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Why would love need to hate anything? Anyway the passage you quoted said that God hated a person.
And, I will add, your bible gives a description of love. That description does not include "hate".
Did you read the passage I quoted? You can argue about it all you want, but the fact is the Bible clearly states that God does hate. He loved Jacob and hated Esau. It doesn't say he loved him less, or that he hated him because Esau did wrong. He chose to love Jacob and hated Esau for no reason but his own.
Yes, God loves. But God also hates.
And no--love and hate are not mutually exclusive. Don't import your preconceived notion of what love is to what the Bible says about God.
Did you read the passage I quoted? You can argue about it all you want, but the fact is the Bible clearly states that God does hate. He loved Jacob and hated Esau. It doesn't say he loved him less, or that he hated him because Esau did wrong. He chose to love Jacob and hated Esau for no reason but his own.
They are actually two sides of the same coin. You can't hate someone you don't care about. Hate is just disappointed love.
The opposite of love is indifference.
I would however caution that there are different senses of the word hatred. I am talking here more about the kind of hatred where your significant other for example sees or perceives some terrible betrayal and opines that they "hate" you. It is really just anger at betrayal. That's not the kind of hatred behind a "hate crime" or "hate speech", which is an irrational desire to dehumanize someone for some form of differentness or group outsider status. That sense of "hatred" can be directed at total strangers about whom you presumably have no particular expectations other than, apparently, to either look and act like you or fulfill some negative stereotype and thus ratify your sense of entitlement and specialness. Nothing inflames that sort of hatred more than seeing an outsider prosper or be admirable in some way, which is why millions of heads exploded when a black man was elected President of the US.
Which sort of hating does god do? Well the hatred of Esau is most similar to the way some parents fixate upon one golden child at the expense of another child. I would say it is more similar to the latter kind of hatred than the former. It certainly isn't admirable. And so I suspect it just reflects race hatred on the part of the author of that passage, for which he is claiming the authority of god himself for justification and precedent.
The bible is not God, except in the minds of fundamentalists.
I never claimed it was. But it is inspired by God.
The funny thing is, you're choosing to believe a passage from 1 John, but you're rejecting another NT author, Paul. Both were inspired by the same Holy Spirit.
They are actually two sides of the same coin. You can't hate someone you don't care about. Hate is just disappointed love.
The opposite of love is indifference.
I would however caution that there are different senses of the word hatred. I am talking here more about the kind of hatred where your significant other for example sees or perceives some terrible betrayal and opines that they "hate" you. It is really just anger at betrayal. That's not the kind of hatred behind a "hate crime" or "hate speech", which is an irrational desire to dehumanize someone for some form of differentness or group outsider status. That sense of "hatred" can be directed at total strangers about whom you presumably have no particular expectations other than, apparently, to either look and act like you or fulfill some negative stereotype and thus ratify your sense of entitlement and specialness. Nothing inflames that sort of hatred more than seeing an outsider prosper or be admirable in some way, which is why millions of heads exploded when a black man was elected President of the US.
Which sort of hating does god do? Well the hatred of Esau is most similar to the way some parents fixate upon one golden child at the expense of another child. I would say it is more similar to the latter kind of hatred than the former. It certainly isn't admirable. And so I suspect it just reflects race hatred on the part of the author of that passage, for which he is claiming the authority of god himself for justification and precedent.
Sorry Mordant, the Bible doesn't really suggest that God just loved Jacob more. It doesn't say that Moses simply hated Esau, or the Edomites. It says God hated Esau and loved Jacob. That's what Paul quotes in Romans 9. He then goes on to say that as the sovereign Creator, he has a right to do with his creation what he wants. Don't like it? So what? That's none of God's concern. He made us and he gets to choose what he wants to do with us.
Well, the bible god is certainly hateful. His bullying behaviour (to put it mildly) is evidence of a self-esteem issue. So, I think he very likely hates himself and everything and everyone he comes into contact with, pretty much.
I'm very grateful the bible god is simply a product of primitive men's feverish imaginations.
Sorry Mordant, the Bible doesn't really suggest that God just loved Jacob more. It doesn't say that Moses simply hated Esau, or the Edomites. It says God hated Esau and loved Jacob. That's what Paul quotes in Romans 9. He then goes on to say that as the sovereign Creator, he has a right to do with his creation what he wants. Don't like it? So what? That's none of God's concern. He made us and he gets to choose what he wants to do with us.
You nicely avoided addressing my points concerning the nature and origin of gods hatred for Esau but I understand your reluctance to do so.
And I also understand your situational ethics and special pleading for god. I first noted this overt phenomenon with Eusebius who claims that god can do evil that good may come of it even while prohibiting that for us. I thought this was unusual but I am starting to see that it is at least implicit and, as here, sometimes explicit, in the thinking of a lot of fundamentalists. Namely that god is not bound by his own moral codes and is not obliged to be a good example of them, even while punishing his children most severely for the very same thing.
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