If you're really religious, how can you hate anyone?

I know I'm lucky, but I just don't hate anyone. Oh, there are some people that I don't care to be with. And of course, there are always those people you would never want to meet. But I don't hate them.

For those of you that don't know me, I am a practicing Roman Catholic. I went to 13 years of Catholic schools. After lapsing for a few years, I chose to start attending church regularly again because it felt right for me again. I had been angry about a few things that I felt the Catholic Church condoned but I realized that I felt comfortable with most of the Catholic Church's teachings and I enjoy the rites and community.

But this is about claiming to be religious and yet hating people. I don't get it, no matter what religion you claim to follow! I'm certainly no expert on religions. I was lucky enough to attend at fairly progressive Catholic high school and we spent a year on comparative religions. But that only gave me knowledge the size of a grain of sand about many of the world's religions. I love reading and now love exploring the Internet. So it's given me good source of knowledge when I something sounds wrong and I want to check it out.

But to me, loving a God means respect for all that God has created. And respect and hate don't seem to fit together.

And does it matter what name you call your God? I really do believe in One God. And I really believe that everyone, no matter what religion, does as well. So what if we refer to God using different names? What's even stranger to me are religions that admittedly pray to the same God. Religions that have the same origin. And yet followers are so rapped up in the "mine is better than yours" that they don't even know or realize that "Their God" is exactly the same as "My God".

And please, please, please don't rationalize hate with the "they hate us so we hate them" speech. Do two wrongs ever make a right?

I know, many will say that I don't understand. That I'm naive. And they're right. As I said to start I don't hate and I don't understand hate. Luckily it was easy for me to learn. I wish everyone else would take some time to learn it as well. And maybe that just means learning more for yourself and not just relying on what "others" have to say.

I think my song list for the day will include "Imagine", "Why Can't We be Friends?"...