Anyone who says that he or she (we’re sticking with two genders here at retrograde SLL) sees no greater good than his or her own is loudly denounced as a monster. Yet, even a cursory perusal of history reveals that all the great criminals pledged their fealty to some good greater than themselves. Funny how that works. From Jeff Thomas at internationalman.com:
Most people in the West are familiar with the biblical story of Moses. In this tale, a spiritual leader, chosen by God, leads his people out of Egypt to the promised land.
The Israelites are saved. God provides Moses with a list of commandments that they are to live by – pretty basic stuff: Don’t kill people, don’t steal or lie, don’t cheat on your spouse, etc.
But interestingly, the second commandment exhorts the Israelites not to create false gods, nor to bow down to nor serve them.
Unfortunately, when Moses was away, the Israelites did create a false god. They couldn’t resist the very human urge to have a visible deity that would hopefully provide them with good times, as long as they were willing to prostrate themselves before it.
And past eras are filled with such stories – naïve pagans sacrificing animals and humans to the deities in the hopes that they would provide rain, a good crop, healthy babies, freedom from inter-tribal aggression, etc.
We can look upon otherwise-advanced cultures such as the Egyptians, the Romans, the Aztecs, etc., and shake our heads at their naivete. All of them created great ceremonies that involved blood sacrifices, in order to appease the deities.
Remember Buffalo Bill in Silence Of The Lambs?
It took a cannibal to catch him.