Last Updated on September 30, 2010 by Dave Farquhar
Who annoys you more than anyone else? What do they do that annoys you?
Picture me standing at the front of a room with a bunch of people, asking those questions. I’ve got a dart board and some darts, and I write those things down on the dart board. And then I show off my spectacular skill by naming those things off, throwing darts at them and hitting them as I rattle them off. Siblings who bicker over their inheritances. Drivers who pull into intersections when they’re backed up at a light and stay there, making you sit through three greens before you can finally move. Executives who commit fraud, make lots of money, and leave before the fallout is complete, money in hand, but destroying the retirement accounts of the “lesser” employees, who’ve invested much of their life’s savings in that company.
I’m sure you can name some others.
And what if after I pulled the darts out of the board, I peeled back that paper, and behind it you saw a picture of Jesus, riddled with those holes?
You don’t have to tell me your reaction. I just want you to think about it.
One of the girls in my Bible study shared that illustration this week. A monologue in text doesn’t do it justice. I think I need to save that one and use it.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.
I just started reading Adam Smith’s “The theory of Moral Sentiments” which appears to be everything the copious table of contents and critics say it is. Namely, an excellent work on human nature and behavior, ethics, morality and the foundation for ethics and morality (called “the deity” in his chapter heading which I have not gotten to yet).
You made me think of this with your illustration, especially the corporate exec and behind the scenes Jesus.
What most seem to fail to recognize when arguing for free markets, laissez faire economics, etc. is simple: One MUST have a MORAL and ETHICAL society upon which the capitalist free market system is built. Otherwise it will not work (not that anything else will work successfully in a morally bankrupt society but…)
Adam Smith’s work, “The Wealth of Nations” should be viewed as only one side of the coin, with his “The theory of Moral Sentiments” being the other just as necessary side.
Excelsior,
Bruce
Well, it makes me think of two things:
1) you contrived this whole thing with your deady accurate aim.
and
2) How do we know what Jesus looks like? I don’t recall a graven image surviving, nor do I buy into him looking like a white hippie.
And I’ve thought of a third thing:
3) I bet it didn’t look anything like Bud Selig!
1. You can talk to my cutoff man about my deadly accurate aim. It’s neither, except in my dreams. Unfortunately. But I won’t get into that.
2. We have no idea. All we have to go on is the Shroud of Turin, but we have no way of authenticating it. Still, there’s an image most of us recognize as what’s supposed to be Jesus. It wouldn’t surprise me if he had long hair and an unkempt beard in the tradition of a Nazarite (not to be confused with a Nazarene, which he was). But He wasn’t white. Of course, I know people who think Jesus was not only white, but also spoke German.
3. Absolutely not. But his name was written on the paper in front!
And Bruce, you’re absolutely right. Capitalism won’t work in a morally bankrupt society, which, unfortunately, is what we’ve become. And there are plenty of people clamoring to make it worse. I guess the aftermath of WorldCom and Enron isn’t enough for them.
Someone asked me to explain the illustration, so here goes. You can interpret it two ways, both valid. What you do to those people you hate the most, you do to Jesus. Similarly, what you want to do to those people you hate the most, someone already did to Him. In their place.