I know you're being obtuse but I'm writing this response for myself (OH NO not my SELF!?!?! Yes...... myself), not to seriously engage you.
The commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. If we are to hate ourselves, but love our neighbor as ourself, this translates into hating your neighbor. Whoops. I guess we do need to love ourselves so that loving our neighbor as ourself translates into actual love.
If I am the neighbor that my neighbor loves, then why should I not love that which God has commanded others to love?
You called attention to the hating your own life in Luke 14:26. Obviously part and parcel of this verse is the hating of your father and mother, but..........if we are commanded to honor our father and mother, how can we hate them? Obviously there is a little more subtlety going on here, and hating yourself isn't totally literal. Whoops.
God loves me. Should I hate what God loves? I am part of the church, His Body, which He loves. Should I not love what God loves, both in part and in sum?
Romans 12:3 says not to esteem yourself more highly than you OUGHT. This means there is an "ought" to which you
should esteem yourself.
As far as Revelation 12:11 teaching that we should not love ourselves even unto death......I'm glad to be corrected here but that verse is referring specifically to believers during the tribulation, is it not? It is also not a "should" verse, as Lee and minions love to twist everything into, it is a
statement. It is simply stating that those believers at that time will be willing to be martyrs. I'm not saying that we shouldn't ourselves, but I don't see that that particular verse is "should-ing" us into it.
Lee touted the "highest standard of morality" while failing miserably himself. If you want to try to discount the measure of the veracity of anyone's assertions by pointing at their actions which have nothing to do with the truth behind their posts, the only one qualified to post on here is Jesus.
Thanks for your post. They always help clarify things for me. 