Determinism?
I'd say people get upset about the nature of love because they feel that the chemical explanation leads to deterministic perspectives. By some courses, it does.
However, the scientists are addicted to the mystery as well. The scientific method, technically, is quite unnecessary.
Escherichia coli, quite frankly, doesn't give a rip about the scientific method, and it prospers and flourishes.
Humans are compelled toward a mystery.
Science can quantify the processes that determine how you feel, but it cannot quantify how you actually feel. That is entirely subjective, and a mystery unto itself. To ask why I feel a certain way, at some point, becomes as empty an issue as why humans exist.
Think of science and art.
Science can quantify much about sound. But it can't reproduce it quite right. A properly-made vinyl record with a clean needle and good speakers will sound better than the CD version of the same album. Why? Because the vinyl is broadcasting the soundwaves; the CD is trying to reproduce and translate them. 24-bit sounds good, but there's a long way to go.
There is an analogous value there, but not much else for this discussion.
We can quantify the devices of people's feelings all we want, but until we understand that process ....
If people are addicted to the mystery, what critical element is missing that leaves their psyche so at ease that it seeks surrogate comfort?
Is it really a phenomenon restricted to theistic religious belief?
Ever met a New York Yankees fan? Generally speaking, they're intolerable bastards. But think about college and pro sports. There's much there that is religious, and it often looks much like a religion.
Hell, Safeco Field in September--it truly looks like a House of the Holy. Few things in the world tweak my mindset as quickly as a beautiful evening, late in the summer, when the light hangs in the air and the players glow larger than life. Hearts break, souls are mended, and there is a full complement of factions; there are the seriously-intellectual, the statisticians; there are the fairweather fans, in Christianity we would call them "Sunday" or "Holiday" Christians; there are the fundamentalists, who cuss at and spill beer on children. And then there is the poisoned scourge of the Earth; we call them Yankee fans.
Sounds a little like religion to me.
Should I delve into politics for illustration?
An idea I can't quite get to sit still: there's something odd about the atheistic rejection of religion. It really does seem to be the labels that bug them. People are happy to go through the same processes, they just don't want to do it for God.
This is well and fine, but it really does sound like people are focusing too much on labels and not on substance.
It's
Hockey Night in Canada! and you can even get the
hymnal.
A question for Canadians ... what day of the week is Hockey Night? I thought it was Wednesday, but that would be way too convenient for me if it was.
thanx,
Tiassa