God hates fags. Burn the Qur’an. The president is a Muslim socialist. Jews control the media. Immigrants are invading America...
Hate is as American as apple pie. A sentiment stitched into the fabric of national life from the early stirrings of Revolution in the colonies (they hated the old rulers across the Atlantic) to contemporary feelings about the government (we hate the rulers in Congress). What’s most striking about this embedded and endemic force circulating through the body politic for all these years is just how valuable hatred can be for some segments of our culture; so valuable that hatred can be sacred for some.
Perhaps religion itself, at some early evolutionary point in human history, emerged not as an outgrowth of altruism or loving bonds between community members, but rather as a result of hateful differences between groups. Religion has a rich history of promoting hate and gaining rewards from this hatred: more faithful adherents for sure, but also at times material wealth, political power, and social authority. The notion that religion contributes to the social emphasis on hate and plays a role in the effervescent energies devoted to stirring up hateful sentiment is elementary to many students and observers on the subject.
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