It is amazing how many dumb things people can say, in the face of problems, in the name of religion. You hear them at funerals. How many hearts have been broken because of someone's outrageous interpretation of adversity.

Even Charlie Brown, in the Peanuts cartoons, encountered this. One day Charlie Brown says to Linus, "I feel good. I just got back from the grocery store. Guess what? The owner and his wife both complimented me. They said I was a very nice boy."

Linus replied, "In the sixth chapter of Luke, it says, `Woe to you when all men speak well of you.'"

Charlie Brown leans his head on his hand and sighs, "So much for feeling good." 

It is amazing how, in the name of religion, people can spread such ill feelings. Probably Bartimaeus had to put up with some of this. He was blind, and he was a beggar, and he was probably rejected.