Hate is an emotion as is love, hunger, thirst and desire. We satisfy love by being close to our love object. We satisfy hunger, thirst and desire by eating, drinking and attaining what we desire, but hate is different. There is no easy way to satisfy it. It is within us, and the object of our hate may not be the cause of our hate. Our hate may be the result of our condition in this world. It may be the expression of our inadequacy, our poverty, our loneliness or many other causes we can do little or nothing about. We seek scapegoats on whom to blame our problems. The scapegoats may have nothing to do with our problems, but we can hate the scapegoat. A classic way for rulers to deal with a restless population is to direct their attention to a scapegoat. Muslims, Jews and any people with race, religion, politics and nationality different from us will do as a scapegoat. We can be manipulated to forget our problems by hating a scapegoat. We may not even need to be directed to a scapegoat. Our society may already have selected scapegoats for us. Our religion may do it for us. We may hate those of a different religion or none. We may think our religion is so obviously true that those who don’t accept our religion are evil and denying the truth. Religion can be a great source for hate.

How do we deal with the hate directed at a scapegoat? We can realize the reasons for our dissatisfaction with the world. We can learn to separate our problems into those we can do something about and those we can do nothing about. We can learn to accept those problems we can do nothing about and simply live with them. We can accept ourselves and our place in the world. We can join with other people and deal with problems we can do something about.

Examine yourself. If you hate a scapegoat dismiss that hate and deal with what is really bothering you.

Tuesday, 30 October 2018 1:28:28 AM
You have no need for sleep?

//'Although in the torture chambers of the Inquistion, on the pyres and gallows of witch-hunters, during various pogroms and crusades, there have been plenty deaths whose cause can be directly attributed to 'over-zealous redemption'.//

//At least you acknowledge we have a moral conscience//

Jesus, runner, do you really think that burning little old ladies and torturing Jews to death is indicative of a moral conscience? Or are you just seeking attention by trying to shock people?

NNN What is sleep? some criticism of my views in posting this thread, withdrawn but still stalling me.
Has made my last few posts bland.
Highlighting hate, reasons and who hates, how we can stop it, was always going to be part of my thoughts here.
So here go,s Islam, it has haters, even dating back to the Crusades!
Some of us hate that faith, and all its people, blindly.
If it was your task, you, to stop the hate in our country how would you do it?
First dig a hole in the back yard make it deep and bury any thought of POLITICAL CORRECTNESS being involved, we are seeking a resolution not more pain.
I would ask that western clothing be warn at all times, no Burka, ever in this country.
And re-enforce laws about hate crimes in relation to both sides belief.
Perhaps talk openly about what would happen to westerners in the country they came from if we dressed to disturb.
Is hate ever changing any thing for the better.
Is it worth while for both sides to give ground rather than hate?

There is an avenue for hate when believers identify themselves with the god and the god with the nation. The heads of Russia , Britain and Vatican have holy politics with that extra power from above( Iran Israel Tibet Thailand Cambodia etc). Suicide bombers are holy judges. Hitler had Nazi Christmas. The UN flag has olive branches from Biblical flood and the dove as does US eagle with godly $ notes In god we trust.

Belly wrote:

"I would ask that western clothing be warn at all times, no Burka, ever in this country."

Some nuns wear garments different from that of other women. Some Hassidic Jews wear garments appropriate in Poland several centuries ago with large cylindrical hats. Would your ban on non-western clothing apply to them?

NNS Wrote:

"However I think we should do our part. To redeem people to God, and to redeem people from their suffering. After all at the end of 3 of the gospels (Mathew, Mark, and Luke), there is a last command from Jesus to the disciples to go and spread the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven throughout the world. That great commission sounds like for us to do our part in redeeming the world so that people can know to come to God."

The above is the kneejerk suggestion of the Fundamentalist. Send out the missionaries! Get everybody to believe in the same superstition they believe. For many people the good news of Christianity was very bad news such as the millions of native people who were enslaved and murdered, the Jews who were massacred and the Christians of a different brand of Christianity who were also slaughtered. . Bringing the Bible to the land often meant native people having the Bible and Christians having the land. There was a time when almost all Europe was Christian and those wise enough to question kept quiet or got sent to the torture chambers of the Inquisition or burnt at the stake. That time was the Dark Ages. Do we want those times back?

Democratic countries have separation of state and religion to a greater or lesser degree. Toni Lavis and nicknamenick have pointed out the toxic consequences of the union of state and religion..

We generally follow the words of Thomas Jefferson: “But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

Let us be as wise as Jefferson