Hate Is The Real Root Of All Evil

Hate is evil. You agree, don’t you? Of course you do. They say “money is the root of all evil,” but they’re wrong. It’s hate—not greed—that corrupts the soul. Hate is the real root of all evil.

“Money is the root of all evil” is really just a message from those who hate the wealthy. They cherry-pick words from the Bible to change the original meaning. The Bible (1 Timothy 6:10) actually says, “For the love of money is the root of all evils” (or “all kinds of evil,” depending on your translation). Whatever your preferred reading, it’s not the coins. It’s the obsession with them.

Money may sometimes corrupt the soul, but hate almost always does. Worse, hate burns hotter than greed ever could. It melts away the conscience like acid eating through steel.

And if you don’t believe the Word of Scripture, perhaps you’ll listen to Yoda’s words: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Okay, for you purists out there, that quote wasn’t from the original Star Wars trilogy, but from Episode I, The Phantom Menace. At least that movie came before George Lucas’s epic saga jumped over the shark (although the introduction of Jar-Jar Binks may have been the dorsal fin above the waves).

Despite Yoda’s wisdom, it’s not just fear that leads to hate. Envy (or resentment) takes you down the same path. The agony may feel less acidic at first, but, like a lobster being boiled, you start in a pleasant warm bath that eventually numbs you into darkness.

The Devil never commands hate outright; he whispers jealousy. C.S. Lewis describes this in The Screwtape Letters: “The safest road to Hell is the gradual one…” (Letter 12), a path where “the habitual sin of resentment” quietly takes root (Letter 13).

Evil begins not with greed, but with obsession—and hate is obsession at its purest. History proves this. When “good” becomes an obsession, evil soon follows. Think of the French Revolution. What began as a fight for liberty ended with a Reign of Terror. “Liberty” became a creed—one that demanded heretics face the guillotine.

Hate corrupts faster than greed because it pretends to be moral. Every revolution begins with a prayer and ends with a purge. Like that lobster in slowly boiling water, hate starts quietly until it consumes the soul and blinds us to everything but itself.

Envy, pride, and (with a nod to Yoda) fear represent the first steps down the slippery slope of hate. It begins as a small grievance—maybe even a justified one. But it’s a dirty seed that grows into an ugly weed that crowds out all that is good in your garden. (And, if you’re to believe St. Augustine or St. Aquinas, the weed grows even faster if the garden is empty to begin with.)

Imagine a sports rivalry like the Yankees and the Red Sox. It’s all well and good to exchange Bronx cheers. But if it devolves into a street brawl filled with hate, well, that’s a problem. Of course, that’s the evil the Devil wants to see when he whispers, “He wasn’t safe—he was out by a mile!”

Hate doesn’t arrive with a roar; it enters with a sigh at the Thanksgiving table and ends with a torch on the street during some “peaceful” demonstration.

And that’s the hypocrisy of hate. It masquerades as virtue. You see this in the phrase “virtue signaling.” What do you classify that as? Envy? Pride? Fear? The Devil’s favorite disguise is a halo. From Saul of Tarsus to the Spanish Inquisition to the Salem Witch Trials, any person or community that convinces itself it’s protecting virtue by punishing dissent demonstrates a working definition of hate. Here’s the paradox: during their own time, they felt they were doing the Lord’s work.

But forget about them. Worry about us. Will the things we justify with consensus today look ignorant—or even monstrous—tomorrow? (Asking for a friend.)

Which brings us back to money. Sensational news headlines get eyeballs. Whether on the screen or in print (it’s harder to do on the radio, but possible with the right promotional campaign), society commodifies outrage. Where once we sold (and bought) indulgences for salvation, today we sell (and buy) outrage for clicks. It’s like we traded thirty pieces of silver for thirty thousand likes (accounting for inflation). And if hate gets us there faster, well…

We auction off our outrage like nostalgic collectibles on eBay—all emotion, no substance. Worse, each bid ups the ante. Yesterday’s fury is today’s new normal. We’re still living in the Hobbesian nightmare of “war of all against all,” only updated. We’re no longer fighting for scarce resources, but for validation. Hate helps.

How do we overcome this vicious cycle?

Let’s start with what doesn’t work. Reason can’t defeat hate because they’re not on the same playing field. Passion always defeats logic in the wild. And the world is a wild place. Likewise, faith alone won’t cure hate because—this is tough to say—it is faith that breeds both hate and love. Finally, don’t be fooled into thinking you can fight hate with hate. That’s what the Devil wants. That’s civil war.

The true antidote is to remove the void. Aquinas and Augustine taught as much. You can’t just weed the garden; you have to fill it with healthy plants that prevent weeds from returning. Replace the darkness of evil with the light of good.

What better icon to look to for this than Abraham Lincoln? Following the end of the Civil War—a bloody conflict that saw brother against brother—our 16^th President framed the close of his Second Inaugural Address with a simple charge: “With malice toward none, with charity for all.”

Abe wasn’t grandstanding—or virtue signaling. He was honest with the nation. He knew the wounds of war—both physical and mental. He chose, deliberately, to fill the void with charity instead of vengeance.

That’s still the only way out.

Evil doesn’t sprout from the soil of difference, but from the seed of contempt we water with self-righteousness. Before you condemn the world, tend your own garden first.