[another_someone]

No problem.  I have sent out a few questions on hate as I don't believe hate is possible or rather in a defined way..most people have a hard time explaining it when I ask them.  This does not have to be a long debate as it is a choice a person makes to answer the question or not.  I just don't want to make anyone feel that they are forced to answer this as there IS no expert on defining hate.  I did call a few of my old colleagues who I used to work with and 2 are Psychologists and a Psychiarist...funny, even their definitions are not clearly defined either.  I am not taken offense, I am just wanting an answer.  I clearly appreciate all answers here. I just have a very curious mind. :-)

I was told by one of my past esteemed colleagues that hate is a varying root to many humanistic emotional evils...LOL Such as fear, dislike to a higher degree, but there is no way to measure hate on any scales.

Clearly, all words are to some extent subjective, and contextual.  Fore instance, when I say that I hate broccoli, it really is not meant in the meaning that I assumed most people were using the word hate here.

On the other hand, if one uses words with an absence of agreed meaning, then one in effect is unable to use the word, since the message you think you are sending in the words you use is different to the message the listener is hearing.  Clearly, there are even occasions when one deliberately uses forms of words that have a different meaning to different audiences, but this is usually intended to obscure a common understanding, often as a means of deception, rather than to facilitate a common understanding of ideas.

[moonfire (OP)]

I can concur with your response.  Paul, made some good points too.  I thank you all for your thoughts on this particular word!

[logicat5]

I'd say hate can be possible. I think it is rather akin to love - a feeling of such intensity that you can't be quite sure what it is you are feeling. Although, I think hate, again like love, had become a word so overused and usually used where it shouldn't, that noone is quite sure what is it anymore. Just remember Nietzsche saying that nothing can be born from it's opposite. Hate is opposite to love and that exists.

[moonfire (OP)]

Marzipan, this is interesting....but maybe hate is not the opposite of love?  Just a thought! 

[another_someone]

The idea that hate is the opposite of love is not uncommon, but first it might be wise to define what an opposite is.

Essentially, two things are opposite if they are for all practical purposes identical in most respects, but at opposite extremes only in one dimension (i.e. a tall building and a small building are opposites only because they are essentially the same thing, buildings, and they are different only in one respect, their size).

It is fairly apparent what the differences between love and hate are, so if they are indeed opposites, then the interesting question must be to ask in what ways are they identical?

I am not at all sure that all forms of love and hate are opposites (or at least there are some forms of love which are not opposite to some forms of hate, but it might be then argued, but I am not sure how successfully, that each form of love has its mirror is a particular flavour of hate).

Certainly, I would agree that obsessive love and obsessive hate are sufficiently similar to be regarded as opposites; but is all love and hate to be considered a form of obsession, and if not, would the non-obsessive forms be regarded as opposites to each other?

Certainly, I have found that couples who are more likely to have a life long loving relationship are more capable of harbouring a lifelong hatred - so this may lead to some support of the argument that in some of their forms the two emotions are closely linked, and are valid opposites.