While working on yesterday’s blog, I again wondered whether Love qualifies as a belief system, next to Money, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Science and the Truth. Later that evening I saw young Polish men eager to enlist in the Polish army to defend their beloved country against their increasingly aggressive eastern neighbour, Russia.
There is no doubt that Love may make you do things which are not considered rational, including the ultimate human response. Love is a difficult topic as we use this word to describe very different feelings such as love for animals, country, family, food, God, kids, lover, parents, your romantic love, and even objects like cars or houses. Often we mean ‘like’ when we use ‘love’. Loving something is just a stronger version of ‘liking’ something. It’s a similar phenomenon to job title inflation.
Even when we separate the (strong) likes (i.e., animals, food, objects) then we still retain a large variety (i.e., country, God, kids, lover, parents, your romantic love). We could then eliminate some others like lover (lust and temporary) and parents (caring). The remaining ones (i.e., country, God, kids, your romantic love) are becoming interesting. Two of the remaining 4 items are already covered in other belief systems being Politics (country) and Religion (God).
The last 2 items (i.e., kids and your romantic love) deserve a separate belief system, Love, as both are reasons for which people are willing to kill for and to die for. Latter is the decisive criterion I have been using for defining belief systems.
The above then leads to the following diagram which suggests that there is a difference in emotional love (brain) and rational love (mind/thoughts). I feel that rational love (country/Politics) may well be of a temporary nature while emotional love is of a structural long-term nature.
I cannot recall why I omitted Love in my earlier March 12, 14, 16, 17 and 20 blogs on Belief systems other than that I assumed it was already covered in the existing Politics and Religion boxes. I was wrong. Love is clearly a separate 7th Belief system as Love is worth killing and – more relevant – dying for.
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