When I was in Tucson, I ran into a brilliant young Christian evangelist named   
   Sasha who kept trying to recruit me into Christianity. One of the claims that   
   he made was that he was nothing. Meanwhile this person is a successful   
   international entrepreneur    
   and has climed Mt. McKinley. My question is as follows. If someone with this   
   level of accomplishment sees himself as nothing, then how is he going to see -   
   and treat - the next person?   
      
   Luther claimed humanity to be maggots and filth. How does one treat maggots   
   and filth? You figure it out. These attitudes are poisonous and result in a   
   huge mistreatment of people. It is not humility; it is abuse.   
      
   Regarding the golden rule, the question to be asked is, Are all the people the   
   same? Certainly, if I was like you, then me treating you the way that I want   
   to be treated would be appropriate course of action. The  problem is that I am   
   not like you. I am    
   like me. And in treating you the way that I want to be treated, all I'm doing   
   is introjecting my own needs into you and treating you as if you were me when   
   you are not like me at all.   
      
   Why haven't these attitudes been adequately challenged? Your guess is as good   
   as mine; but I am perfectly willing to challenge these standpoints, and I hope   
   that others do as well. The person who sees himself as nothing will also treat   
   others as if they    
   were nothing. And the person who treats others the way that he wants to be   
   treated introjects his own needs as those of the next person while being   
   oblivious to what the next person may actually want or what the next person   
   may be.   
      
   The solution is to figure out each given person and treat them the way that   
   they want to be treated, not the way that you want to be treated. And at no   
   point should the "maggots and filth" party line be  allowed to speak for   
   Christ or for the Creator.     
   We are not maggots and filth; we are people. And that means that we differ   
   from one another and cannot be treated the same way.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)