Does anyone ever act "inappropriately"?

Is it possible for any person to act inappropriately if we use only that person's yardstick as a measure? The answer is, no. Everything imagines himself to be acting according to the highest good as he perceives it. The fact that she may not be acting in the highest good according to the reasoning of another is always, internally, irrelevant to the question.

Yesterday I made a statement, following a short discourse on former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's talks with leaders of Hamas in Damacus. I noted that Conversations with God says: "No one does anything inappropriate, given their model of the world."

That brought this response from a person posting as "Reagonite in NYC" in the Comments Section of this blog:

"Is that ALWAYS true? Yes or no? If yes, then does that mean that Nazism was appropriate for Germany and Central Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, "given their [the Nazis'] model of the world?" If yes, then does that mean that waterboarding and other forms of torture are appropriate in dealing with captured Al Quaeda terrorists, "given their [US intelligence agencies'] model of the world?"

"If it is NOT ALWAYS true, then WHO decides when exceptions to the general principle are valid? And under WHAT conditions?

"Would kindly appreciate a clarification or explanation from anyone on this board, including from Neal Donald Walsch and/or from someone familiar with his writings. Many thanks in advance :-) Reagonite in NYO"

I am pleased to respond here. Yes, my friend, in my understanding and in my experience, that is always true. The Conversations with God books tell us that "beliefs create behaviors." If we want to alter humanity's future and put an end to the self-destructive behaviors that our species exhibits, we are going to have to alter humanity's Cultural Story. That is, our beliefs.

It is our beliefs that create our "model of the world." For instance, if we believe that a person acting in self-defense is innocent of any wrong doing, no matter what he does, then he will feel free to do anything at all in the name of self defense -- including preemptively striking another nation on the suspicion that the other nation is planning to strike his.

This is what I call Suspicion Diplomacy, and it largely, if not completely, describes our foreign policy during most of the years of the second Bush Administration. We have the right--if we think you are going to strike us or our friends--to strike you. So you'd better not give us cause to even think that.

This is our "model of the world", and nothing the U.S. has done is considered inappropriate by those Americans who hold this model as their belief. Belief creates behavior.

My friend, you have asked...Does that mean that "Nazism was appropriate for Germany and Central Europe in the 1930s and 1940s...?

It may not have been appropriate for all of Germany and Central Europe, but it was appropriate for those who believed that it was. And that is the point. Neither Hitler nor his followers thought for one minute that they were doing anything but what was best for their country. It is essential to understand that if we are to understand how Hitler and his Nazis could have done what they did.

This does not condone what they did. This simply (and tragically) explains it. The true tragedy of the Hitler experience is not that a 'Hitler' came along, but that so many people went along. They went along because their belief system supported their actions. Their model of the world was reflected in their choices.

The fact that their model of the world was insanely distorted is beside the point. It is their model that drove the engine of their experience. It is their model that produced their behavior.

You have asked, "...then does that mean that waterboarding and other forms of torture are appropriate in dealing with captured Al Quaeda terrorists, their [US intelligence agencies'] model of the world?"

That is a very good question. That is a very piercing and painful question. And the answer is equally piercing and painful: Of course it does. Waterboarding is appropriate to those who are doing it--or they wouldn't be doing it. It may not be appropriate in the minds of others...but that doesn't seem to matter, now, does it...

My statement was NOT that "everything that anyone does is appropriate for everyone else in the world, so long as the person doing it agrees with what he is doing..." That is not what I said. What I said was: "Nobody does anything inapppropriate, given their model of the world."

Obviously, the sentence intends to carry the meaning that nobody does anything that THEY think is inappropriate. This is made clear by the fact that they have done it.

So when we find people acting in a way that WE deem to be "inappropriate," our task within the New Spirituality movement is to find out how they could think such a thing to be apppropriate. This can only be done by sitting down and talking with your enemies. It CAN'T be done by simply shouting at your enemies that they are acting inappropriately and to stop it or else. That is insanity. That gets one nowhere.

As we have seen.

Conversations with God offers a wonderful tool to use in situations such as this. It is a simple question: "What hurts you so bad that you feel you have to hurt me in order to heal it?"

This is what Jimmy Carter was trying to find out.