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Love is willing the good of the other because they are made in the image and likeness of God as are we all, according to Thomas Aquinas.

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I have always found love to be synonymous with gravity, amorphous, just plain hard to describe, but when smitten, I would say you have a better chance of jumping off of earth.

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A couple of thoughts about “love”:

Firstly, I have never thought it wise to refer to Lust as Love. Love has been given the barn door. It’s definition is too wide IMO.

Secondly, I believe the statement “You must love yourself before you can love others” is a half truth at best. It must be qualified. You could just as easily say “You must have the capacity to love others before you can truly love yourself”. Pure, unalloyed self-love is a symptom of evil. It is narcissism.

Why are there so many definitions of love that do not, on close examination, share the same characteristics, however we insist on using the same word?

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It's certainly a problem with the english language...we use the word so casually for our favorite foods as well the most important people in our lives. Same with the word 'friend' - it's interesting to realise that if we don't have the words for distinctions, then it's very hard for us to see them...

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Yes

I think the Greeks got it right by assigning all the different words for the various “loves”. If I were to take all of their love words and categorize them under one heading, I wouldn’t use the word love today. The problem is not the word, it’s the etymological evolution of it not as a categorical word, but as a word with a single and culturally skewed connotation. For all of the Greek words I might pick a categorical heading like ‘Relational Feelings’ although that could be greatly improved upon I’m sure. In other words, keep the separate words. Never try and lump them together in one word

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concur! Though perhaps we would have lost so much art and comedy that has been based on the common misunderstandings that occur with the over simplification of the term love... Just imagine how much confusion could have been cleared up in Austen's novels or Shakespeare's plays if there was a precise word for a precise situation!

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Perhaps at its simplest it is the absence of fear and an affirmation of the mystery of life…..

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Lincoln from his ascendance to the presidency worked to end the war, and to rebuild a better country until his death. Lincoln even pardoned many young Confederate soldiers. At the same time, Union prisoners that were not exchanged, risked their being held at Andersonville.

Lincoln met with Grant and Sherman specifically to seek a way to avoid more battles. Even some Confederate legislators tried to make a treaty without success.

True, ending the war earlier would have had other benefits than winning a few more Union battles but that was not to be.

Depicting Lincoln as a criminal, or a warmonger is improper. Lincoln is in most historians credited as being the best president

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One of the greatest sources of what is Love, that I have read, comes from Plato's Dialogue of the Symposium. There are the common answers people give, and those of Aristophanes. But most importantly the answer Socrates gave, shedding a whole new light on the subject.

I recently wrote about it. I don't fancy myself an author, but love to share ideas that are profound such as this:

https://open.substack.com/pub/warrenbaxter/p/the-myth-of-love?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=pg6fv

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