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The Forum > Article Comments > The Good Samaritan > Comments

The Good Samaritan : Comments

By Scott MacInnes, published 10/4/2018

One religious story that we can all still learn from is the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which describes a conversation about what it means to live fully and how we should treat others.

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Charity is empathetic and instinctive to man. It's common to have empathy with fellow humans who are in known need.
The degree of help offered will depend on the circumstances of the potential donor to placate his guilt, with charity towards the deprived and poverty stricken.

Natural human empathy can be activated artificially by many means. The main motivator for promoting empathetic responses, is media driven, and can be cunningly manipulated to cause grief and outpouring in the potential donor, towards a targeted cause normally not recognised.

Another is cultural conditioning. Religion and its teachings often promote guilt through teaching of self loathing, which releases the need to give resources deemed excessive to personal need, rewarded with happiness and satisfaction through obedience.

Cultural norms such as ignoring the injured child shown in Singers video (here), are not abnormal in Asia.
Beware, this is the culture welcomed into the Australian community, showing outcomes of remorselessness, and becoming increasingly more obvious in heartless acts of negligence.
Posted by diver dan, Tuesday, 10 April 2018 2:43:57 PM
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//One religious story that we can all still learn from is the Parable of the Good Samaritan//

I find it very instructive:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIVB3DdRgqU
Posted by Toni Lavis, Tuesday, 10 April 2018 3:55:24 PM
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Always an inspiring parable. I'm glad it can be appreciated even without faith.

One thing to add though. I understand the desire to change the wording and redefine God. The two definitions are both ok. That God is the greatest Good, I have no fight against. But to call God what we take seriously without any reservation. The ultimate reality for you. That sounds close to a point of worshiping the things of our lives instead of God. I've heard similar points counting our focus as idolatry. The point still come out to the same conclusion. What are we focused on? What is holding our devotion in our lives?

However. If I can I'd like to add one more thing. Jesus agreed that the sum of all the laws can be summed into 1) loving God with all your heart, soul and strength, and 2) loving your neighbor as yourself.

Later Jesus also told His disciples that if they loved Him, to obey His commands.

If we look at these two things at the same time, then our striving for being the greatest good we can be is on the same note as giving our love to God. But our greatest good that we can offer, can only be counted as part of us. God is greater then our efforts though. The parable of the Good Smartian is a great teaching. But please, don't take God out of the equation.
Posted by Not_Now.Soon, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 6:08:53 PM
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