The Parable of the Good Samaritan is a New Testamentparable appearing only in the Gospel of Luke.[1] (Also known as The Good Neighbour). The majority view indicates this parable is told by Jesus in order to illustrate that human kindness and fellow feeling must be available to all, and that fulfilling the spirit of the Law is just as important as fulfilling the letter of the Law, see also Letter and spirit of the law. Jesus puts the definition of neighbor into an enlarged context, beyond what people usually thought of as a neighbor.
The parable
The parable is found in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 10, verses 25-37.
[the preceding context of the parable here]
One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?” The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!” The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
[the parable starts here]
Jesus replied with a story:
“A Jewish man was traveling on a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road. By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side. Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’ “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked. The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”New Living Translation
I wonder, why would you make sure your neighbor had health care, if there was no profit in it?
But peace does not rest in the charters and covenants alone. It lies in the hearts and minds of all people. So let us not rest all our hopes on parchment and on paper, let us strive to build peace, a desire for peace, a willingness to work for peace in the hearts and minds of all of our people. I believe that we can. I believe the problems of human destiny are not beyond the reach of human beings.
–John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963, Thirty-fifth President of the USA
We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives, that it is inside ourselves. Albert Camus
We can work on inner peace and world peace at the same time. On one hand, people have found inner peace by losing themselves in a cause larger than themselves, like the cause of world peace, because finding inner peace means coming from the self-centered life into the life centered in the good of the whole. On the other hand, one of the ways of working for world peace is to work for more inner peace, because world peace will never be stable until enough of us find inner peace to stabilize it.
–Peace Pilgrim, 1908-1981, American Peace Activist
Helena posted this instructive comment in response to the Heart Scan Blog post, Weight loss and vitamin D. It illustrates the confusion common among physicians and pharmacists on the differences between D2 and D3.
(Edited slightly for clarity.)
Not many weeks ago a colleague of mine (let’s call him Eric) asked me if I knew the difference between D2 and D3 and I told Eric that D2 comes from irradiated mushrooms and D3 comes from wool. In other words, D3 is the same kind of vitamin as humans get from the sun. Humans just don’t get enough and we can’t produce it on our own, like the sheep can. (D3 is natural for humans, D2 is not.)
After telling Eric this, he asked me how he would know what he is taking and I gave him the medical definitions of them both (D2 = Ergocalciferol; D3 = Cholecaliciferol). Since I was aware that he had gotten his Vitamin D by prescription, I told him “I am 99.9% sure that you are taking D2, but I would be thrilled to find out I am wrong.”
Eric called his pharmacy right away and got the answer I was expecting: ergocalciferol. On confronting the person Eric was talking to, the answer he got back was that Ergocalciferol is the only Vitamin D they are giving out.
A week later, Eric had a new appointment with his doctor and decided to ask him about the D2/D3 issue. The doctor said he knew that there was a difference in them both, but could not say what, not even the basic facts I mentioned above. But the doctor stamped a post-it with what he had sent to the pharmacy just to show Eric. “Vitamin D3; 50,000IU tab” is what the stamp said.
Eric, off course, got confused and was starting to believe that the pharmacy had made a mistake by giving him Ergocalciferol (D2) since the doctor had given him D3, or at least that is what was stamped on the little note he had.
Today, after getting a refill of his Vitamin D he also got and kept all his paperwork that came along with it. Still believing that stamp the doctor had given Eric earlier, he asked me to double and triple check that my definition of D2 and D3 was correct. I did, just for my own sanity, and I was still right.
One of the sheets Eric brought me today was the “Patient Education Monograph” sheet stating the drugs and how to use it and so on. The thing that jumped out the most to me was this:
Generic Name: Vitamin D – Oral
Common Brand name(s): Drisdol, Maximum D3
Identification: PA140 Green Oval Capsule
This is the Drug Eric was given: Vitamin D 1.25 MG softgel; Generic name: Ergocalciferol
My researching mind went into high concentration mood and I started to dig. And this is what I found:
The brand name Drisdol is Ergocalciferol (D2), not D3. The Brand name Maximum D3 seems to be hard to find out there in cyber space as a brand name. But the ones I found that were called Maximum D3 seems to be the real stuff, however none of them required a prescription.
When trying to find out through the identification number on the pills (PA140) I now know for sure that Eric is taking Vitamin D2 and not the preferred Vitamin D3. The brand name, Drisdol, had the identification W on one side and D92 on the other, but it is still Ergocalciferol.
The only conclusion I can draw from all this is that the medical industry does not know or care about the difference in D2 and D3 – it is all same to them. And as long as the pharmacies only give out D2 it does not matter what the doctor prescribe anyway.
I know that people are most likely to be prescribed a D2 pill than to be told to buy over-the-counter D3. But it was almost heart breaking to see the letter D and number 3 right next to the drug Drisdol, as we know is a D2 vitamin. It just didn’t make sense to me that they can be labeled as the same type of medication, when we know it is not!
Incredible.
Why prescribe plant form D2 when you can get perfectly reliable, safe, effective D3–the human form, at the health food store for about $6?
Once again, it’s the peculiar false bias of physicians and pharmacists: If it’s prescription, it must be good; if it comes from a health food store, it must be bogus.
Humans need human vitamin D. Plain and simple.
For more on the D2 vs. D3 issue, see the Heart Scan Post, The case against vitamin D2.
Fom the Heart Scan Blog
The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes from within the souls of men when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which is within the souls of men.
–Black Elk, 19th Century American Native Religious Leader
Think not forever of yourselves, O Chiefs, nor of your own generation. Think of continuing generations of our families, think of our grandchildren and of those yet unborn, whose faces are coming from beneath the ground.
–T. S. Eliot, 1888-1965, American-born British Poet, Critic
Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where these is hatred, let me sow love.
–St. Francis of Assisi, 1181-1226, Italian Preacher, Founder of the Franciscan Order
Then just wait and see what happens after, as expected, the Supreme Court allows corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on behalf of their favored candidates:
The Supreme Court signaled Wednesday it may let businesses and unions spend freely to help their favored candidates in time for next year’s elections. Such a step could roll back a century of attempts to restrain the power of corporate treasuries in American politics.
The justices cut short their summer recess for a lively special argument that indicated the court’s conservative skeptics of campaign finance laws have the upper hand over its liberals, including new Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the high court’s swing vote, but a firm opponent of many campaign restrictions, at one point told the government’s lawyer, “Corporations have lots of knowledge about environment, transportation issues, and you are silencing them during the election.”
To a certain extent, it is hard to even conceptualize why this matters. To paraphrase Dick Durbin, powerful moneyed interests already run the government. From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, check out the gains made by of wealthy interests over the past 30-35 years:
There are the glorious results of bi-partisan, moderate-approved economic policy for you.
Through vast lobbying, astroturf, media and legal efforts that dwarf anything progressives have created, powerful moneyed interests in this country have been able largely to control legislation even after 30-year peak in Democratic electoral success. A ruling like this will simply be the icing on the cake.
It is oligarchy. It is also, according to Adam Smith, no longer an enabler of free market capitalism, but of monopoly capitalism: “To widen the market and to narrow the competition is always the interest of the dealers … The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted, till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.”
The Wealth of Nations, Book I Chapter XI
Remember, this is a Supreme Court that played a key role in the electoral coup we so quaintly refer to as “the 2000 Presidential election”. And it was not a bloodless coup. I do not think that hundreds of thousands of innocent foreigners would have died or hundreds more been tortured and murdered if Al Gore had been elected.
It’s all about the money now. (It always was, but at least now progressives don’t have to pretend it isn’t.) From this point, whichever presidential candidate raises the most money wins. Corporations are the real citizens in this country. The rest of us are just visiting.
CTJ Report Confirms Obama’s Statement on Costs in Health Care Address
“Add it all up, and the plan I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over ten years – less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration.”
- President Barack Obama, Address to Joint Session of Congress, September 9, 2009
A recent report from Citizens for Tax Justice finds that the Bush tax cuts cost almost $2.5 trillion over the decade after they were first enacted (2001-2010). Preliminary estimates from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office show that the House Democrats’ health care reform legislation is projected to cost $1 trillion over the decade after it would be enacted (2010-2019). President Obama said during his address to Congress that his health care plan would cost a little less than the House plan, at “around $900 billion over ten years.”
As the President said, even the Bush tax cuts “for the wealthiest few” cost more than his health care plan. The direct cost of the tax cuts for just the richest five percent of taxpayers over the 2001-2010 period is $979 billion. (The cost is even greater if one includes interest payments that resulted because the Bush tax cuts were deficit-financed.) In 2010, when all the Bush tax cuts are finally phased in completely, an incredible 52.5 percent of them will go to this wealthiest five percent of taxpayers.
Oddly, many of the lawmakers who claim to be concerned about the cost of the President’s health care plan are the same lawmakers who supported the Bush tax cuts, despite their much greater costs.
http://www.ctj.org
These figures make clear that costs cannot be the real concern of lawmakers who oppose health care reform and yet supported the Bush tax cuts. Their position seems to be that showering benefits on the wealthiest five percent of taxpayers and leaving the bill for future generations is preferable to making health care available for all at a much lower cost and paying that cost up front. That demonstrates a different set of priorities than most Americans have, but it doesn’t demonstrate much concern about costs.
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