Do you believe that hate can destroy a person?

Question

I have witnessed many people in my own family become so consumed with hatred for people and situations in their life that it ruined them. These people died miserable, lonely deaths and suffered terribly. I was like that too, for a very long time. I finally made some changes in my life, like moving away from those people, giving my time and money to causes that meant something to me and learning about God. I feel I am a better person for that, I am happier and I live a good life.

To my clone... I will think of you when you are gone because you appear to have lived a sad, miserable life. I hope you are able to find peace. As for the "lies," I don't feel any need to lie to anybody about who I am or what I believe. I am honest in all aspects of my life. I am sorry you cannot accept that I am a decent person who also happens to love Islam and her Muslim husband. I don't condemn you for your beliefs, so please don't condemn me for mine.

Answer 1

Yes, it can destroy.

I wasted over half my life (up to now) by carrying a hateful disposition in my heart and head.
A few years ago I had an epiphany, not one that changed me but one that made me realize I had to change.
So through some serious introspection, and with the help of some friends in Thailand and Laos, I changed my nature.

Without trying to sound like a cliche, it changed the world for me. Of course I still get angry sometimes, but I don't carry it with me, I deal with it and move on.
.

Answer 2

Yes, I believe "Hate" can destroy a person. I experience holding something in my heart, nursing that awfully feeling for months and got to the point that I saw myself wanting to do harm. I prayed to God for help to release that hatred that had build up a wall between me and that person. You can truly get sick behind it. I repented and the Lord release me from that feeling, yet, it was the person who had started it. But what also help me is the scripture that's found in Ephesian 4:26-27 Be ye angry, and sin not, let not the sun go down upon your wrath, (27) Neither give place to the devil. Psalm 66:18 If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me. If anything arises quickly I ask God to help me. Because circumstances will come up and bitterness will try to set in - but it is the grace of God that will help us to get through it.

Answer 3

You answered your own questions, but yes. Hate consumes. It’s like a poisonous parasitic weed that if allowed to take root spreads and destroys every area of a person’s life.

As one answer above, if any of you learned to hate through your religion, I don’t care which religion, that was a false teaching. God is love. All hate comes from another place.

Answer 4

Yes, and also bad karma... What goes around, comes around!! I live by that thought everyday and try to do good for my neighbor, since, you know, they will be in your time of need to someday... Also, it just makes this world a better place and sets a good example for all who witness it.

Good for you!! I'm glad to see you have found a good path in life. Keep up the good work!!

Answer 5

absolutely. My brother is a perfect example of it right now. His wife left him about 5+ ears ago. He is soooo angry even today that it is as if it was yesterday. He has ruined every relationship around him and now he is destroying the relationship with his own two children. Alec Baldwin has nothing on my brother right now. It is sad and all I can do is pray for him.

I am happy for you and glad you are free from it's deadly grasp.

Answer 6

Hi Terri, you are so right about this, we tend to forget that emotions have a dark addictive side to them as well as a good side.
For instance the dark side of love is addiction to sex, the hatred that you talk about is darkness and it can comsume a person so that all light is extingished and life becomes unbearable.

Answer 7

Yes. I think it's important to give to others (emotionally, financially, spiritually, materially, or whatever) more than you take. The Beatles said, "And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make." I say, and then some.

Answer 8

Yes hatred ruins the one who hates.

Answer 9

I felt I was full of significantly more hate when I believed than I am now.

Learning to let go is almost an art unto itself. I let go of that hatred, and let go of God as well. I'm more at peace now than I was before.

Answer 10

When anger does possess a man;
He looks ugly; he lies in pain:
What benefit he may come by
He misconstrues as a mischance;
He loses property (through fines)
Because he has been working harm
Through acts of body and of speech
By angry passion overwhelmed:
The wrath and rage that madden him
Gain him a name of ill repute;
His fellows, relatives and kin
Will seek to shun him from afar;
And anger fathers misery:
Thus fury does so cloud the mind
Of man that he cannot discern
This dearful inner danger.

An angry man no meaning knows;
No angry man sees an idea,
So wrapped in darkness, as if blind,
Is he whom anger dogs.

Someone a man in anger hurts;
But when his anger is later spent
With difficulty or with ease,
He suffers as if scared by fire
His looks betrays the sulkiness
Of some dim smoky smouldering glow,
Whence may flare up an anger-blaze
That sets the world of man aflame
He has no shame or conscience curb
No kindly words come forth from him,
There is no island refuge for
The man whom anger dogs.

Such acts as will ensure remorse
Such as are far from True Ideals:
It is of these that I would tell,
So farken to my words
Anger makes man a patricide
Anger makes man a matricide
Anger can make him slay a saint
As he would kill the common man
Nursed and reared by a mother's care

He comes to look upon the world,
Yet the common man in anger kills
The being who gave him life.

No being but seeks his own self's good
None dearer to him than himself
Yet men in anger kill themselves,
Distraught for reasons manifold:
For crazed they stab themselves with daggers,
In desperation swallow poison,
Perish hanged by ropes, or fling
Themselves over a precipice.
Yet how their life-destroying acts
Bring death into themselves as well,
That they cannot discern, and that
Is the ruin anger breeds.

This secret place, with anger's aid
Is where Mortality sets the snare,
To blot it out with discipline
With vision, strength and understanding,
To blot each fault out one by one,
The wise man should apply himself,
Training likewise in True Ideals:
'Let smouldering be far from us'.
Then rid of wrath and free from anger,
And rid of lust and free from envy,
Tamed, and with anger left behind,
Taintless, they reach Nibbana.

(Taken from the graphic description of an angry man from the Anguttara Nikaya)