Also, they’re fed this twisted idea that somehow it’s “love” to show hatred to someone, that they think that by scorning people, denouncing them, acting with hatred. . .that they’re somehow “loving” them, because they’re indoctrinated into a profound fear of hellfire and damnation, and are absolutely sure the people they hate are going to hell, so they delude themselves into thinking it’s some kind of love to scorn them, thinking that this will make them conform to the image of God they’ve crafted in their own image.
They think that somehow it’s Holy to hate, just as long as they can convince themselves they’re doing it to save someone’s soul.
They’re sure that people choose to be LBGT, because they supposedly hate God. . .and they can simply just choose Jesus instead and magically not be LBGT and thus they’re “saved”. . .and they think the best way to do this is to act with absolute fear and hatred towards them, thinking they can scare and intimidate people into being cis-het.
Well, is all about fear, isn’t it? And in The immortal words of Yoda fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. So yes, their fear of the terrible sinners they are supposed to be would absolutely make them hate themselves.
Yeah, no. People like that aren’t capable of that level of self reflection, even subconsciously.
It might be less specific than OP, and more that being constantly told you’re worthless makes people resentful.
i don’t think it’s about self reflection in the process OP is outlining. in fact, i think it’s the absence of self reflection that OP is pointing out. as humans we are constantly building associations between emotion and action. evil christians exist in a constant feedback loop that creates the association between internal hate and external hate without the environment to nurture enough self reflection, forgiveness, and care to then extend those self directed acts of love outward. literally for them the only way they understand love, hate, and fear is as all as the same thing. it’s all one emotion to them.
There’s no self reflection required. Christianity says we’re sinners from birth and need to make up for that by leading a good life. The more extreme the denomination, the more guilt they make you feel. But this is the Open Christian community so it’s worth noting that more and more modern churches are dropping that rhetoric.
The idea that humans are inherently evil creatures is where the “how can you have morals without God?” thing came from.
Not to mention that many of these people ARE evil. They DO have those terrible thoughts so it’s not a stretch for them to assume everyone else does, too.
Capable, just trying really hard to avoid it so they don’t get called homos or laughed at.
I posit that’s most people, in general.
“With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”
~Steven Weinberg
This isn’t even remotely true. “Good” people can do “evil” things for all sorts of reasons: trauma, substance abuse, sheer accident, or being lied to or misled about the outcomes of their actions. And yes, for that last one, religion can be a cause for being misled–but so can politics, philosophy, general misinformation, etc. And all of this is assuming people and/or actions can easily be divided into “good” and “evil” in the first place.
