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Comment by LB232323 | Hacker News Reader

It is really a revelation that love is what makes life meaningful?

There is a sweet naivete to a study like this, it invites compassion.

Analyzing happiness with this cold academic rigor is just absurd, it is like a depressed species of alien studying our planet to figure out why people have happy lives. "Is it genes?" the cold, analytical mind ponders. It is kind of funny, yet it is tragic, and so it invites a response.

Yes, love makes life worth living. Not just relationships, but love, in its many varied forms. If you are reading this, I love you. To Ivy League scientists and their objects of study, I love you as well. You see, God is love, this is a simple truth found in scripture. Surround yourself in love at all times, and you will lead a life that is satisfying and resplendent in joy.

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> It is really a revelation that love is what makes life meaningful?

It does not intends to be a revelation. A study can prove what everyone always believed all along. People believe all kind of things, some are true some are false. A properly designed study shines a dispassionate light at facts in a way which can show if the common belief was false or not.

> Analyzing happiness with this cold academic rigor is just absurd,

You are entitled to think that. The history of humankind is full of people being dead sure of themselves while also being wrong. This is why it's worth to check our assumptions in a dispassionate way. Especially the things we are sure about.

> it is like a depressed species of alien studying our planet to figure out why people have happy lives.

That is your projection. One can be full of joy, happiness, and love while still applying logic and dispassionate reasoning to study a question.

“Love” is not a singular concept, the word refers to a whole lot of different things, and it’s also different from happiness and longevity (what the study measured). The article also doesn’t mention meaningfulness. What you wrote therefore seems like a non sequitur.

> Yes, love makes life worth living. Not just relationships, but love, in its many varied forms. If you are reading this, I love you. To Ivy League scientists and their objects of study, I love you as well.

Well, the point is, not all love is equal and some love is greater than others. At that point, it's up to you to prioritize accordingly since love requires energy and we all have finite energy.

You see, I don't believe in God at all. And I think religion is generally more harmful than helpful. And yet... while the study was kind of boring, and most of the comments here too, there is something in your comment that touched me very much. You put a smile on my face after another difficult day. Thank you.

> It is really a revelation that love is what makes life meaningful?

Yes. The original researchers considered all kinds of things that might correlate to long term health and happiness. They did not consider quality of relationships as one of them.

>You see, God is love, this is a simple truth found in scripture

I have read my fair share of traditional religious scripture and I haven't concluded this at all from the text. I've found what they call "God" to be at times a very spiteful, cruel, and unloving entity. If this is what "love" means in these texts, I don't want to have anything to do with it.

> God is love, this is a simple truth found in scripture

I'm not sure which scripture you are talking about. If you are talking about the Abrahamic line of scripture, you can find anything you want, as Shakespeare famously said. Because you are apparently a good person, you focus on the positive aspects of the message, and that is great.

But there are people who focus on different parts of the scripture, or interpret the same passages in a different way, that lead to injustice and suffering. The fact that there are so many religious denominations reading the same documents but coming to different understandings shows that this message is anything but simple.

Famously, the Torah describes God's special relationship with his chosen people. Many people love to take excerpts from this as God's universal truths, but in fact these were only for the Jewish people. God had no problem commanding them to commit rape and genocide against out-groups. The claim that "God is love" is true only if you erase large parts of that document, or redefine "love" to be whatever God has commanded there.

>these were only for the Jewish people. God had no problem commanding them to commit rape and genocide against out-groups.

..and when exactly did God command Jewish people to rape? This comment is very strange

I'm not one to memorize Bible passages, but I believe there are a few places where the Israelite were told to lay waste to other tribes, though they could keep the virgins for themselves.

This is the first I found via google, I'm sure you can find more:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers+31%3A7-...

“Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

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