I once knew a traveling Evangelist who produced a radio program that was broadcast each week from an a.m. station out of the Seattle area. Many of the faithful who were seeking the wisdom of God within their radios, tuned in to hear of the "Wonders of God." As the Evangelist would travel about, the weekly broadcasts were taped and sent by mail to the station. One such listener heard that the Evangelist was going to be at a church in northern Idaho and she proceeded to make plans to go.
Meanwhile....within the church, where the evangelist was scheduled to preach, the pastor and his wife had spoken often of an old, white haired lady, that had been a blessing to them. Unfortunately, this lady was absent on the night of the Evangelist's visit. The Evangelist did not know this and mistakenly "laid hands" on the faithful listener from Seattle and prophesied that God was well pleased with her good works and that he wanted her to act as a mother to these two young pastors here in North Idaho.
DOH!!!!!!
This lady sold here home, gave the $$ to the church, gave her car to the pastor and moved east to labor as a cook at the school in Providence, RI
It used to blow my mind that someone could manipulate the lives of others in such a dismal way. How could someone use God to further themselves and not be wracked with guilt?
In time, I learned that a human can justify about anything in their own mind. Many fortunes were made on the backs of opium addicted Chinese or the displaced American Indian or battles on foreign soil designed to increase capital and not democracy.
I've come to believe that many of these seemingly dastardly deeds are perpetrated by those that wholly believe that what they are doing is good. The Evangelist gave the woman something to dedicate herself to and liberated her from her lonliness. Fortunes have been made on the backs of oppressed cultures because to do great good in the world, one must have power. To have power, one must have money. The heathen that have been sacrificed to increase the ability for doing good on a grand scale is a minute cost in the grand scheme of things. Look at all the good we have performed in the world.
Meanwhile....within the church, where the evangelist was scheduled to preach, the pastor and his wife had spoken often of an old, white haired lady, that had been a blessing to them. Unfortunately, this lady was absent on the night of the Evangelist's visit. The Evangelist did not know this and mistakenly "laid hands" on the faithful listener from Seattle and prophesied that God was well pleased with her good works and that he wanted her to act as a mother to these two young pastors here in North Idaho.
DOH!!!!!!
This lady sold here home, gave the $$ to the church, gave her car to the pastor and moved east to labor as a cook at the school in Providence, RI
It used to blow my mind that someone could manipulate the lives of others in such a dismal way. How could someone use God to further themselves and not be wracked with guilt?
In time, I learned that a human can justify about anything in their own mind. Many fortunes were made on the backs of opium addicted Chinese or the displaced American Indian or battles on foreign soil designed to increase capital and not democracy.
I've come to believe that many of these seemingly dastardly deeds are perpetrated by those that wholly believe that what they are doing is good. The Evangelist gave the woman something to dedicate herself to and liberated her from her lonliness. Fortunes have been made on the backs of oppressed cultures because to do great good in the world, one must have power. To have power, one must have money. The heathen that have been sacrificed to increase the ability for doing good on a grand scale is a minute cost in the grand scheme of things. Look at all the good we have performed in the world.
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Comments
I myself have often thought this one through - "What is crazy?" "The absense of popular opinion."
Course, my family thinks that is exactly the sorta thing a nutbar like me would come up with.
I AM being facetious...I don't wear it well.
I believe that many of life's sad events perpetrated throughout history were motivated by people and governments that belived they were doing good. Perhaps their decisions resulted in death or famine or just plain unfairness, but their motivation wasn't always based on evil intentions although the end result appeared that way.
So, to sum up my thought here, without the facetious sarcasm, I think that to improve the world, we must improve our country. To improve our country we must improve our state. To improve our state we must improve our family. To improve our family we must first improve ourselves. Everything ultimately begins with self responsibility and self improvement. With the degree of poverty in this country, with the degree of health and insurance issues in this country, with the degree of the rich getting richer while the ranks of the lower middle class swells, why is the focus outside of our country, our home, ourselves? I don't think that we have done a lot of good in the world beyond our self interests. I think we have done less than we could at home. Politics have become a vehicle for self preservation and not of service. It's not evil, it's sad.