“I don't feel any vulgar gratitude to you for helping me. I almost feel as if You ought to be grateful to ME, for giving you the opportunity of enjoying the luxury of generosity...I may have come into the world expressly for the purpose of increasing your stock of happiness. I may have been born to be a benefactor to you, by giving you an opportunity of assisting me. ”
This lines up perfectly with a book I read years ago about poverty, and the belief during the Middle Ages that the poor existed on Earth for the very purpose of the rich getting to feel better about themselves by helping them:
...the poor existed solely as a vehicle to help the rich gain salvation through alms (and in general feel good about themselves. Sound familiar?) Geremiek quotes Life of St. Eligius:
"God could have made all men rich, but he wanted there to be poor people in this world, that the rich might be able to redeem their sins."Later flipped by the author by suggesting "God wanted rich people in the world in order that they might help the poor." After which you may find yourself asking "Why didn't God just make all people rich?" Either way, if we are to agree that God exists, do we really think he would've created thousands of people whose sole purpose was to suffer and go without so that those who had been blessed with so much good fortune in the first place (apropos of nothing but birth) might better their own chances of getting into heaven by throwing some bones to the poor every now and again? Seems like if there was a God running this show he coulda come up with a more dignified, less-suffering way, no? To say nothing of wasted lives. Doesn't the life of the poor soul he gave aid to equal the life of the rich man "passing the test" of alms-giving? No?
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