God is slow to anger

I've heard from christians that god is slow to anger. (I recall that that is written in the Bible).

I think that is intended to teach the lesson that people should be slow to anger. And I think it admits that anger is good sometimes (meaning that people should do it sometimes).

I think that’s bad. Anger never helps. It’s always sabotaging. Anger is like punishment. It’s designed to hurt people. It’s designed to discourage thinking/deciding for oneself.

People get confused about this in a few ways. 

One way they get confused is to think I mean that anger should be shamed. I don't mean that. Anger and shame are two sides of the same coin. Anger and shame kinda do the same thing. They are designed to hurt. They are designed to encourage someone to pick a side of a disagreement without first having resolved the disagreement.

Another way people get confused is to think that since some people do good things with their anger, then anger is good. They'll mention people like MLK and how he turned his anger into (good) action. This is confused. They are treating anger as a package deal that can't be separated. Anger can be viewed as at least two parts. Part one is this: I want something to change. Part two is this: I choose to hurt someone in order to encourage obedience (sometimes people are angry at themselves). Part one is fine. Part two is bad. You can decouple the two parts. You can have part one without part two.

Another way people get confused is to think that I'm saying that one should suppress his anger. I'm not saying that. That doesn't work because it means ignoring your anger instead of problem-solving in order to fix things. Suppressing your emotions is problem-avoidance not problem-solving.

To change your emotional makeup such that you get angry less (fewer triggers, catch your anger and calm down earlier, respond better to people pointing out your anger, etc etc) you'll need to make philosophy a big part of your life. You'll need to do lots of relevant reading, lots of journaling, lots of discovery of yourself and human nature in general, lots of problem-solving, lots of critical discussion (with yourself and others), etc etc. And it's better to do this kind of thing with others who are also doing it. That way we can learn from each other instead of each of us trying to recreate the wheel. The Fallible Ideas community is one such community (I don't know of another one).