I’ve always found it weird that man-kind and even God in his living word he gave to us through the bible. Used the heart to describe our emotional core. Its just another muscle, scientifically speaking it has nothing to do with our emotions. Unless you count the chemicals our brain releases when you get your heart rate up for a certain period. I guess it was just God using a concept the cultures of the time could grasp. Yet I still wonder why they saw the heart as our emotional center of our being? Maybe as difficult emotions rise the human heart rate increases?
Maybe in war if you destroyed someone’s heart you destroyed them?
Yet, I’m getting side tracked, I didn’t really start writing this with to specific of a point. So get ready for my roller coster of conclusions that might not all relate. People can be rational, logical Intelligent. A human being can say all the right things, yet it can still seem cold.
Yet, a human being can say all the wrong things and seem charismatic, loving, warm, and caring. Hitler was an excellent speaker. I’ll probably make another post later thats a conclusion and ties most of these thoughts together. I honestly need to do some more research first, but its ok psychology fascinates me. Questions? Comments? Criticism? Hate Mail? All forms are welcome please post, I generally won’t moderate anything away unless it has profane or adult content.
Tags: Christianity, Culture, History, Human Behavior, Rationality
November 19, 2008 at 10:47 am
In some cultures the liver is the emotional core. I do think that we mere humans need metaphor. Such abstract concepts are often easier to understand if we have something tangible to imagine.
As for the heart, in addition to heart rate, I also think its proximity to the lungs, and how much breathing and emotion have to do with one another, might have something to do with that. Also, the heart is symbolic of the “core”. If someone were to stab you in the heart you would die, so when we speak of our heart when tied to emotion we speak of vulnerability, of our center. And our emotions do leave us vulnerable because they often speak to something deeper than our conscious mind will let us think.