> I also believe in the idea that people are not robots. If you live your life that way, I feel explicit contempt for you, and I do generally think your life is

> I also believe in the idea that people are not robots. If you live your life that way, I feel explicit contempt for you, and I do generally think your life is rather pointless. There are plenty of people who... 1. view human behavior as largely (but not completely) shaped by historical events; or 2. don't believe in traditional ideas of free will and still find meaning in their lives. I'd encourage you to challenge your beliefs here. Do you want to feel contempt? This contempt is one kind of judgment. Why are you confident that you know enough to make such a harsh judgment? I find it interesting that what you've written is quite opposite of secular Buddhism. There's a great story from Buddhism about hate. I'll adapt it. Let's say you hate that an alcoholic drunk driver killed a family of four. What exactly do you hate? If the drunk driver had a habit of driving drunk, it was not a one-off. You should also hate all previous drunk drivings that didn't kill anyone. So you might hate the fact that such a bad habit took root? What history drove the alcoholism? What if it was parental abuse? Genetics? But what about all of the people who knew about the alcoholic and his drunk driving? Why did they not intervene? Why is alcoholism so prevalent? Why don't lawmakers do more about it? My point is that if you connect the hate to its causes, you will find it impossible to situate it on just one person. I suppose you could hate all of the contributing factors. But how many of the contributing factors have volition? My conclusion is that most common ideas of hate (a) are not well thought out and (b) don't really help us solve problems. Perhaps there is only a fine line between hate and a burning desire to improve something in the world. The latter can be done without holding people in contempt. It can be hard, but it is worth it.