Think about all the time, energy, and effort involved with hatred, exclusion, and demonization. All that effort could be used for more constructive things. Instead of basing your life on fear and exclusion, you could instead try inclusion.

Hate, as we all know, is a powerful addiction. It's a habit not easy to break.

But you could stop for one day. Just one day without hate. Find something positive to do for just one day. There are more emotionally satisfying things than hate.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2024 11:16AM by anybody.

You need to be more honest with yourself "Anybody". For example, you don't like so called "Evangelicals" for example and make that clear in a number of your posts. People here also hate the leadership of the Mormon church. I'm not a fan either, but you should admit that to yourself, instead of claiming you don't hate or fear anybody.

You presume wrongly those you disagree with spend their entire lives "hating". That isn't the case, most of them have better things to do with fixating on one issue/thing for most of their time. They'll be going to sports games, listening to music, or spending time with their families among other things. Only a handful are fixated and some will have different worldviews.

Both Mormons and big "E" Evangelicals (not true evangelical Christians like Jimmy Carter) need fear.


If they have nothing to fear, they create something to fear and hate.


Without fear, the house of cards will collapse. Remember Prop. 8?

During my lifetime, from the 1980s until now, there's been a steady stream of new "threats" -- Satanists, Heavy Metal music that would supposedly steal your soul, child care workers at daycare centers, gay people, trans people, secret camps in the desert that would microchip people, now it's secret bases on the Moon with kids stolen from pizza restaurants that harvest their blood and other nonsense.


There are lots of religious groups that have all kinds of beliefs and practices that I probably wouldn't agree with, but they aren't trying to force the rest of the world to be like them no matter if you want to be or not.

I personally wouldn't much care about how the Evangelicals spend their time. But they have been so busy making women, teachers, and librarians miserable that they have forced themselves into our awareness. They do not respect people who believe differently than them.

Agreed. I have better things to do with my time, but the batty Bible thumpers won't leave everyone else alone.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2024 06:01PM by anybody.

anybody Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Agreed. I have better things to do with my time,
> but the batty Bible thumpers won't leave everyone
> else alone.

Sounds like you hate them.

Maybe you haven't found that special someone to direct your hate toward.

bradley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Maybe you haven't found that special someone to
> direct your hate toward.

I love that song by the Smiths:
"if you think peace
Is a common goal
That goes to show
How little you know"

A lot of people seem to get love & hate mixed up. They love to hate others and hate to love themselves.

The best way for you to understand your hatred of others is by doing "shadow work". Until you deal with that, you will suffer from unconscious projection onto others. There are many interpreters, but in this case I advise going back to Jung himself as he was onto something here.

+1

I don't think Jung's shadow concept is "obscurantist nonsense" at all. He described the shadow as the unconscious aspect of our personality which our conscious ego doesn't identify with. So, it's like our hidden or darker side. It can include positive aspects, too, ones that we haven't tapped into or fully acknowledged.

The Jungian shadow can be like the unrefined parts of ourselves that we need to wrestle with and integrate into our consciousness for a more whole, healthier personality. Failing to address those aspects causes many psychological problems. One can see this kind of thing every day. Some people become Creeping Jesuses or Dogooders and try and repress their shadow aspects.

Psycho-dynamics in all its forms (Freud, Jung, etc) has the same efficacy rate as witch doctors on improving mental health outcomes. It is less effective than just sitting in the waiting room for an hour a week (not kidding, real data). Not the intellectual giants their fans would like them to be.


HH =)

What we teach kids in school, is -- you don't have to like each other. No one is forcing you to like or approve of anyone else. But you must be prepared to treat each other with respect, and to work together (and live together as neighbors) as needed.

I'd just like to add that I agree with Anybody: hatred deforms a person and poisons their soul. I know that Anybody is strongly against the nasty wing of the US Evangelical movement, but even in her condemnations, I don't see hate, I see cogently argued reasons for her opposition. And the US Evangelical movement (as seen via the US press, as I'm in Europe) is overflowing with hatred - not cogently argued but filled with vitriol.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2024 07:07PM by Maude.

Hate cures boredom. Raiding the next scout camp and creating a week long rivalry was always great fun.

Sure..., right after we stop people Gossiping.

Well, since Cane and Abel that has been the human condition so I don't think there is a chance in hell of it happening.

I knew as a teen watching "Up with People" that it was useless.

Human nature. Best to navigate with eyes wide open.

Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. (Paul, Romans 12:9)


Hate evil, love good,
And establish justice in the gate!
Perhaps the Lord God of hosts
May be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. (Amos 5:15)

Yeah, just like how Jesus loves everyone except the ones he sends to hell to burn for eternity.

I have to wonder how certain hell-believing Christians can only see one side of Jesus (He loves you!) but in reality, Jesus only liked the ones He could control just like them. Go figure.

Susan I/S nailed it above. Humans have much potential, but they are not benevolent as a whole. All they want to do biologically is screw and kill things.

"from every tribe and language and people and nation"

Whoosh.

If only it was that simple.

OOPS! sorry for the double-click!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/2024 08:01PM by GNPE.

Aren't love and hate just two sides of the same coin? Either way you're totally into whatever you love or hate.

As Bill Hicks said, the choice we really face is between love and fear. See "It's just a ride".

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KgzQuE1pR1w

In politics, what passes for hate is more likely fear. Fear of change, the unknown, or loss of control.

The two key emotions of genocide are disgust and fear. Hate takes emotional investment and is harder to rationalize.

To learn what is evil, an hour is too long.

man I hated. BUT I realized not so long ago that I don't buy into forgiveness. I can "forget"--but making it that simple doesn't work for me. I will never forgive some people in my life including my "husband" completely.

Do I sit around all the time hating those who have caused extreme pain in my life? No. I don't think of them much at all, like the leaders of the church. They are too ridiculous to hate. I don't need to go about forgiving them as the things they did are unforgivable as are some of the things my "husband" did.

My therapist told me last time I went months ago that he is amazed at what I've been able to build out of the mess I was in when I first went to see him, and that the husband and I get along great and that he is doing a lot for his kids and realizes that a lot of what he did damaged them, especially his son. I can't believe how he watches out for our son now. He thought he was going to lose him when he had meningitis and was life flighted to SLC. And it changed their relationship. He's taken the load off me.

Those leaders and the other people who have done things to me aren't worth my energy. I actually don't think about them much unless I come and read here.

Some things do not deserve forgiveness.

However, saying "I forgive you" can be a wonderfully passive-aggressive way of making bastards uncomfortable ;-)

I agree - except when it comes to the McCoys. God ordained hate for them.

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2024/02/08/latest-mormon-land-repent-racists/

"General authority Seventy Christophe G. Giraud-Carrier recently delivered a warning to Latter-day Saint racists: You could lose your temple recommend.

In a November broadcast to lay leaders in the Utah Area, the native Frenchman called attention to “lingering instances of racist attitudes and behaviors” and called out those who foster such bigotry.

“Racism is a violation of the first two great commandments — to love God and to love his children. It is sufficiently serious that it may actually impact our opportunity of worshipping in the House of the Lord,” Giraud-Carrier said. “One of the temple recommend questions indeed asks: ‘Do you support or promote any teachings, practices or doctrine contrary to those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?’”

"“Any of us who has prejudice toward another race needs to repent,” he told Beehive State church leaders. “Racism has no place in the Lord’s kingdom. It must stop, and it must stop now. … It is high time we stop excluding anyone and start including everyone.”

> Giraud-Carrier said.
> “One of the temple recommend questions indeed
> asks: ‘Do you support or promote any teachings,
> practices or doctrine contrary to those of The
> Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
> Saints?’”

So you can now be denied a temple recommend if you reject the Book of Mormon and the Pearl of Great Price or if you take those books seriously.

How do Mormons stop their heads from exploding?

So was Brigham Young speaking as a man when he said mixed race couples should be run through with a javelin, or was that the word of God? OJ wants to know.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2024 10:20PM by bradley.

Perhaps the church can call a black apostle the next time around. You know, set an example.

Tonight I was at an event where a stalker and bully turned up. The tension was thick in the air. I told him what he was and got him 5o leave. Sometimes hate is useful.