What is it about human nature, that makes people prejudicial and full of hate to their fellow man?

Question

What cause ignorance misconceptions or misinterpretations and Bigotry of another persons faith, views, lifestyle and ethnicity?.

Thank you for your replies and thoughts!.

Answer 1

SCAPEGOATISM!!

Answer 2

We're essentially pack animals. We evolved an instinct to protect our own. It's only in recent times that we've come to see all humanity as being part of the pack - and even for those of us who accept that idea intellectually, there's still a visceral fear of the 'other' who might be in competition with us for resources.

Answer 3

Rubbish! u listen to pple's saying whom nevers themselves xP before? dun u think it's a bit of lol to take that as belief????? even jobs are prefered XP employees and that's resume comes in, didn't it? hee hee....

Answer 4

All the things you mention are merely concepts. Those who hate would have hatefulness in them even if those things didn't exist. They feel rejected and rejection is their response to it.

It isn't outside of you. It's in you. When you fight fire with fire, you don't get less fire. You get more. You can't decrease something by adding to it.

Answer 5

Religion does all that and more.

Answer 6

tolerant people are very rare. humans are i think the most part negative and intolerant maybe its a defence mech *** m still with us from our primitive cave dwelling days. to speak of tolerance, love and respect for each other is still looked upon as a weakness but i think the traits of intolerance and hatred are a weakness

Answer 7

If the question is about human nature than it is in our nature to seek out the best in everything, but what is best of all the best, no one really knows. We can wonder, speculate, conjecture, and debate among ourselves endlessly, but the answer is not to come by through reason, rational understanding or through any amount of material knowledge. The answer is no to be found in knowledgeable belief, as for instance we have I science, but through faithful beliefs, not through investigation but through acceptance.

This is the problem the matter that is most fundament to each of our need and requirement is lost in the glowing mists of religion. We are at the mercy of our ability to have faith in life, and without certain amount of faith in everything no greater knowledge of the world would do us not good. This is human condition, that once we are stuck in the inexplicable world of our beliefs we are unable to get out and neither we find it easy to convey full meaning to someone else who is stuck in theirs. The best then we can do is to be the best that we can in the way of our believing, have our ways rectified, and thereby show others what the right path is.

This is not all about religion in most conventional sense that I am talking about when I talk about the right path and acts of faith. It is about life in general, about human conditions. People can get stuck believing firmly in their cultures, political ideologies, classes, nationalities and their social standings and economic conditions. When we form rigid beliefs in face or some adversity of threat or simply because of ignorance, as they might not have question their beliefs for ages, then people become prejudiced against the beliefs of other. They become biased to such extremes that they come to claim truth, and everything out of their circle of recognition a lie.

This is true that people feel intrigued and challenged what they do not understand, but they hate and attempt to destroy what they cannot understand. There perhaps is the greatest sense of comfort that people seek through their strength of beliefs, which keeps them believing rigidly and doing things even when they are wrong, even when people might not know why.

Answer 8

Sometimes I feel that the basic nature of man is full of 'hatred'.  Love is something that is taught,  cultivated.  But it takes strong efforts to really 'love' others,  while hatred comes so easily.   Just spread the word that someone is trying to harm you and that's enough to make us prejudiced against that someone.

It can be termed as some kind of survival instinct...where we mark our territories just like animals and any threat to it is viewed as inimical...

The history is full of tales of Good Loving People becoming victims of hatred and hence eliminated.   Very few people are able to overcome this basic nature and reach the higher realms of consciousness where love and forgiveness rules...

Answer 9

i agree with the Galt person.

Answer 10

There are many aspects of a persons life that influence their behaviour towards others.  First the parents, then the peer group, then the education system that teaches very little about the true impact of racial or religious antagonisms (primarily because those antagonisms are essential to the capitalist economic system) then the mass media which holds far too much power over people's minds.  The mass media is simply a controlling device used by those with power to manage the human race and the capitalist society.  It pains me that you still accept the view that people are afraid of that which they don't understand, because that simply isn't true.  I'm not afraid of the internal combustion engine, though I have no idea how it works.  I fear no religion or religious view, simply because mine is different.  I do, however, fear the mass media; because they are lying to us all.  People are even waking up to this fact.

VEY VERY VERY SLOWLY!

Answer 11

Religious and social conditioning/controls, world experiences or lack thereof, and our own insecurities.

Alot of religions and social controls shape our ways of thinking beginning from childhood. We also have our media and environment which influence our ways of thinking when we do not have personal experiences of our own to help us make up our inclinations or opinions about a certain group of people.

For instance: Look at our television programs, movies, and even our bedtime stories. Aliens are almost always portrayed as monsters or entities intent on taking over the world. How is the majority going to feel about aliens when they first encounter extraterrestrial life? I'll bet they will with extreme fear and prejudice. What would your reaction be truthfully? It's mans nature to fear what they don't understand.  

Answer 12

man hates it's own reflection on the mirror...