🚀 go-pugleaf

Phants wrote:
>>
>> What about "hate" needs to be solved? Hate is good, although,
>> admittedly, can be used for evil purposes.
>>
>> It is good to hate polio, child molesters, swarms of mosquitos,
>> noxious odors, barking dogs, and Democrats. Hate is like dynamite:
>> when handled correctly it is very productive. But you have to
>> recognized that you can't treat hate in the same fashion as a
>> bowling ball.
>
> As I know what you are attempting to say, I will not quibble about the
> precise word here, though perhaps I should as the representation made
> by that word is where I disagree.

Agreed that "hate" is a charged word.

My religious tradition teaches that all things come from God (including 
hate) and God does not make junk (except for the gall bladder). Therefore 
God gave us the ability to "hate" and hate must, therefore, be intrinsically 
good.

It is the consequences of the motivation that count, not the motivation 
itself. I like to think of what was going on in the mind of Albert Sabin as 
he labored over a microscope in the quest for a polio vaccine. I don't doubt 
he was inspired in his quest by motives altrustic: Pity for children 
afflicted with this terrible disease, and so on. I also don't doubt he was 
driven by some urges most would consider wicked. Envy ("I can show up that 
son-of-a-bitch Salk"), Greed ("If I can lick this thing, I can do the kind 
of research I want with unlimited funds and not have to suck-up to that 
pipsqueak department head!"), and probably others.

In my lifetime and yours we have virtually eradicated polio, thanks, in 
part, to the "evil inclinations" of researchers like Albert Sabin.