Atheist Meditations

Towards the end of the eleventh century, Andreas Cappellanus wrote his treatise on Love and what it means for a man to serve in Cupid's Army. Our society has changed a bit since the 1100's. Also, discerning the lean wisdom from the fat of sarcasm can be almost impossible when the written word is seperated from us by so many years and different cultures. Yet Cappellanus did have wisdom, his insight into 'Courtly Love' can still inspire today. Much of what we consider to be 'Love' came out of the notions of this era - from the sappy love song to the romantic legitimization of jealously. Love became a prize that any man of 'good character' deserves, an emotional state where 'the heart palpitates' and 'the true lover turns pale' at the 'sight of his beloved.' 'A true lover considers nothing good except what he thinks will please his beloved.' 'Marriage is no real excuse for not loving.'

These snippets come from Book Two, where Cappellanus details his thirty-one Rules of Love. His fourth rule, 'It is well known that love is always increasing or decreasing,' has a fascinating sense of fatalism to it. For, in rule nineteen ,'If love diminishes, it quickly fails and rarely revives.' I believe Jack Nicholson said it best, as he often does, in one of his cheesier '80s flicks, 'don't tell me you are falling in love with me, people fall in and out of love all the time. . . '

Thus my romantic world view once again finds itself broadsides to the evangelikal. In their rhetoric, Love should be more than a feeling, it should be a committment. The greatest expression of that committment will be the Sacrament of Marriage, a bond strengthened by divine will to last throughout this life and the next. Your feelings of Love may ebb, but since you are obligated to this contract, a person of good character should ignore those feelings and remain faithful to those obligations.

I disagree. I live my life as an example of my disagreement.

Check this, young males inherit a considerable amount of instinctual drives towards risk taking behavior. We see this displayed every single day in such activities as weaving in and out of traffic in sports cars, violent bravado on and off the sporting fields, heroism in battle and dangerous ambition in gangers. As a portion of the species, we young males were the risk-takers. When something set off alarms in the troupe, a rustling in the brush, the young males would hoot and charge headlong. Successful older males, in examples seen in hundreds of mammal species today, have already staked out the valuable territory - young males often must make their claim in the unpredictable frontier. For damn near every generation going back to Cappellanus - and even much, much, further than that - young males of my social class were invariably conscripted to 'serve' the interests of the ruling class as soilders. Cowardice was quickly bred out of us; risk-takers saved their buddies lives, got promotions, came home and reproduced. Our species rules the planet, and spends billions of dollars a year in casinos, because we have an instinctual need to take risks.

Yet we live in a society that is being constantly sanitized. Every sharp cornor is being rounded down, every workplace altered by a safety code, every surface cleaned with anti-bacterial soap. Our lives are much safer and the prospect of surviving one's twenties to find stable breeding relationships are almost guaranteed to children of the evangelikal classes. For my entire youth I never had to worry about being drafted. I saw no friends crippled by childhood illness. One quondam pal died in a car crash. I think that childhood was great, and I heartily salute the progress of our society towards a falling mortality rate. The impetus for risk taking does not go away, however. Evag children, as well as so many others, are raised with the intention of protecting them from every possible risk. Private schools and parental oversight concerning their friends insulates them from many social risks. They are so far insulated from the risks of war, that combat to them is entertainment on the Xbox.

And now these 'protective nurturers' want to take Love and do the same thing to it. "I don't want my fragile little butterfly of a young man to suffer any pain at all", so we will turn dating into courting, and spend way more of our time glorifying the importance of marital vows than exploring the emotions of Love. They fill these poor kids with stories about STD's and how condoms break every damn time you try to use one, encouraging them to marry as virgins. Xenophobia so severe the Israelites would be proud. Date within your church, their approval is as important as the feelings you experience.

Set aside the fact that this be 2006. Thanks to a feminist atheist, we have contraception that allows for stable sexual relationships where the risk of pregnancy is minimized. Thanks to a multicultural society, we can find partners from the other side of the planet. Thanks to our casual views towards sex, lots of pleasurable experiences are out there waiting for ya. Thanks to modern medicine, women can wait until their early thirties to begin a family - you don't need to get married at nineteen.

Set all that aside, and just think about the emotional value of Love. A lot of romantic love is just made up by creative, emotional people. We sing songs about true love and watch powerful movies where Love conquers all. Sure one can lead a healthy life where committment overrules the emotions, but why? Why not have one area of one's life where risk taking is not constrained by 'better judgement'? Revel in the intoxication of passion and pursuit. Let the agony of rejection hollow out a cave inside your chest. Take risks with Love. For if one is to serve as a brave soilder in Cupid's army, one must follow the orders of one's heart without hesitation.

Indeed, if Love must always be either increasing or decreasing, than once one feels that thy Love for thy partner be deminishing, that is not the time for 'values' or 'committment' to step in. Nay, If something is wrong, fix it. If you cannot - continue seeking.

We all discover sometime in our emotional immaturity, that we have a golden ticket in our hands. Don't miss the rollercoaster.