What is the point of living without hate?

Soothfish said:

I will have the opportunity to fulfill my purpose once the enemy is no longer standing in the way. My future children will also get to grow up in freedom and health once the enemy is crushed. Nothing in this world is possible until they are isolated and left to their own devices. As long as they have control over my life, I can't do much.

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The problem is: we of our own free will join satan and fight against God so our enemy to begin with is God himself. God is trying to sell us on the idea of unconditional unselfish undeserving type Love and we want a selfish carnal type of love (wanting people to love us for whom they perceive we are and not in spite who we really are).

All we have to do is quit fighting, wimp out, give up and be one of those that surrendered to his enemy.

Soothfish said:

That sounds completely insane. We have an entire generation going to hell because no Christian has the courage to stand up to the lying criminals who lead them astray. Now you are saying that we need to become even MORE USELESS??!!!

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Soothfish, you're a man after my own heart.

Love is the only weapon that will ultimately win. You're too focused on this temporary, corrupt world.

Soothfish said:

I do not understand why Christians are ordered to love their enemies and to not hate.

Without hate what is the point?

The only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is the hope of one day crushing my enemies with absolute merciless brutality. Spiritual love seems to be a completely useless exercise intended to make the participant feel good. It has never overcame anything. It is apparently so weak that it exists only in the metaphysical nature of Christ's death. In reality it seems to be for 'martyrs' who die for brownie points in paradise. They also get eliminated alongside the rest of their families as evil multiplies and takes their space in the gene pool. Life is merciless so why do we show mercy?!

In the meantime, the world is filled to the brim with evil monsters who exist to snuff out the helpless. At one point they may have been human but now they are irredeemably evil. The enemy responds only to swift justice and overwhelming unrelenting force. They understand no other language.

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Bless yer heart, i can relate, and did you know that at least two of Jesus' disciples had anger issues? Jesus called them "sons of thunder"....

I have struggled with the exact thing you mention...and i have wrestled with God about it, I hated injustice, cruelty and all manner of brutality, especially against those who could not speak for or defend themselves. I wanted to zap the perpetrators to kingdom come RIGHT THEN AND THERE.

What i have come to realize is that we ALL have some of what i was despising inside to one degree or another, and what is sooooo sorely needed is...

wait for it...

forgiveness.

It sets us ALL free.

Read up on the story of Corrie Ten Boom and the German official who was brutally and inhumanely cruel in so many ways to Corrie's very frail sister, who died.

In the meantime, KNOW that i understand where you are coming from.

Harry3142 said:

Clinical psychologists and psychiatrists have known for decades that those who feed on hatred in nearly every case do not harm the ones they have chosen to hate. Instead, they destroy themselves. It's seen by the doctors as one of the most harmful negative emotions, ultimately bringing misery, and even physical illness, to the ones who harbor it.

The people whom they hate are not affected; they go about their business as if the person who hates them didn't even exist. So the hatred is left to fester inside the person possessing it, until its infection causes him to lash out at someone who actually deserves his love and respect.

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In general, I would agree.

There are many walking around with quite a bit of hate built up inside (both believers and non believers) and in fact, everyone experiences the emotion of hate every now and then, the difference is, how you deal with it.

To me, the folks that hold onto the hate are the one's who don't take accountability for their life and assign blame instead. Sure, there are bad people out there and you may have been the victim of their behavior, but you have to be able to move on.

bhsmte said:

In general, I would agree.

There are many walking around with quite a bit of hate built up inside (both believers and non believers) and in fact, everyone experiences the emotion of hate every now and then, the difference is, how you deal with it.

To me, the folks that hold onto the hate are the one's who don't take accountability for their life and assign blame instead. Sure, there are bad people out there and you may have been the victim of their behavior, but you have to be able to move on.

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yes, but it's kinda hard to move on.....lots of woundings and pain, in layers.....that fester....

Soothfish said:

That sounds completely insane. We have an entire generation going to hell because no Christian has the courage to stand up to the lying criminals who lead them astray. Now you are saying that we need to become even MORE USELESS??!!!

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We start out fighting God and we have joined ourselves to satan. We just have to surrender to our enemy God and God will shower us with gifts.

I struggle with what you're talking about too. It seems like Christianity just enables cruelty while allowing Christians to just be slaughtered.

Romans 8:36
English Standard Version
As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”


I think the idea is that through your own kindness and love you eventually convert your enemies to also be loving and kind through Christ. but when that doesn't work, yeah, you get wiped out like what happens to christians that get mowed down for God. but you have to consider people on the other side that are on the side of your enemies. They don't see how your enemy wrongs you, they see how you have wronged your enemy. I believe in getting justice according to the law, which is why you follow the laws of the land, unless it's like the Holocaust or something.

Hebrews 13:17
17Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

The thing about justice is, I think God expects us to go and get it, but not revenge. Justice is maybe petititoning for new laws and going to court.

Matthew 23:23
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices-mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law-justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

I think the passage implies that justice is the responsibility of the rulers, but in america we're all citizens, so it's everyone's responsibility, and people kind of expect you to stick up for yourself.

I think also people are supposed to pray for justice, but understand that ultimate justice will be served by God in the afterlife.

Luke 18:1-8

New International Version (NIV)

The Parable of the Persistent Widow

18 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”


I don't believe in revenge. If the law says it's fine, then just pray for justice. The problem with hate is that it is the opposite of God.



It's kind of like has already been said here. We're all fallen, so we're called to forgive so that we can be forgiven.



You say your reason for living is hatred and getting revenge. What happens when your satisfied? Will you just commit suicide? Can't you find a reason to live for based on love, like loving your family?


also, christianity spreads best in my opinion by showing love for your enemies, not hate, and you want everyone to be christian so that everyone is saved.

you know, the funny thing is, most people genuinely believe they're the good guy and that they're not going to hell.

Soothfish said:

I do not understand why Christians are ordered to love their enemies and to not hate.

Without hate what is the point?

The only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is the hope of one day crushing my enemies with absolute merciless brutality. Spiritual love seems to be a completely useless exercise intended to make the participant feel good. It has never overcame anything. It is apparently so weak that it exists only in the metaphysical nature of Christ's death. In reality it seems to be for 'martyrs' who die for brownie points in paradise. They also get eliminated alongside the rest of their families as evil multiplies and takes their space in the gene pool. Life is merciless so why do we show mercy?!

In the meantime, the world is filled to the brim with evil monsters who exist to snuff out the helpless. At one point they may have been human but now they are irredeemably evil. The enemy responds only to swift justice and overwhelming unrelenting force. They understand no other language.

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First off Christians are not "ordered" to love our enemies or our brothers because one cannot force one to love or be loved it is something that is given. The Father gives us his love which we give to other people that is how Christians love people because as 1 John 4:8 says God is love. To hate another person is to not only bring poison upon them, but also on yourself. Hate literally destroys the soul, and causes people to do things that they regret later in life, and it empowers the enemy to work in that persons life, and bring nothing but destruction to that person, and the people that he knows.

For example Satan, and all of the demons or fallen angels don't love one another at all if anything Satan hates every single one of his followers, and they hate him back! What kind of relationship is this? I would rather live a life of love, and mercy, and justice since this is what the Lord delights in, and as his child I choose to delight in these things as well.

Soothfish said:

So the victim is to blame for what the perp did? That sounds like what you are saying.

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Never, dear one (((hug)))

Soothfish said:

I do not understand why Christians are ordered to love their enemies and to not hate.

Without hate what is the point?

The only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is the hope of one day crushing my enemies with absolute merciless brutality. Spiritual love seems to be a completely useless exercise intended to make the participant feel good. It has never overcame anything. It is apparently so weak that it exists only in the metaphysical nature of Christ's death. In reality it seems to be for 'martyrs' who die for brownie points in paradise. They also get eliminated alongside the rest of their families as evil multiplies and takes their space in the gene pool. Life is merciless so why do we show mercy?!

In the meantime, the world is filled to the brim with evil monsters who exist to snuff out the helpless. At one point they may have been human but now they are irredeemably evil. The enemy responds only to swift justice and overwhelming unrelenting force. They understand no other language.

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This is a very disturbing message and it sounds like you have currently made a choice to be motivated by hatred instead of seeing the nobility, courage, and strength it takes to choose love. I can only hope that it is a temporary condition.

i'm sooooooo sorry. i understand rage, and it is a wall, a fortress, if you will that one builds. At the root of it is inexplicable pain and wounding. My heart goes out to you. ((((hug))))

Soothfish said:

well i'm working on completely eliminating all emotion from myself, including loving feelings. Once that process is completed then there will be nothing but the necessary functionality. Hatred is the product of love that is not constrained by hope and faith.

As long as I am capable of feeling for others, then there will be intense hatred within myself.

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That is a concept of Buddhism, that all emotions are bad and needs to be discarded. And there are actually Buddhist that is doing that, but the result is they act like "dead branches/burned out ashes".

The actual Buddhist teaching is more inline with level yourself up so the emotions are beyond you. If you are just trying to eliminating all your feelings, you are killing your real self bit by bit, and will eventually be a living dead.

Hatred is not a product of love, hatred is a product of selfish human love. To archive the goal of make emotions beyond you (i.e. love your enemies), it is not enough to suppress the hatred, it is necessary to have love so abundant that your enemies are beyond you to hate.

Soothfish said:

The problem is that God does absolutely nothing. He does not stop evil nor does he give his followers any power to stand against it. We are just supposed to spend 80 years on this Earth waiting to die and watching those around us lose both body and soul??!!! We are to pray for God to help us be ok with reality the way it is? To not care and to do nothing?! Only cowards can go to heaven?! You are right when you say that it makes no sense....

Life itself appears to be the purest expression of God's contempt for us!

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The bravest men on any battlefield have been Christians, the people who face death and imprisonment for their faith are not cowards. Cowards are people who call others names on anonymous internet sites…..

Lt. Gen. (Ret.) William Boykin, former commander of U.S. Special Forces Command is now the head of Family Research Center… go tell him he's a coward.

Wherever the gospel has gone throughout history people died to bring it and when those countries allowed it or accepted it, hospitals were built, schools founded, Democracies grew…. wherever it has been rejected… well look at the Middle East. China now has more Christians then the USA has people, and you wonder why they are becoming a super power. No I don't believe the Lord cares all that much about what government we choose, its just that where the Love of God grows, people are allowed to grow too.
Follow the gospel through first the Middle East (when it was a great empire of many of the greatest inventions were found, then through Europe, Upper Asia, the Americas, now China and Africa as they become civilized. As nations reject God, Soviet Union, N.Korea compared to S.Korea/ W.Germany compared to E.Germany… notice the differences? and of course the Middle east from world power to third world suffering… and in its midst Israel… "can a nation be born in a day" the scriptures say… and it blooms. Over 50% of all Nobel Prizes have gone to Jewish inventors, they may not have accepted Christ but they have respected religion. And God's hand still rests on them even as it was foretold 3000 years ago - how they would be hated among all nations. Go figure??
Yes there are some secular countries that have down well but they did not reject the gospel, they just didn't take i t to heart. Like Iceland. Japan. But there was freedom.
Where freedom of religion reigns, there is freedom for all… no not perfect but better. Perfect comes when Jesus returns….

And hate never hurts the people that are the targets of hate it hurts the people that do the hating, the object of their hate doesn't suffer, the hater suffers… just look at what the scientific community has found about what stress does… it is stressful to hate. As long as your invested in hating someone - that person is controlling you, not the other way around…. like drinking poison and expecting the other guy to die…. waste of good energy.