Life Without Hatreds

1 John 4:11-12 ~ Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

Pro 8:13 ~ The fear of the LORD [is] to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.

Zec 8:17 ~ And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these [are things] that I hate, saith the LORD.

There is this balance of Love and Hate that a Christian is supposed to perform. I disagree with most of what is said in that post, because I think that most hatred is usually the by-product of sin nature. Most people don't use holy hatred too well. I am not very convincing when I yell, "you brood of vipers," due to logs sticking out of my own eyes...

However, I think that Nietzsche is quite boring. Maybe I should hate him?

Reading him would be a good start.

I think there is a repressed sense of hate, and it all pops out when racists come around. Racists are the only acceptable targets of hatred in most circles.

I agree with Joe in that I think as Christians we are called to focus more on loving than hating. I think true love will produce righteous hate in some circumstances, but is really productive or helpful to dwell on what we should hate? It seems like hate is definitely the more natural of the love/hate package--i.e. it doesn't take much practice to hate something. (On the other hand, righteous hate is definitely a difficult thing to pull off...)

Everyone knows it's hypocritical to say they can't stand people who hate other people. Rather than concluding that the right people to hate are the ones who don't seem to hate anyone, I think it would be good to examine what the common denominator might be.

Everyone wants to be liked, but sometimes hatred seems more gratifying because it is honest. Whether through kindness or through hatred, manipulation is the thing that must be avoided. Maybe loving your enemies is more about allowing them to hate you--the real you that matters--than loving them with the pretend you. I think this is a great discussion, and I hope to hear more thoughts on it.

it would seem far more profitable to worry more about the love and hate in our own hearts than that in others.

Josiah: I've been on a pretty big Nietzschean kick myself lately - as if my recent postings haven't made that abundantly clear - so I feel what you're saying. But while it may not be possible to be a true lover of life without having certain things that one feels strongly negative towards, it is also entirely possible to be possessed of many negative feelings towards various and sundry without actually loving anything. One of my co-workers would seem to be a case in point.

I would dispute your assessment of the source of contemporary suffering. The recent violence in France seems to suggest that the veneer of civilization to which we have grown accustomed is simply that - a veneer - and that only the hairsbreadth of temporary affluence separates Western society from the kind of unpleasantness associated with the Middle Ages. Or, if you will, the 2/3 of the planet not located in North America, Europe, or Japan, which never left the Middle Ages. For majority of the world throughout the majority of history, today being no exception, the primary causes of suffering have been immediate, physical, and microeconomic. Moving economics past the "food is good" stage took thousands of years, and it's still where most of the world tends to operate.

bobw: cue self-righteous one-liner, stage right.

Ryan/Mellow/BobW et. al

In the above post I didn't write anything other than the very first paragraph when I say "hey, this is something a friend wrote."

My hope was for some thoughtful dialogue on this matter, in particular the analysis/rationality of the above post. I suppose that because of the circles I/we touch that I shouldn't be surprised at the cursory nature of most of the responses.

But to Ryan and Courtney, thanks for your thoughts. I'll have more on the subject later.

sorry for the one-liner, and I own up to and apologize for the self-righteous nature of it, although I think it was unintended.

I guess I just dont understand where the good is in analyzing why you dont like someone, especially if you're trying to encourage not liking them, as opposed to working through it. perhaps I got stuck on some of the grating terms of the initial quote (being boring myself, I get offended at being called 'goddamn boring' but I have a well-documented thin skin). maybe I'm one of these non-haters myself, so feel free to dislike and dismiss.

but I'm not big on philosophizing, so I suppose I should just shut up.

I think you need to define "hatred" in order to get a better discussion about it. For instance, in the first point the anonymous author says
"There is a measure of respect for other people involved in a willingness to be blunt about your contempt for them rather than paternally shield them from their inadequacy." I wouldn't call that hatred. If you're saying that it's better for others that you express negative emotions toward them, then you're thinking of the betterment of others, and that has tinges of love in it.
Hatred seems to be very self-motivated, to say the least.

I wrote a response to this post yesterday but circumstance kept me from submitting it. In hindsight I'm glad. Mainly because I believe the original post may not be able to be rationally talked about hear. Mello touches on this with his request for a definition.

While apathy may be a waste of time and be detrimental to progress - hatred as the response is vile before the eyes of the Lord. It is as its core rooted in self-righteousness and pride.

Other tangents of the discussion center on Nietzsche who, though far from boring, preaches a world view so far outside of my own that we could talk about the implications and effects of his teachings for days.

Okay, that was more than I wanted to say, but I'm still figuring this medium out.

the whole "showing your hatred in public" thing in the first item reminded me of something i have been learning recently. i have been learning the differences of temperament in regards to sensitivity. some people cannot bear to be offended or corrected, and i used to think everyone was like that (because that's how I am). there is a connection, though between feeling other's pain and having a very, very hard time feeling one's own... pain, to sensitive people, is a VERY serious matter, and they cope best using denial.

but i have been recently coming to discover something about people who aren't like me via my roommates. it seems like certain types (to completely stereotype here) like sports players, soldiers, and certain personality types aren't as sensitive. they are either used to criticism, like they're expecting it, so they have learned not to take it personally, or it's just their nature. i used to think there was something wrong with me because my brother would make fun of me and then say, "GEE can't you take a joke???" well, i can learn to let certain things roll off my back, but there are other things i cannot even look in the face.