Quote:
Originally Posted by moonrambler  Gunk, inner junk, and old crap. 
And you know what? I was gratified to discover that it IS crap -- because that's not what the Bible quote says. (And it was the apostle Paul, not Jesus, who said it.) The quote is, "The love of money is the root of all sorts of evil." That changes the meaning completely! That statement carries much more truth than the way it is typically misquoted. |
Yikes, moonrambler, loud and clear, loud and clear. No, seriously, I am happy to accept that my moralising was a bit rich, especially for a materialist! I recognise that I have had certain kinds of difficulty - complexes, guilt and such - from the christian insistence that money is sinful. I see also that it was preached by an insanely rich church and may well have been used as a way of keeping the masses putting their hands in their pockets to fill the collection plate. You seem very passionate about those
lies, and I take your point.
However, I'm wondering if you can put all that on one side and whether there's anything left to say? If Paul said it that way, what kinds of evil do you think he means? Are you discounting other sayings attributed to Jesus about the problems or sins associated with wealth, about his attitude to money lenders, their working in the temple, his advice to the rich to give away their possessions, the 'eye of the needle' speech, and in this modern world, do you see any evidence of the love of money causing evil? What about utopia after utopia putting the abolition or magical vanishing of money as a priority? Is it all just nonsense?
What I said came from a disappointment that spiritual insights about our oneness seemed to mean nothing to certain individuals other than that they could have anything they wanted. The plight of the rest of humanity seemed of no consequence (or in some cases, figments of the person's imagination anyway - just shoot the pointless avatar creeps, why not?).
If someone is poor or oppressed and they use positive thinking to empower themselves and start moving up the scale, I'm in favour of it. If the richest people on the planet use it for their further gain, I'm a little uncomfortable about it. I don't buy the simple reply that there is abundance everywhere and I've got a deficit mindset. That's just an insult to the poorest people on the planet, e.g. those having their homes and way of life wiped off the planet by rich logging companies manifesting more abundance.
All populations of life forms have always competed for resources, and we are no different, except that we consume far more and have run out of frontiers to expand into (unless we count whizzing off to space - cue another link to Michio's lovely fluffy world of wonderous human futures).
Indeed, with global warming and the enormous economic upheavals we seem to be on the brink of - one superpower losing its position, another on the rise - the finiteness of our global resources should be becoming very clear. In this climate, I believe we should be trying to find ways to overcome our unbridled acquisitiveness. Maybe a little Christian charity wouldn't go amiss. Maybe we won't even survive unless we get the hang of communism.