Bible verse "1 John 4:20"
Joseph Campbell once expressed his disgust with Levant religion hate preaching, hate interpretation, hate attitudes. The condescending nature of Yaweh, Jesus, Allah when used as an Authority Figure that the Clergy stands in front of as tool of power and 'hate thy neighbor' teachings.
Blog:: Joseph Campbell says religious literalism sets Satan in the seat of God
Now this isn't expressing some specific event - as if Jesus fed people on a certain day in a specific city in the Levant. It expresses an observation of what people were doing with religion. Its about how people interpret, relate, and utilize teachings. "1 John 4:20"
Rick Roderick in 1993 about hate
The "Tower of Babel" metaphor gets at the heart of this problem too, in my view. Paired with the same time period with verse John 1:1
And of course, the tower of babel, Tim Finnegans Ladder climb, is part of core experience in Finnegans Wake. Humanity loves to use white light and dark to represent good and evil, and upward - heavens as a metaphor of good - and down under ground - "Hell" as metaphor of evil.
As Rick Roderick said in "Self Under Siege", I don't want to sound cynical, this to me is at the heart of love and compassion. I think we can witness people abuse (or maleducated) the word "love" to mean "I agree", and when they no longer agree they grey rock and silhouette "the other" that they reduce.
again, this isn't about promoting cynicism, it's about being self-aware of our group behaviors.
Falling deeply in love with a book character
Falling in love with Adolph Hitler
Falling in love with Donald Trump / "The Apprentice" reality TV star
"I love Jesus", but you can't hate anybody. Love your enemy, who is left to hate? nobody. "1 John 4:20' confronts this directly.
Now when I call out this verse, I'm not trying to single only just 1 of the 3 Levant religions and their clergy. The problem is systemic. And Bible verse "1 John 3:17" describes that it was articulated and known. IF anything, Islam is the strongest in "fight to the death for Allah", and the chant "Allah Akbar" means "Allah is the Greatest". And reformers like Malala are ignored and hated upon, as are often Sufi groups if Islam with their focus of translation between religions.
Which is what I wish to emphasize. My personal faith is that religions all over the world are similar in many ways, and that bloodshed of one religion trying to kill off people of another religion with violence, starvation, hate - is bad. Tower of Babel metaphor is a big one in my emphasis on Finnegans Wake from 1927++ publication - and I think humanity has shown a terrible interpretation of love and compassion when it is reserved only for in-groups. Raising children on a spoken/written language (Japanese, French, English leagues, etc) - and religion - and teaching them to hate people who speak another language and were raised on another religion is bad. Further, languages evolve and change, dialects and spelling differences, etc - and there isn't nearly as much a hate-oriented approach when it comes to translations! Where translating between religions is a thick hate line of humanity. Further further... I don't think modern religions are missing. Scientology created in 19xx, cults of all shapes and sizes, and I even considered advertising ia television and Internet to be a modern form of faith system for people. You have wealthy handing out advertising messages to the poor, telling ,crowds what goods to value. This is not fundamentally that different form the Middle Ages of Europe, The Church handing out messages to the poor from a privileged class. And Martin Luther in Germany's reformation / language translation of The Bible. Now we live in a technology age where machines hand out messages to consume foods, praise certain sports teams, vote for certain politicians, to watch this movie or listen to this song... and "1 john 4:20" concept applies just as well to a cult of a single musician as it does to a book (Bible, Quran, Torah). If you love the musician or a film but hate the fans, persons who are living, Love of the performance of a certain speaker (political or otherwise), writer, without desire to translate and find similar expressions is a tunnel-vision. It is to seek exclusivity instead of expanding love. When an out-group services to amplify Hate Contrasts , even when the hate is apathy / neglect / avoidance / Silhouette.
Our collective behavior... we end up poisoning the Earth that we rely to live on,m we end p making crime a general thing, we have entire swaths of our world full of hate of outsiders. Technology alone in electing a madman to lead a military who pushes hate.