That saying is such an Anglo cultural tell, lol. Intentions are all that matter! Because, unless you die right after the realization but before the act, you are certainly gonna follow through with that intention. You might make mistakes out of incompetence, sure, but no one is perfect, and God knows that you tried to do good so it’s all good… duh.
Again though, not surprising, a cultural “tell” if you will.
No, not really. I can provide like a thousand examples, starting from dodo birds extinction and ending in wars and dictatorships, where the intentions were good, but incompetence, obliviousness, greed, stupidity or/and other factors made the results range from worst to catastrophic.
Also I’m pretty sure other cultures have some variation of it too. For example in slavic countries there is the saying “make a fool pray to good and he’s gonna hurt himself” which is highlighting similar issues
Greed is an “intention” though, and the dodo case is just an exception. People are competent enough to live and even “succeed” often despite their incompetence, as seen by history. Intentional wrongdoing, particularly while competent a la Henry Kissinger for instance, has always been the enemy, not incompetent benevolence. We’ve always been able to accommodate the latter, I think.
Regardless, I meant “all that matters” when it comes to living with oneself and facing God, but incompetence certainly makes things hard for us here.
That saying is such an Anglo cultural tell, lol. Intentions are all that matter! Because, unless you die right after the realization but before the act, you are certainly gonna follow through with that intention. You might make mistakes out of incompetence, sure, but no one is perfect, and God knows that you tried to do good so it’s all good… duh.
Again though, not surprising, a cultural “tell” if you will.
No, not really. I can provide like a thousand examples, starting from dodo birds extinction and ending in wars and dictatorships, where the intentions were good, but incompetence, obliviousness, greed, stupidity or/and other factors made the results range from worst to catastrophic.
Also I’m pretty sure other cultures have some variation of it too. For example in slavic countries there is the saying “make a fool pray to good and he’s gonna hurt himself” which is highlighting similar issues
Greed is an “intention” though, and the dodo case is just an exception. People are competent enough to live and even “succeed” often despite their incompetence, as seen by history. Intentional wrongdoing, particularly while competent a la Henry Kissinger for instance, has always been the enemy, not incompetent benevolence. We’ve always been able to accommodate the latter, I think.
Regardless, I meant “all that matters” when it comes to living with oneself and facing God, but incompetence certainly makes things hard for us here.