Well the Westboro Baptist Church, they are a religious hate group. They use hate in their demonstrations, they even use the word "hate" in their signage... So they should be easy to dislike, right? But where is the benefit? Because what I'm wondering, if I were to hate them back, the Westboro Baptist Church, does that end their hatred? If every being in the world, except the members of the Westboro Baptist Church, hated the Westboro Baptist Church, would that end their hatred? Does my opinion on, thoughts about, hatred of, the Westboro Baptist Church pacify the hate of their organization? So my ultimate question is, where is the benefit in hating, or disliking, or harboring ill-will, towards the Westboro Baptist Church, if no matter what my feelings are, they ultimately have no effect on the Westboro Baptist church? Might the best decision then be to pacify the hate I have towards the Westboro Baptist church? Would cleansing my mind of hate and ill-will, or anger, or aversion, bring fruit from my actions by allowing me to have wellbeing and happiness right now? Ultimately, the aversion, ill will, anger, hate, we have for any one person, place, or thing, only hinders ourselves because it occupies the place in our mind where without it, happiness, serenity, equanimity, peace, joy, would grow instead.
That was well put, I think. I agree with most of it. To be clear, I'm not advocating hatred. Hatred is not a worthless emotion from an evolutionary point of view, but it is crippling to the cause of intellectual progress I am interested in, and usually makes life more unpleasant for the hater and hated alike. As I said, though, prejudice and hatred are not synonymous. Prejudice is, at base, a dirty word for the normal human tendency to generalize. I don't think we will ever suppress it, nor do I think we should. Just because your worldview is going to be wrong sometimes doesn't mean you shouldn't have a worldview at all. What it means is that you should proceed with a kind of intellectual modesty, and a willingness to adapt and change. With regard to the WBC, I don't think they are so much a religion as dysfunctional family. I watched a documentary on these people once. Most of the church members were relatives of the old patriarch -- who clearly saw himself as a kind of old testament prophet. There weren't all that many converts. Just one old psychotic and alot of family loyalty. I think one or two family members had left the "church" and presented as pretty much normal people. If everyone else in the world hated the Westboro Baptist Church, no, it would not have deterred them in the least. Unless, of course, someone felt emboldened enough by the unanimity to kill them all. As a free speech advocate, I'm inclined to say we ought to put up with the WBC for the sake of our own freedom -- but I'm not going to turn either my heart or my intellectual coherence into a pretzel by viewing them with love. If I love the WBC -- then love itself is a meaningless concept. Despite my intellectual criticism, I wish you the best with the effort I believe you are trying to pursue. It is a good and human thing.