Hate is Better?

[Fool]

I do not believe that love is essential to exist. Only food, water and sleep are necessary to exist.
Nobody ever died from a lack of love.

so the opposite is hate. infants in all kinds of species would not make it for more than a few hours at best. teenagers might make it for a few days. even adults need the compassion, friendliness of others to exist in a social world.

this isn't rocket science

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I do not believe that love is essential to exist. Only food, water and sleep are necessary to exist.
Nobody ever died from a lack of love.

If you did that to a newborn baby as the only caretaker it would go in effect crazy within a month and if you continue on, it would end a severely and permanently mentally damaged human.

When do you learn to check your thinking and not just take for granted that because you can think it, it must be so. But yes, such a human would exist so you are right.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

I do not believe that love is essential to exist. Only food, water and sleep are necessary to exist.
Nobody ever died from a lack of love.

Love is the cause of existence, described like this.

"Know thou of a certainty that Love is the secret of God's holy Dispensation, the manifestation of the All-Merciful, the fountain of spiritual outpourings. Love is heaven's kindly light, the Holy Spirit's eternal breath that vivifieth the human soul. Love is the cause of God's revelation unto man, the vital bond inherent, in accordance with the divine creation, in the realities of things. Love is the one means that ensureth true felicity both in this world and the next. Love is the light that guideth in darkness, the living link that uniteth God with man, that assureth the progress of every illumined soul. Love is the most great law that ruleth this mighty and heavenly cycle, the unique power that bindeth together the divers elements of this material world, the supreme magnetic force that directeth the movements of the spheres in the celestial realms. Love revealeth with unfailing and limitless power the mysteries latent in the universe. Love is the spirit of life unto the adorned body of mankind, the establisher of true civilization in this mortal world, and the shedder of imperishable glory upon every high-aiming race and nation."

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 27

Yet we can also ponder verses such as this.

"..Live free of love, for its very peace is anguish; Its beginning is pain, its end is death. Peace be upon him who followeth the Right Path!" Bahá’u’lláh, The Seven Valleys, p. 41

I see this verse is explained in these passages.

"Love is a light that never dwelleth in a heart possessed by fear."

"Love is a veil betwixt the lover and the beloved." Bahá’u’lláh, The Four Valleys, p. 60

Regards Tony

 

[TransmutingSoul]

Nobody ever died from a lack of love.

Many people killed by hate based actions may very well disagree.

Regards Tony

 

[Nakosis]

You can train yourself to think creatively no matter what you feel. That is something you learn to do in spite of your feelings, hopefully from childhood. Games might help teach this if you learn to keep playing even when you are losing. Quitting the game is bad training, and if you keep playing and thinking then you might receive a reward. Its hard when you don't think you're winning, but you can keep playing hard.

So then hate or love is not really a factor in the ability to be creative.

 

[Nakosis]

Hate is but the absence of Love. Love is the animating force.

Regards Tony

IMO, people can be animated by hate too.

 

[Yerda]

The absence of love is bad enough; living with hate is like being tortured from the inside.

 

[Nakosis]

Because no one can exist without love. it is necessary for all aspects of life. without it, hate only destroys

Love to me is simply a biological process. Not that I'm against love but it is nothing special. Perhaps necessary for humans because we seldom think rationally. Sometime to motivate us to put something or someone ahead of ourselves.

However hate is also a part of our culture. Most of the stories, movies we watch has some bad guy/evil villain to hate, move the plot along. We love to hate the bad guy. It is in our nature. Neither love nor hate is necessary for existence but it is part of our nature, part of our experience. Yes, hate can be destructive but so can love. It is possible to love someone or something else so much we destroy our self in the process.

Obviously with love or hate, self destruction should be avoided. To put love on a pedestal IMO hides all of the negatives that can come from it.

Love or hate can motivate us but more important is whether we can deal with these motivation rationally or not. To be a victim of our emotions, love or hate, to the point we lose our ability to be rational is not good.

 

[Nakosis]

The absence of love is bad enough; living with hate is like being tortured from the inside.

Well I can understand that if you allow your emotions to control you.
Sure, we get addicted to our emotions. Like any addict, to go too long without our drug of choice can be torture.

 

[Nakosis]

It's usually a positive emotion. That's good.
Yes, hate has its uses, but ─ far more than love usually does ─ it needs to be tempered by reason or you end up a Trump follower, taught to be frightened and vicious without ever quite being able to give sane reasons why.

Well, I'm not a fan of fear but even fear has its uses. IMO, we are mostly not rational beings. Without our emotions it is unlikely we'd survive. They all serve a purpose, keeping us alive.
Maybe some day humans will develop enough rationale to no longer be dependent on our emotion but until then.

 

[Nakosis]

Both are emotions which cloud our judgment.

Which, imo, can cloud our judgement.
I find either can be useful as long as we can rationally remain in control and not lose control to them.

 

[Nakosis]

No, hate eats you from the inside until you are nothing but darkness. Love is the light.

So can love it you let it control you. Any emotion left unchecked can destroy you.

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

Hate exists to warn you against something that threatens you.

I disagree. Warnings are strong but usually quick-passing signals - a fit of fear or rage, perhaps …but hatred?

Hatred is a slow-building, long-lasting, soul-poisoning emotion. It consumes the hater and works as a distorted defence-mechanism against addressing one’s own vulnerabilities, sufferings, losses and pains.

Hatred is frowned upon because it is a form of emotional self-torture that only the hater can free themselves from.

Sometimes hatred will fool you into thinking that its solution lay in revenge. It does not. For the “sweetness” of revenge is most short-lived and once it’s passed, all you are left with is the bitter aftertaste of your pointless attempt to free yourself from it and fail.

The only way to free yourself from the bondage of hatred is by doing precisely what hatred does not permit you to: admitting your innocence (as in trust), your vulnerability, your suffering, losses and pain and allowing yourself to mourn for all that was taken away and all that was broken within …until you can look yourself in the eye and know that despite it having crushed you - you did nothing wrong. Then, the burden is no longer yours to bear, but solely your perpetrator’s to deal with.


Humbly
Hermit

 

[Nakosis]

I disagree. Warnings are strong but usually quick-passing signals - a fit of fear or rage, perhaps …but hatred?

Hatred is a slow-building, long-lasting, soul-poisoning emotion. It consumes the hater and works as a distorted defence-mechanism against addressing one’s own vulnerabilities, sufferings, losses and pains.

Hatred is frowned upon because it is a form of emotional self-torture that only the hater can free themselves from.

Sometimes hatred will fool you into thinking that its solution lay in revenge. It does not. For the “sweetness” of revenge is most short-lived and once it’s passed, all you are left with is the bitter aftertaste of your pointless attempt to free yourself from it and fail.

The only way to free yourself from the bondage of hatred is by doing precisely what hatred does not permit you to: admitting your innocence (as in trust), your vulnerability, your suffering, losses and pain and allowing yourself to mourn for all that was taken away and all that was broken within …until you can look yourself in the eye and know that despite it having crushed you - you did nothing wrong. Then, the burden is no longer yours to bear, but solely your perpetrator’s to deal with.


Humbly
Hermit

I suspect in some circumstances, the same can be said about love.
IMO, it not the love or the hate, it how we let these emotions control us.

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

I suspect in some circumstances, the same can be said about love.
IMO, it not the love or the hate, it how we let these emotions control us.

I like your answer Nakosis; it’s thought-provoking.

I would say that love does non of what I wrote, but sometimes obsession is mistaken for love and obsession, come to think of it, really does!

That is interesting; I’d not thought of that before.


Humbly
Hermit

 

[Wildswanderer]

So can love it you let it control you. Any emotion left unchecked can destroy you.

That's not what real love is... it's not a mere emotion.

 

[Nakosis]

I like your answer Nakosis; it’s thought-provoking.

I would say that love does non of what I wrote, but sometimes obsession is mistaken for love and obsession, come to think of it, really does!

That is interesting; I’d not thought of that before.


Humbly
Hermit

As someone mention, there are different types of love. Perhaps there are different types of hate as well.

To me though, love is nothing special. It is just a different kind of emotion. Any emotion is capable of overpowering our rationale.

 

[Aupmanyav]

I find either can be useful as long as we can rationally remain in control and not lose control to them.

Yeah, my book also says that:

"jñeyaḥ sa nitya-sannyāsī, yo na dveṣṭi na kāṅkṣati;
nirdvandvo hi mahā-bāho, sukhaṁ bandhāt pramucyate." BG.5.3

Know him as ever renounced, one who neither hates nor desires, O mighty-armed Arjuna; free from all dualities, such a person easily overcomes material bondage.

 

[Nakosis]

That's not what real love is... it's not a mere emotion.

Ok, what is it then?
Emotion, feeling. It is a biochemical reaction which causes you to feel something.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Ok, what is it then?
Emotion, feeling. It is a biochemical reaction which causes you to feel something.

Agape love involves faithfulness, commitment, and an act of the will. It is distinguished from the other types of love by its lofty moral nature and strong character. Agape love is beautifully described in 1 Corinthians 13.

The type of love that characterizes God is not a sappy, sentimental feeling such as we often hear portrayed.
Agape love is always shown by what it does. God’s love is displayed most clearly at the cross. “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4–5, ESV).
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:16).

It's not an emotion.