"Fear is a hellova motivator................."
"Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice."
G.K. Chesterton
chesterton.org
I have a problem with extremist agendas, agendas designed to exploit unrealistic fears and to provoke people, and people who encourage violent and irrational fear based action against the innocent.
Terrorist events and fear based rhetoric do that. They are intended to generate that kind of disorientation. It is understandable that without accurate information, people would not be able to move away from unrealistic even disabling fear. Paranoid psychosis is not a personality characteristic for normal people but it’s certainly something anyone can experience when the threats in the world seem huge and the sources of threat are hard to identify.
These agendas stand in opposition to the natural noble condition born to each of us, and for which we have every right to fight to maintain, support, or retrieve.
Some of the things I know in my heart to be evil are sickness, greed, lies, lasciviousness, brutality, oppression, destruction, hatred toward others who are simply different.
Some of the things I know in my heart to be good are health, charity, truth, justice, liberty, mercy, kindness, and compassion toward others in spite of differences.
This is very powerful:
"Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,"
"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"
Jesus was talking to the Pharisees were wrong for insisting on a bound interpretation of scripture that resulted in the oppression of some people and the exclusion of the rest. He suggested for people who knew the scripture to unbind themselves from this rigid adherence to scripture in able to become the living word. I have always thought he meant by this that we should be good as in the golden rule of having a good regard for the well being of self and others, and that none were excluded from that path, except by their own free will. None, not any: none that were present, none from the past, none in other parts of the world, from other cultures, languages, or where people dress funny.
Best regards,
gem |
