definition immoral as they force compliance with activities that may be against the morals of individuals within the larger society.

Once one gets to the Nation or Religious entity morality is simply treason or heresy.