Parable: A short narrative illustrating a lesson (usually religious/ moral) by comparison or analogy.
The philosophical question today is this: Do I have to be nice all of the time? The premise is this: if most people are being nice to this or that particular individual then what difference does it make if I'm nice? The overwhelming preponderance of people being nice should outweigh my grumbling. And why should I recycle or vote?
I'm reminded of the great Biblical story of the wine goatskin at the wedding. I've heard this story a million times but I could never get past the wine in a goatskin part to the moral of the story part. That sounds like a horrible way to store wine.
Anyway, the tradition was for each guest to bring a small goatskin of wine to the wedding and pour it into the large, main goatskin. This particular guest thought this: Why not bring a goatskin of water and pour it into the main goatskin. Nobody will know because there's going to be so much wine in there already. He was cheap. He wanted to drink wine but not pay his fair share.
When the host poured or drained or decanted or whatever you do to get wine out of a goatskin filled the first goblet he was shocked to find out it was nothing but a glass of water. All of the guests tried to pull the old switcheroo.
Isn't that a great parable?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment