Is hating people wrong?

[Achichem]

I asked this in another thread but it deserves more in depth discussion.


So many people of all different religions feel that to “hate” a person is wrong and even “evil”.

But I don’t see this, and my religion teaches that to feel “hate” towards a person is right and good. It teaches that “hate” is an important emotion, which if used correctly is an asset to ones life.

Let me start off by respond to common phrases I have heard on the subject:
“No good can come from hate”

That to me is wrong, take for example if another “Hitler” came to power, if I didn’t feel hate toward him I would do nothing to stop him, because I would have no drive to stop him. If I don’t use hate to tell me when I think someone is amiss, and then what do I use?


For example let say:
“Hate the actions not the person”
I as a person involved in the political scene have seen many people who hate a leaders actions but not him. This put them to yes stop him, but they are unwilling to do all that is necessary to get rid of him. For example after using a “war measures act” to get reside of a leader becomes much more difficult, people would then for the most part just refuse to take part vs. do something to stop the source of these atrocities.


Now let take another misconception (IMO) about hate:
“If you hate a person you will treat that personal unkindly”
Why? I treat people I hate with compassion, kindness, mercy…Those choice of action to me have nothing to do with a feeling of hate or love.


For example:
Can you love someone and still hurt them? Well most everyone say yes, because the actions that hurt people are as destructive to people are separate feelings. Compassion, kindness, mercy, ect. do not come from our love, but a feeling of compassion, kidness, mercy, ect. or at least in me that the way it works.

Or for another example,
How many of you have hated someone at one time and then loved that same person at another? I know I have.

Now, Clearly I didn’t go doing evil acts to them well I hated them or “good” acts when I didn’t. Now I did good and bad acts when I hated them and good or bad act when I loved them, see separate.

The only time it seems when these extreme feelings such as love and hate become problem some is when you become drunken with them. Everyone knows the best way to avoided becoming a drunker is a thing called balance and responsible use. This is the same way I look at hate and love.

To deny oneself hate in my mind, or to repress the fact that it has a use in your life, is to let any touch of anger make you do “evil”. By understanding and accepting hate as part of your self it in my opinion that you can do more good in hate then drunkard of repress, unclear and trained raw emotion that cannot be under your own self control.

It is also in my opinion that this hate phobia is behind a lot of the problem with today’s society.

Comments? Options? teachings?

 

[Hix]

I dont recall Judaism teaching that hatred towards a person is correct DaTsar, I personally see nothing wrong with it providing you dont let it control you however.

 

[Tangnefedd]

Any religion that teaches that hatred is a good emotion is sadly lacking in some way!

 

[ZaraDurden]

Hatred is not so bad when its directed at injustice.

 

[Soldier_OF_Allah]

well ... according to ma point of view , all religions asked for love and peace but we ppl r the one who created the trait of hating others and this happenned due to many reasons unjustice,disloyalty,dishonesty and there is a new kinda of hatred which we the human beings has made ( to feel envy from something or someone)...
but ya know what ...sometimes i feel that hatred is an innate in all of us .....for example for sure if ur country suddenly became under the occupation for sure ya gonna hate those theives who r stealing the riches of ur country ...but if ya think in this issue more widely u gonna find that we r the one who invented the hatred coz many of us forget the rules of the religions.

 

[Achichem]

Any religion that teaches that hatred is a good emotion is sadly lacking in some way!

why?

 

[Lucubratus]

Comment: I personally think "hate" isn't good for a person's emotions - uses up a lot of energy that can be put to better use.

Option: intense dislike is easier to deal with...lol - and I dont recall any verse in any religion or doctrine I've read that requires us to LIKE everybody. I mean that on a personal level - like actor David Caruso - I can't stand the guy for some reason but I don't hate him. I'd pull over and change his tire or something but I wouldn't ask him out to dinner.

Teachings: Do you mean personal experiences or some religion or philosophy on hate? I confess, never heard about a religion that says its good to hate someone, unless its some passages in the Bible that says to hate the wicked doer - which I think in that context, it would mean to hate their deeds and what their evils are so you don't get sucked into it. "Do not cast your pearls into swine" as it were.


Personal experience: if you're aware of your body and you get a strong emotion like that, which I've had - you can literally feel the pressure building up for a heart attack or something and in what way is that going to effect the person who made me feel like that? Won't effect them much at all.

 

[givethanks]

Comment: I personally think "hate" isn't good for a person's emotions - uses up a lot of energy that can be put to better use.

I totally agree with you on that. i always try my best not to use the word, but "dislike" instead. simply because i dont hate

 

[Gilgamesh]

I totally agree with you on that. i always try my best not to use the word, but "dislike" instead. simply because i dont hate

Actually, when I try to say "dislike" instead of hate, it just doesn't feel right. It's like I haven't gotten all of it off my chest yet, and I could just fix it all by saying, "Man, I hate that."

I'd say there's nothing wrong with hating something as long as you don't take it to any extremes, but then if you can manage to direct your feelings of hatred to something more positive, there is nothing wrong with that, either.

 

[Captain Buky]

How can you hate someone whom your God loves? Yes I know that not everyone here is a Christian, but through the years, I have realized that hate does bring no good (the same with anger). Hate always carries people to far; it will mercilessly consume a person and a person consumed by hate has almost no control over himself/herself whatsoever. Take The Tale of Two Cities for example. Madame Defarge was consumed by hatred and others who had nothing to do with her crime (that was not directly commited to her) suffered greatly that shouldn't have suffered.

A person must be strong and defeat hatred. Giving in to hatred shows a tremendous weakness. I know some people would call someone who loves everyone else a sissy, but it takes much more strength to overcome hatred than to be consumed by it. Even allowing a slight presence of hatred gives fuel for other hatred that will eventually make you a very unpleasant person and a sad representation of whatever religion you are.

You also must realise that most of our problems have come from hatred. To begin with, Satan's hatred led to the fall of man. Someone with hatred seeks his own revenge (rather than justice) and does not consider others. You may not realise it, but as you hate Hitler, you don't care about other people, you don't care about innocents (another reference to Madame Defarge), you easily lower yourself just as low or maybe even lower than the thing you hate, and your hatred spreds, clouding other people and making other people suffer from hatred who shouldn't have (again, only caring about youself). Say if you not only captured someone like Hitler, but you beat him half to death and basically torture him and most likely, the people who may have blindly held him dear will hate and cause more problems rather than just mourn over him (though they may give in to hatred anyway). Hate is evil, it is the Devil, it is just a problem for everyone. Justice is what must be desired, not hate and vengence. Jews, you should know what hatred caused when Jacob's sons exacted revenge for their sister. Well, that's what I have to say.

 

[Captain Buky]

sorry for double posting, but I also must add that I believe it is OK to hate the actions of a person. The practices of a person can be evil, but God loves the person, so we must not hate someone who god loves. Especially, Christians, after seeing what the execution was like in "The Passion" how can you hate someone Jesus went through that stuff for?

Another big problem that comes from hate is racism.

 

[Achichem]

Well I think I have enough answers to begin a reply:



Lets start with you Captain Buky, as you explained your position, thank you.

How can you hate someone whom your God loves?

Simple, I am not God

Yes I know that not everyone here is a Christian, but through the years, I have realized that hate does bring no good (the same with anger).

I would not doubt that as a Christian, who ahs a lot of Christian friends and acquaintances you would have seen such. How many of them think like you? That to hating a person is “evil”? I bet you almost everyone if not everyone, especially considering how wide spread the feeling is.



You see the problem with you (as one who see hate as evil) is that hate becomes to you too strong. This is like wine; if you have grown your entire life with moderate amounts of wine the feeling has little bearing over your actions, yet even a sip to a neophyte can have disastrous results.





Have you ever learned to explored the feeling of “hate” and “anger”? Have you look at when you get it? Reasons behind it? What to do to a person you hate? I have, because my religion (not Judaism Hix, though as I said I still studying and praying hard that I may one day identify more with it) teachings us the purpose of hate and encourages us to look at the hate, it teaches hate and angry are good (in a healthy way of course) it doesn’t teach to hate, only how to hate and that we should not repress or hide from our hate, but take from it and go forward.



I ask you again, if you love someone do you never hurt them? Then why do you assume that if you hate someone you can not show forgiveness, compassion, generosity, patience…these are all separate feeling from those of love and hate…only when you become drunken in rage (or in the case of love, euphoria[you still loss control]) because you do not understand that hate is healthy part of who you are, you (imo) become “evil” with hate.

Hate always carries people to far; it will mercilessly consume a person and a person consumed by hate has almost no control over himself/herself whatsoever.

All people who I know who think like me, have very little rage (what you explained) they accept when they hate someone and act in heightened caution and more keen awareness. I see none loss their top…yet people I have seen who believe it evil (I used to be like this, so I know within my self) always seem to struggle with fits of rage, where they loss control, not because of hate, but because of their own fear to take control and understand the role hate should properly play in our lives. If every time you feel strong hate, your consciousness runs away screaming “evil”, no wonder you feel you are loosing control.

A person must be strong and defeat hatred.

Why? Why can’t you let it be a part of who you are? Hate doesn’t make you kill? Your feeling to kill makes you kill! Hatred toward something or someone only warns you, how you take that input is very much still your choice…IF you let it control you, I would say that’s your conscious running in fear of your anger, because you think its evil…and surely I say don’t kill an because you hate him…but that doesn’t mean love him, that is clearly a reason to why you would feel hate (threatened) by him.

Giving in to hatred shows a tremendous weakness.

It does, why?

I know some people would call someone who loves everyone else a sissy, but it takes much more strength to overcome hatred than to be consumed by it.

Well first I wouldn’t call them a sissy, I would call them naïve



Second, what makes hate consume in your mind? Ask your self, what’s the process?

Even allowing a slight presence of hatred gives fuel for other hatred that will eventually make you a very unpleasant person and a sad representation of whatever religion you are.

LOL, I never met more pleasant people then those I now like me and make true choices about people…nothing was more unpleasant to me then Christian who did as you say…hatered doesn’t fuel bad action, at least not in me…it fuels caution and awareness both which are heighten when I hate someone because that person did something or display something that is a treat.



Hatred never made anyone go raging, what made people go raging is an self inflicted inability to deal with their own emotions. fuelled by theories like “love everyone”.



I treat people I hate with kindness, goodness, generosity….my hate for them doesn’t effect my ability to be a good person, it effect the trust, admiration…. I project to that person.



“No hate is without cause, not to say all causes are fair ones, but that why learning to judge in justice comes first, for only then can we see what hate is in justice and what is not, what is worthy of hate and what is are simply false alarms….”

You also must realise that most of our problems have come from hatred.

Most of our problems come for ignorance, and supposing nature defining things outside their realm of authority.

To begin with, Satan's hatred led to the fall of man. Someone with hatred seeks his own revenge (rather than justice) and does not consider others.

Adversarial forces in mans departure from God is irrelevant to the cause,

Mans naivety is the drive that need to be worked on. Not in realms that are not mans such as “God(s)” but into the self and its ability to live.

You may not realise it, but as you hate Hitler, you don't care about other people, you don't care about innocents (another reference to Madame Defarge), you easily lower yourself just as low or maybe even lower than the thing you hate, and your hatred spreds, clouding other people and making other people suffer from hatred who shouldn't have (again, only caring about youself). Say if you not only captured someone like Hitler, but you beat him half to death and basically torture him and most likely, the people who may have blindly held him dear will hate and cause more problems rather than just mourn over him (though they may give in to hatred anyway).

First, I never said I would beat Hitler, such is immoral and not an act of justice, that would not mean I could sit idle as someone I hate does immorality. Yet, if I love the man and hate his acts in all likelihood I would do nothing and in so would be as guilty as any man.



And who cares if the people who loved Hitler, hated me, in all likelihood I hate them, doesn’t mean we have to be uncivil or unkind to one another, that is your invention of hate. Hate doesn’t demand such things; such are feeling separate from hate.

Hate is evil, it is the Devil, it is just a problem for everyone.

Then call me HaSatan spawn cause guess what, hate is part of me.

Justice is what must be desired, not hate and vengeance.

First of all I never said vengeance was good, vengeance is covered by the high law of halway (vengeance pass over me/this/that) I am not vengeful nor resentful.



Hate is part of justice! Forgiveness is to! It all about balance!

Jews, you should know what hatred caused when Jacob's sons exacted revenge for their sister. Well, that's what I have to say.

I am not a Jew!

Though God bless every one!

Another big problem that comes from hate is racism.

I agree, hate does not help racism and racism is a high “evil” but that has to do with step one:Judge in justice and righteousness

 

[Lucubratus]

DaStar,

Believe it or not, but I can understand your view on it very much; it all makes sense to me. I should note I am not one that follows any form of religion, I have a personal relationship with God. For my own part, I have had what I guess shrinks would call "suppressed rage"....lol...because I have learned to temper myself when it comes to things that would cause a person to hate and possibly come out of control. There are varied degrees of hate and things that are mild-seeming which can lead to hate. Like fear.
I'm just not a person that hates so I really don't understand people like this Defarge woman or Hitler. Just doesn't seem to want to compute...;-) But I think the question others asked about how can you hate someone God loves is quite valid and also ties in with succumbing to hate as being a weakness. In the biblical sense regarding "hating" someone God loves, we're supposed to love those we hate because it sets an example of Christlike behaviour. Did Jesus "hate" the Roman who hammered in the nails? No.
And I think it's much more difficult to love someone you "dislike extrememely"...lol because from personal experience; it takes a LOT more strength and stamina to pull something like that out of you and show it to the person you just can't stand than to give in to the hate thoughts but not act upon them.
Like David Caruso - I can't stand the guy and I think it would take a lot more strength and "verve" to handle having dinner with his yucky face than it would just to fix the tire and take off. lol
So people who can actually manage to love somebody - like Jesus did - man, that takes some guts!

 

[HomeBound]

sorry for double posting, but I also must add that I believe it is OK to hate the actions of a person. The practices of a person can be evil, but God loves the person, so we must not hate someone who god loves. Especially, Christians, after seeing what the execution was like in "The Passion" how can you hate someone Jesus went through that stuff for?

Another big problem that comes from hate is racism.

Considering Christ died for all of us, we shouldn't hate anyone period. I know it may be tough, but it's a commandment from Jesus himself. And it's part of the trial, but in the end, it will be well worth the effort.

You know, a self proclaimed Born Again Christian I work with was telling another person how she didn't like someone because of that persons lies. I turned to her and said "We should love everyone". And she turned to me with such a hateful look on her and said "Just because I love everyone, doesn't mean I have to like em". I just put my head down and said "That's not what Jesus meant"

I come across a lot of Christians with this same type of attitude, and it saddens me. This is not what Jesus taught one bit!

Now before I'm accused of being self righteous, I need to explain.
Part of the condition of being on this Earth is flesh, and wickedness abounds in and around us in this flesh. Hatred is naturally in us, but we are to fight it with all our power, and then some (from the spirit). To say we don't have any hate in us is a lie. But if there is no fight against this flesh, then there is no strengthening of our spirit. Eventually, it will become easier to combat this enemy.

Hatred is here as an opposition to God. Anyone who promotes hatred against anyone, is far from God and won't enter his Kingdom.

 

[Achichem]

Hatred is here as an opposition to God. Anyone who promotes hatred against anyone, is far from God and won't enter his Kingdom.

It is fine with me you do not think I willl enter some magic kingdom, don't worry I very happy to accept what death brings.

But do you have to define God, can't you repect my beliefs even a little, and try and not step right over them.

It is high sin to define God for me, also to speak for God, claim to be God...Now I undertsand its part of your beliefs, but can't you just a little, for mercy sake, refrain when talking with me.

Thank you,
Conrad

 

[Papist]

Jesus said: It is written that you shall love your neighbour and hate your enemies; but I say to you to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

I would tie this in with the promise that nothing can separate us from the love of God -- that being the case, there is nothing our enemies can do to us beyond superficial damage. Whatever they inflict on us, we still have the love and presence of God, and the integrity of our own souls ... given that, why should we hate our enemies?

I am reminded of a bishop being tortured in a concentration camp:

In a small room, the two men were facing each other, one striking the other repeatedly
across the face. The bishop, who had a remarkable threshold for pain, did not respond to
the torture. His silence enraged the officer to such a degree that he hit his victim harder
and harder until, finally, he exploded and shouted at the bishop, “Don’t you know that I
can kill you?” The bishop looked into the eyes of his torturer and said, “Yes, I know—do
what you want—but I have already died.” At that moment, the S.S. officer could no

 

[Lifesaver]

That to me is wrong, take for example if another “Hitler” came to power, if I didn’t feel hate toward him I would do nothing to stop him, because I would have no drive to stop him. If I don’t use hate to tell me when I think someone is amiss, and then what do I use?

Not true at all. Your drive to to stop him comes from the moral outrage of his proposals for society and country, regardless how you feel about him.

Hate is always a destructive feeling. Not even soldiers in the battlefield should hate each other.

As much as someone might be evil, we should hope well for them.

Note, however, that hate and personal dislike are not the same thing.

 

[Captain Buky]

We shouldn't hate a person. We should hate their actions, for their actions make them evil. I am in love with God, and I have found it practically impossible to hate anyone that God loves (that is everyone except for the Devil, the fallen angels, and the demons). I used to be in wrestling and football and believe me, in wrestling, you have to hurt people (things like crossfaces and bending joints to almost dislocated) and I just can't do anything like that anymore. It actually hurts my conscience. If you really think you have hate under control, it'll get you someday. Yes you can let hate tell you when someone is doing something wrong, but don't hate someone because of their actions. Wouldn't you be happier if you saved someone from doing something wrong than if you killed them (hate is equal to killing, for if you hate someone, you aren't hesitant to kill them)? Maybe you haven't ever experienced real hatred because I have, and let me tell you, it dwells in you. You know you want to be better in these situations, but you let hate consume you. If you're alowing hate to warn you, you are noticing and then letting the hate pass, otherwise, you are consumed by it. Whenever someone makes me mad, I try to just stop and silently call on the Lord.

BTW, vengeance is basically hate.

 

[HolyOne33]

I believe that hate is wrong. I follow the Bible b/c I am a Christian! God tells us to love our neighbors. He also says love your enemies. Read Matthew 5:43 & 44. Yes, you can disagree with the way someone acts, and you can try to change their actions and get them to change. But, you are not supposed to hate anyone. You're supposed to love everyone!!!!

Kayla

 

[Spaise]

There is nothing wrong with saying hate. What i think people are missing is what the true feeling of hate is. It is unbearable at times and truly is destructive, how you use your feelings of hate is a whole nother situation. If you use the hate within to better yourself who can fault it.

Its a double edge sword.