Is the Absence of Love, Hate?

This is the notion put forward by David Thiessen, in his latest ‘response‘ to me. Please see here and here for more details as to the thread of the conversation. I stated that I do not hate God, and David responded thusly:

This is a line in MM’s latest response to our content. It is also a line used by many unbelievers. They want to be seen and see themselves as good people. This is a phrase most Christians may hear at some point in time.

Yet, Jesus covered this topic in John 14:15 when he said:

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

We know that MM and others do not love God because they do not obey Jesus’ commandments. Their actions speak louder than their words in this case. We have seen many times where unbelievers who make this claim ignore what Jesus said to do in favor of their own personal views.

We are the victim of such behavior all the time, even from those who claim they do not hate God. But since they do not love God, hate is the only adjective that can be used to describe their attitude towards him and his followers.

This is painfully flawed reasoning. Not loving someone or something does not equate to hate. I do not hate Christianity, or Islam, or any organised religion, though I have serious misgivings about them. I do not hate God – how can I hate a being I cannot be certain even exists?! Yes, I’d have questions for any deity that showed up on our doorstep tomorrow, but hate? David is reaching for something that doesn’t exist here.

This may come as a shock to him, but most ‘unbelievers’ do not care one way or the other about religion – any religion – to hate it. The only occasions where friction will occur is when the religious attempt to use their beliefs to coerce and control others. If religious followers left unbelievers alone, that friction would never exist. You might get pockets of difficulty from particularly militant atheists (who do exist, though they are very few in number, especially compared to the ranks of religious fundamentalists around the world), but that would be it.

It’s this desire of the religious to impose their belief systems upon others that leads to anger (and anger, as Master Yoda wisely said, leads to hate). Push and prod and discriminate against a group, and don’t be surprised if eventually, they push back.

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