You Have To Be Taught To Hate
A four year-old sings something called “Ain’t No Homo Gonna Make It To Heaven,” and a church congregation cheers:
Children singing in Church to enthusiastic… by f100001838231867
H/T Andrew Sullivan
FILED UNDER: Open Forum, Andrew Sullivan
I find it odd that these kind of people believe they will be welcomed in heaven. Jesus didn’t look too kindly on a life motivated hatred of your fellow man.
Re: your title.
I agree, you have to be taught to hate. The seeds are there naturally, though, which is why it’s so easy to teach hate. Teaching love (or at least tolerance) is harder. At least it seems that way.
Not to be a dick about this, but you don’t have to be taught to hate. It’s a natural human emotion. It’s detatching the emotion from its natural origins and directing it toward arbitrary targets that’s the problem.
Mike
No one should deny the point made with respect to sexual gender made in this essay.
However, it is not unique. Ever heard a liberal talk about a conservative with respect to fiscal restraint? Grandma over the cliff; children poisoned; Bush the murderers anyone?
Let’s keep it real.
@MBunge: True, but you do have to be taught _whom_ to hate. And you also have to be taught whether you should try to move beyond your hatred or, like these sad, pathetic folks, to revel in your hatred. This congregation clearly enjoys its hatred; not a single one of them would be welcome in the kind of Heaven they’re preaching about.
I’m sure that the parents were very proud.
Some people should not have children.
@Drew:
I have to admit Drew, that I have never heard a child stand up in church and sing about poisoning children, pushing grandma over the cliff, or Bush the murderer.
@Rob in CT: I would say “You have to be taught *WHO* to hate. Hating itself comes pretty naturally.”
South Pacific
“You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught”
http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/r/rodgers_and_hammerstein/youve_got_to_be_carefully_taught.html
What a delightful child. I hope he becomes an altar boy.
Is there video of you, your parents, and the “I hate MS-NBC” song?
@Gustopher: Ouch.
@legion: Actually you don’t have to be taught whom to hate – it’s anyone not in your “tribe.” Google “Robber’s Cave Study.”
@Drew:
Of course this kinda jumps over the entire justifying that hate by the twisting of a religious text.
But that’s always in the blind spot isn’t it. I mean only Muslims really HATE based on Religious texts.
@al-Ameda:
But you have heard adults, who should know better, and be more responsible for their actions.
Children can be programmed…….because they are programmable. It’s takes adults to hate. You are blind.
@Gustopher: That’s incredibly vile.
This is what’s maddening about people using biblical texts for their own agendas. There’s a bible verse quoted at the end of the video stating who won’t inherit the kingdom of God, emphasising the word ‘effeminate’ presumably as their justification for this video. But it also says in the next verse that ‘revilers’, people who use hateful or scornful language, won’t make it to heaven.
Good job punching your ticket.
@Drew:
This misses the final step in your tautology:
It takes adults (“who should know better”) to program children to hate.
And of course, children programmed to hate, and often growing up in endemic systems of hate, often grow up into adults (who lack the critical capability to know better).
The bigger problem in this is the question of which folks are more likely to resort to violence as an expression of their hate. Right now, signs point to the notion that physical gay bashing still ranks in front of either physical conservative or physical liberal bashing.
Perhaps when hell freezes over, conservatives will actually practice fiscal restraint, instead of the spend, spend, spend, cut taxes, and go broke policy they follow in practice.
No. Children are not born hating. They have to be brought up that way and carefully taught. “You have to be taught, before it’s too late, to hate all the people you’re relatives hate. You have to be carefully taught.”-South Pacific.
@Andy:
Yes, but who’s not in your tribe? The most basic answer might be “anyone who doesn’t like like you”. It could be as narrow as “anyone who’s not mom or dad or your immediate family”. Or it might be “anyone who dresses differently” because they might be from that tribe on the other side of the river, or from that other country. But guess what – gays look just like everyone else. They exist in every racial, ethnic, or religious group across human history.
Homophobia, more so than any other bigotry, has to be actively taught and nurtured.
@Rob in CT: I’m not so sure. I think if you were never exposed to any kind of hatred, or even any words related to hatred, that you may not even be able to comprehend what it is.
I remember after the big tsunami that hit the Indonesia area I saw a report on an isolated indigenous population that had their own language and very little outside contact. They actually had no words in their language that referred to time. No “yesterday” or “today” or “age” or anything like that. The effect of which was that they had no comprehension of time. They asked some guy how long it would take him to finish building his canoe and he had no idea what they were talking about.
So I think there are some things that we think are “built in” that actually are learned, whether its time or hate. Here’s an article about a similar group in the Amazon: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/scientists-discover-amazonian-tribe-that-has-no-concept-of-time-or-dates/
@Gustopher:
It’s not his fault.
So either hope that something gruesome happens to his parents, or that one day he will break with his parents who filled him with hate and were unable to break with their parents themselves (if their parents taught them what they taught their son.)
Whether this anecdote proves you have to be taught to hate depends on whether you think this kid has the slightest understanding of what he’s singing.
@Trumwill: I would say “… WHOM to hate.”
Greetings:
Al-Qoran, teaching kuffar hate since 632 A.D.
But that’s not what you meant now, is it ???
Below your radar screen, right ???
@mantis: I don’t understand why they rely on Old Testament law and completely ignore the New Testament in the first place.
@merl: Because they want to punish people that are different from them.
@Drew:
Sorry, but your analogy was not analogous at all.
A kid being prompted to stand up in church and sing about “homos and heaven” is not analogous to an adult saying that cuts in Medicare are essentially throwing grandma under the bus.