The Pyramid of Hate: Then and Now.

Hello ATS! I wrote this essay for my college writing class. I have another assignment coming up where I have to rewrite this essay. I was wondering if you, scholarly people of ATS, could let me know where this piece of work needs improvement. What can I add to this to make it better? What should I leave out? This is a 1500 plus word essay, it needs to be a 1750 word essay. The topic of the paper is religion, and how it is used as a soapbox to preach messages of discrimination, and hate. Please take the time to skim through this, and let me know what you think. Thank you so much!

Religion is a system of beliefs to explain the cause, nature and reasoning behind the Universe. It can be used to inflict feelings of hope, peace, love, and happiness. It can also be used to promote the feelings associated with terror, fear, and uncertainty. Religion and the concept of God can also be used as a weapon of mass manipulation. Any religion can be twisted around to fit an individual’s ideology and specific beliefs. It can be used to gain power, wealth, and fame for selfish reasons, while hiding behind the “will” of God. Two infamous leaders that used God as a soap box to preach their own prejudices from were Adolf Hitler and Fred Phelps. Both straight, white men shared the same adventure climbing up the Pyramid of Hate. These men followed the same pathways, just at different points in history.

The Pyramid of Hate is a five step pyramid that describes the evolution of bias to prejudice,and then discrimination to hate crime which can result in genocide. According to the Center for Social Advocacy the steps, from the bottom up are as follows: Step one is committing Acts of Bias, such as stereotyping and accepting negative information. Step two is Prejudice and Bigotry which includes scapegoating and dehumanization. The third step of the Hate Pyramid is Discrimination or discriminative actions, such as social exclusion and employment discrimination. Violent acts such as rape, murder and arson are a further evolution of the Pyramid of Hate. The final peak of the pyramid ends in Genocide, the purposeful killing of a group of people because of who they are. (The Hate Pyramid at Center for Social Advocacy)

The German Workers Socialist Party, otherwise known as The Nazi Party, ruled Western Europe from 1933-1945. (Bauer 84) Adolf Hitler was demagogue leader of The Nazis. By rounding up 11 million people and killing them using legislative force, death squads and finally, death machines, Hitler proclaimed that he was doing the will of God. He often used religion and racial sciences to back up his hatred of the “other. Through time, Hitler was able to climb up the entire Pyramid of Hate to create a Genocide known as the Holocaust. It was the deliberate attempt to exterminate an entire group of diverse people based on who they were and what they did. Hitler didn't like Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals and people that didn't support him. He did everything imaginable to turn Germany and the rest of Western Europe against such “undesirables”. Through propaganda, coercion, terror and shame, Hitler created a situation that made the Holocaust occur. People all through out time have used religion as a means to back up personal hatred towards groups of individuals.


Just as Hitler used the Jews in the 1930's as a scapegoat for the problems happening in Western Europe, Fred Phelps blames homosexuals for the problems occurring in America today. Phelps uses the Bible as propaganda to say that God is pouring out his wrath on mankind because of people that are homosexuals and their supporters. He is the leader of a notorious hate group called the Westboro Baptist Church. The church claims to follow “old school (primitive) Baptist beliefs.” It has been in existence since 1967 and consists of roughly one hundred people, whom are almost all related to Fred Phelps. The WBC travels around the country protesting at certain sensitive places such as AIDS victims' funerals, and Gay Pride Events. They claim that AIDS is a plague sent from God to wipe out homosexuals. Church members hold up signs that say deeply disturbing, homophobic, heterosexist and antisemetic things. The WBC condemns all things “American” and say that America is doomed because of its acceptance of homosexuality (adl.org). They protest military funerals because they feel that soldiers protecting our country are protecting the ideals of a homosexual lifestyle. Using Bible passages from the Old Testament, they do more than denounce the lifestyles of homosexuals, they dehumanize the lifestyle and blame the problems of the world upon it and its supporters. The WBC also protest against Judaism claiming that God hates Israel and reaffirming the deicide belief that Jews killed Jesus. Fred Phelps created a church that is as militant about discriminating against the Jews and homosexuality as the early Nazi Party.


The separating difference between Nazism and the Westboro Baptist Church revolves around their placement in the Hate Pyramid. The Nazi's fully completed their journey up the pyramid of hate to genocide, while the WBC still have a few steps to go. Both groups are biased, prejudiced and discriminatory, which covers the first three steps of the pyramid. The WBC has begun the fourth step of violence through desecration by protesting Jewish synagogues and trampling the American flag at soldiers' funerals. While the Nazis completed all five steps of the pyramid through murder, assault, rape, terror, and genocide.

Geography and timing in history are the obvious main differences between the WBC and the Nazis. The Nazis' regime had more people, more power, and more resources than the tiny Kansas church currently possesses. The same methods of hate and antisemitism are being displayed now by the Westboro Baptists as the Nazis displayed in early World War II. The WBC is progressing up the steps of the Pyramid of Hate just as the Nazis did.

Hitler and Phelps were both men of religious sentiment that thought they were bettering humanity through God's will. They spread messages of hate and intolerance, and they used religion as a soapbox to stand upon. Their followers though (and think) of themselves as people chosen by God, the elite. Neither party cared for basic human emotions, feelings, or life. The WBC claim that people are sinning against God because they worship their feelings by displaying grief towards dead loved ones. They have no regard for human life and believe that people will be punished for displaying empathy. Disturbingly, there are more similarities than differences when describing the Nazi Party and the Westboro Baptist Church. Hatred is the main thing that unifies both groups of people, hatred of the unknown and hatred of the unliked.



Thank you very much for reading this. Please take care and have a wonderful day. I hope that you learned something from this paper. Take Care and Namaste.













Works Cited
Bauer, Yehuda. A History of the Holocaust. A Division of Scholastic Inc. Danbury, CT. 2001.
Center for Social Advocacy. Hate Crime Prevention and Education, The Hate Pyramid. 2011. Web. 1 October 2011.
“Extremism in America: Westboro Baptist Church.” Anti-Defamation League. 2011. Web. 1 October 2011.

reply to post by chanel


PS: I am fully aware of paragraph indents.

For some reason, the format did not follow the paper, as it did in Open Office.

I really hope you do well, but your homework is your homework.

reply to post by charles1952


Thanks, I know. Actually, I just realized that if I don't now change most of the entire wording of this essay, Turnitin will catch it and think that I'm plagiarizing someone else!! AGR, I did not think of that before posting this for people to critique!

I have a peer review critique for my writing class, but no one critiqued this essay for me. It got a great grade from my professor, but I want to rewrite it for my rewrite assignment, because I think the topic is interesting.