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What Would Jesus Do with Bankers?
Anthony Freda/Daniel Zollinger
Preface: If you are an atheist and believe that religion is crazy, please remember that some 85% of the American population identifies itself as Christian and millions more identify themselves as Jewish. Very few Americans are atheists … and the majority don’t trust atheists.
The head of Goldman Sachs said he’s doing “God’s work” with his banking activities.
The head of Barclays also told his congregation that banking as practiced by his company was not antithetical to Christian principles.
Are they right? Is big banking as practiced by the giant banks in harmony with Christian principles?
Do Justice
Initially, the Bible does not counsel us to ignore the breaking of laws by the the powerful.
In fact, the Bible mentions justice over 200 times — more than just about any other topic. The Bible asks us to do justice and to stand up to ANYONE — including the rich or powerful — who do injustice or oppress the people.
Indeed, one of the first things God asks of us is to do justice:
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)
While many churches and synagogues have become obsessed with other issues, many have arguably ignored this most important of God’s demands of us. As pointed out by a leading Christian ministry, which rescues underage girls trapped as sex slaves in third world countries:
In Scripture there is a constant call to seek justice. Jesus got upset at the Pharisees because they neglected the weightier matters of the law, which He defined as justice and the love of God . . . Isaiah 58 complains about the fact that while the people of God are praying and praying and praying, they are not doing anything about the injustice.
Should Christians just pray for justice and leave the rest to God?
That’s not what the Bible asks us to do. Instead, Hebrews 11:33 tells us that we are God’s hands for dispensing justice, and God uses us to “administer justice.”
We have to “walk our talk” and put our prayers into action.
God demands that we do everything in our power to act as “God’s hands” in bringing justice. And as Saint Augustine reminds us, “Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.”
Indeed:
The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one, He was appalled that there was no one to intervene. (Isaiah 59:15-16)
This is the only place in the Bible where the word “appalled” is used for the way God feels — in other words, the only thing which we know God is appalled by is if people are not doing justice.
There are hundreds of other references to justice in the Bible, including:
- Blessed are they who maintain justice . . . . (Psalm 106:3)
- This is what the LORD says: Maintain justice and do what is right . . . . (Isiah 56:1)
- This is what the LORD says: Do what is just and right. (Jeremiah 22:3,13-17)
- Follow justice and justice alone. (Deuteronomy 16:19, 20)
- For the LORD is righteous, he loves justice . . . . (Job 11:5,7)
- Learn to do right! Seek justice . . . . (Isaiah 1:17)
So if the powerful players in the giant banks broke the laws, they must be held to account.
Fraud and Manipulation of Money
The big banks have engaged in systemic, continuous ongoing criminal fraud.
Allowing the banks to commit crime with impunity is not what Jesus would do. What would Jesus do? Turn over the tables of the money-changers. (economists agree.)
Moreover, the giant banks manipulate currency through the use of schemes such as manipulating interest rates (gaming interest rates in different regions – Libor, Eurobor, etc. – can in turn drive their currencies up or down), high frequency trading and artificially suppressing gold prices (which artificially inflates the value of fiat money) .
As Ron Paul notes, the Bible forbids altering the quality of money (which, at the time and place, was entirely in the form of coins):
Even the Bible is clear that altering the quality of money is an immoral act. We are instructed to follow the rules of “just weights and measures.” “You shall do no injustice in judgment, in measurement of length, weight, or volume. You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin” (Leviticus 19:35-36). “Diverse weights are an abomination to the LORD, and a false balance is not good” (Proverbs 20:23). The general principle can be summed as “You shall not steal.”
Proverbs 11:1 also provides:
Dishonest scales are an abomination to the LORD, but a just weight is His delight.
So to the extent that the giant banks have engaged in any dishonest acts or the manipulation of currencies, they are violating scripture.
Oppression of the Poor
Finally, the Bible condemns oppression of the poor for the benefit of the affluent:
He that oppresses the poor to increase his riches, and he that gives to the rich, shall surely come to want. (Proverbs 22:16)
To the extent that the giant banks have oppressed the poor to increase their riches, they are violating scripture.
Due to their looting, inequality is now worse in American than in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, most Latin American banana republics … and ancient Rome.
Postscript: Not all bankers are bad people. For example, many bankers at smaller banks and credit unions are good people who are trying to help their communities. Each must be judged by his own acts.
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Amen
Excellent article, George. Keep up the good work. It's about time somebody on this site actually attempted to believe what was written about Me. As to what I would do? I would remind you that I have given believers all power in heaven and earth, and you have chosen to instead accept a central government that prints imaginary money. You have accepted it because you have not opposed it. STOP PARTICIPATING. Sin begets more sin. When your leaders have the power to create money out of thin air, what do you expect? Your society has now been corrupted for at least 4 generations of believing that printing make-believe money is okay, and now it going 100% electronic. Can you say "mark of the beast?" How about having all your wealth vanish in one hour, because it never existed in the first place? I could go on and on, but my faithful servants have already written the best-seller. Read it, believe it, then act on your beliefs. I am coming quickly.
I want to know:
What would J C do with Obozo?
Hey JC, glad you could make an appearance. I got a question for you.
In this little ditty from your best seller:
"And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished."
"Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money."
— Exodus 21:20-21
Does that mean I CAN beat the shit out of my housekeeper as long as I don't immediately kill her?
Get back to me on that because she's been putting my linen pants in the dryer and I'm about ready to get medieval on her ass.
This is not an honest question, because you don't want an explanation. You want to box me into a corner in your mind, so you can stamp out my existence. My Father dealt with life as it existed when this was written. There was NO law until Moses. The self-righteousness with which you rant is actually a corrupted by-product of the law my Father introduced into a highly corrupted world.
Yo...Christ.
First off, sorry I've used your name so many times in the past. But it sounds so good rolling off the tongue..
I have questions;
1) Is your middle name something that starts with the letter H?
2) Why the fuck didn't you actually write anything yourself? It's always "Jesus says this, and Jesus said that" - explain yourself. Are you retarded and cannot write, or were you simply the first oral dictator, using these apostle guys as traveling stenos?
3) Where the hell were you from age 18 to 30? Boffing Mary Magdeline? Hmmmmm....
Oh, and while you here, could you please.....PLEASE....ram a bolt of lightening up Jim Bakkers ass.....please?
I think Jesus' middle name is in fact Hosea...and that is why he goes by Jesus H. Christ.
I also think Rev. Jim likes getting rammed up the ass...have you seen his wife?
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PsNcHpvcoKI/TeiYEeQeaqI/AAAAAAAAAS8/VlncXsYcLG...
Thanks for clearing that up. Now I can honestly use "JESUS H. CHRIST!!!!" without guilt.
I would be bummed if it was some douche middle name like Enoch or Lee..some prick name like that
True; Bakker most likely does like it up his hershey highway...but a bolt of juice from Hosea would be welcome change - for him - and for the rest of us.
Dear Jesus
Is Exodus part of the "New Covenant?"
signed
A former 'Disenchanted' follower.
I don't want to stamp out your existence...I just want to beat the shit out of my housekeeper. Is that so wrong?
Lame response. Eat some static, Alien.
hey buddy...you're the one strutting around with the moniker "Jesus Christ" and responding as such in first person.
Doesn't that violate some passage in your book of superstitions? "Thou shall not impersonate astrotheological solar deities" or some shit like that?
Hmmm. Let me see. Is it worse to impersonate God, or worse to attempt to destroy all hope by claiming there is no God? Really, tell me your position on this matter.
I'm gonna say to you the same thing I say to those god blathering retards that come knocking on my door every Sunday morning dressed like a 1972 Sears catalogue model totting a bible under their smelly underarms: Get a fuckin life.
Sorry, Alien. I am not trying to pick a fight. Just trying to make you think. I was raised as an agnostic/atheist, until I had an unasked for encounter with Him as an adult, so part of me actually understands your anger. The Apostle Paul murdered Christians until he was converted on the road to Damascus, and he ended up writing most of the New Testament. So, at the risk of pissing you off more, your anger really does not disqualify you from salvation. Far from it. In Revelation 3:15, Jesus tells the Laodiceans that He will spit them out of his mouth, because they are neither hot nor cold. You, therefore, actually have more going for you in God's eyes than lukewarm people who call themselves Christians.
And to Damascus American's shall go. As a vet who actually spent time "being trained" by Jordanian Special Forces "that's the real deal over there." There's no door closed to anyone on that department...but from what i see of the people coming home "a new birth of Christianity isn't the result." Vet's aren't fooled so easily by the "protestations of faith." they're the type of folks who want to see something real in order to be convinced. Wars do that to people..."it's not enough to be given a bible"...your life must be better in some way...as the people who represent us claim it will be. And we are right to ask questions of that...while asking questions of ourselves of course. I can't think of a worse place to have this debate...here at ZH...actually...and yet this is where the folks speak the most freely...are in that sense "the most Christian". And of course "people here are killed for that." If that isn't a belief that matters...then what is? Can't even preach in our own Churches anymore? The confessional means "a whole lot more in the age of the I Spy"? Gotta start somewhere. Not everyone's a coward. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David
JC,
Just wanted to say thanks, and say that it’s impossible to prove that you love your mother and father because even a hater can go through the motions. Does this mean that love does not exist? The only proof is to yourself when the Holy Spirit touches your hart.
Yours,
A sinner
PS the bankers drink from the cup of fornication.
Fucking Bankers!
Didn't Mel Gibson already cover this?
will you bastards finally believe in jesus when he blasts lasers at the banksters from his space ship??
Believe!
Prevent their genepools from continuing by hanging them and their families.
Well you asked. Just an opinion.
Jesus called money changers "den of thieves' because they were cheating people by manipulating balances.
Jesus turned over the tables of the money changers.
that's modern day "regime change"
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-22/bungled-bank-bailout-leaves-beh...
I'm reading a book about the French Revolution. Right before the end, the aristocracy asked the citizens of each area to write down their grievances in little pamphlets. 25,000 of the pamphlets were produced. One thing they had in common was the remedy they espoused for bankers: they said they should be branded, somewhere visible like the cheek.
Plenty of them fared worse than that when the sh*t finally hit the fan, thanks to Dr. Guillotine's little humane device. But it would be great, if we're gonna let them live, to make sure you could tell them apart in public...a nice facial branding would work.
The last time Jesus was here the bastards hung him up on a cross, but I suspect he won't go as quietly the next time.
Religion is similar to statism in that it tries to set one group of people up against another and create an "us vs them" mentality. In modern America religion is often set up against the State and in that sense I support it (the enemy of my enemy is my friend), but in the long view of history religion has been just another tool of the power elite to manipulate the masses. What we really need is an understanding that liberty is the result of using reason to examine the human condition. No amount of superstition will create a prosperous, free society; only individuals who are willing to think for themselves and do for themselves.
Faith and force go together, whether it is faith in the State or in Jesus, Allah, or whatever. Likewise reason and liberty go together, no one is free who does not think for themselves: believing something because it is tradition or it makes you feel good or whatever does no good in the long run. Anyone who really understands the human condition must be an atheist.
I'm really surprised that you got junked over that comment. But that's the price of speaking truth when it comes to religion.
Faith = A belief in something for which there is no evidence.
An atheist. And by what grounds should a atheists words be taken. What regulates that nasty little mind of yours. The wonder Iof it is that you will continue to think that telling a lie and the truth are of the same vain. Murder, rape, kidnapping, pedophilia, etc... Are just normal human emotions and should be sated whenever the urge comes upon you. What are the limits?? None that is evidenced. A true monster. There is one thing that ALL of these mass murders have in common from the last 30 years, they are like you....atheists.
Objection. And not plausible - even more, some of your so-called mass murderers thought/think that murdering makes them a sort of god, deciding who may live and who may die - a lot of them are outright fanatic and religious.
As far as I can say, I am an atheist.
It took me years thinking to made up my mind, finding reasons for or against the existence of some sort of eternal, more or less powerful god. I ended up with the finding that it simply doesn't matter, trying a fair and humanistic approach for my living. It's not your believe, your religion or whatsoever that makes you a good man - it's how you live and how you interact with the world, your family and friends and so on, and I do think that this is mainly what Jesus tried to teach.
And here is why I think that way:
Those years I literarely lost thinking about the god-thing was due to what I was told as a child, knowing nothing, grewing up trying to become as wise as possible.
It doesn't matter how long you learn, how much you read, how many experiments you follow: Unless the god turns up in front of your nose saying and proving that it's him a proof whether he exists or not is not possible. So, you still have the option to accept a god or to deny its existence, if you like.
Instead, I try the humanistic approach, beeing fair on others, just beeing a good man, a good father. I don't do on religious things, I don't walk around trying to convert and I do tell my kids about my reasons and my findings - and they can logically agree to some degree.
Unless the god turns up in front of your nose saying and proving that it's him ...
As tho that would make a difference??
Adam and Eve walked and talked with God in person. And someone else was still able to convince them that there were benefits to be had by disobeying God. On which side of the so-called Fall did Eve decide to disobey God? You Bet! The decision to disobey someone who was right in front of their noses was made before the so-called Fall, not after. And the disobedience is what caused the so-called Fall; the Fall did not change their nature and cause them to disobey.
If you read what the story actually says, you can only conclude that something more than proof is needed to convince man to obey God.
People say that they don't believe because there is no proof. The Bible story says that man doesn't believe even when there is proof.
The story in the Bible is that it is not proof that causes people to believe in God. It is something else entirely. But you won't know that if you don't know the Bible.
The crusades and the islam invasion of Europe and Asia with millions of deaths were conducted in the name of god or allah. Martin Luther was a jew hater. The holocaust was routed in christianity and many priests and religious folk participated in it. The list goes on. Pedophilia? The roman catholic church is rife with it. Faith and religion are not based on rationality but on emotion and that makes it prone to irrational emotions such as needs for silly practices and costums and hate towards those who do not share your beliefs.
Are you on fucking crack or are you just so brainwashed with religious insanity that you actually believe the shit that is flowing off your keyboard?
Furthermore, no mass murder that took place in the last 30 years could ever come close to the amount of killing that has been done in the name of "god" over the centuries.
Sell crazy somewhere else.
Let's agree on the following: You will ignore me because I'm an atheist and I will ignore you because you're a moron. Fair enough?
Alien,
Riddle me this. Why did god pick the jews to be "His chosen people"? Why not the christians? Why not the islamists? Why not the budhists?
Writing a book and calling it fact has never impressed people who think for themselves. Everyone in power has an agenda and a book to further their cause eh?
Riddle me this. Why did god pick the jews to be "His chosen people"?
Because they wrote the Bible.
"Why did god pick the jews to be "His chosen people"? "
Personally I want nothing further to do with a 'god' that picks one slice of humanity as his "chosen."
That 'god'(and it's followers) can fuck right off as far as I'm concerned. We're all humans and none of us are special...or we're all special, whichever you prefer.
edit from two to three...
OMG I've earned three red downticks for speaking my mind.
I'm crushed. /s
I am curious however if it was three 'chosen ones' or three idiot gentiles who have swallowed that bullshit and think it's tasty...
Ahhhh...so wrong, where do you start?
Please keep the aethist argument out of there.
What can you do?
1. Withdraw your money from the banks.
2. Close all accounts (401K, retirement, IRA, etc) that use electronic money. Turn it into cash. Take the tax penalty.
3. Stop using their phony money wherever possible.
4. Turn the cash into physical gold and silver. Hoard it.
If enough people would do Steps 1-4; this evil system would end immediately.
Plus: stop working in any job that produces excess value that the Stateist parasites can feed off. Only work as much as you need to survive, and try to find a way to support yourself that is "under the radar" so that you are no longer supplying the State with the "blood sacrifice" that it needs to survive.
+10, youve seen behind the curtain, and are chopping at the root.
The real question is: What would Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny do?
What Santa and the easter Bunny do doesn't matter. They aren't coming back to Judge the inhabitants of this earth regarding whether they accepted or rejected Christ Jesus in their hearts. So if you are inferring Jesus is a fairy tale....then you are in the atheist category and it really sucks to be you! Bible prophecies are coming to pass with 100% accuracy....people would have to be as blind as a bat to not see the current headlines confirming all that has been written for centuries.
If enough people believe in prophecies, they will become selffulling prophecies because the critical mass will do everything to make the prophecies happen.
...pure idiocy
Oh come on now. Santa comes back and judges us every year. Have you been naughty or nice?
Santa would put coal in their stockings. The Easter Bunny would fuck them in the ass.
god bless you george!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the book of revelation prophecies the utter destruction of the captains of commerce who made intercourse with the beast and they are those very ones we witness today pillaging and plundering the people all the while claiming to do the lord's work.....
i will NEVER again buy a nike product....nike operates the most deplorable and wicked slave labor camps in indonesia - the country of nationality of the fake president.....
read confessions of an economic hitman or watch the youtube videos by perkins....free enterprise is for the 1% - everyone else can eat shit....
i was so disgusted with the affluent patrons in the barnes and noble of dunwoody, ga who would not give a poor slightly demented woman a dime - a woman who could not afford the 10 dollars the salvation army charges the destitute to stay in its filth chambers each night....damn the salvation army and those smarmy foul whores in dunwoody!!!!!!!! the conceited sluts spend more on their starbucks coffee while a woman on a cane goes begging for money.....damn them all to hell!!!!!
do not shut up the bowels of compassion!!!!!
And by the way Jesus threw their asses out of the temple because they were skimming profits from money changing into the TEMPLE currency from the Roman Denarius which was used to "render unto Cesar". They could have set up shop somewhere else, but the fact that they where doing it in GOD's house, this made it a bit offensive methinks.....
Beat em with a fuckin table top.
I don't really think Jesus really had a problem with the principle of bankers lending "other peoples" money out....The parrable of the "talents" of money comes to mind and for all of you who have never heard of it, go look it up and read it yourself before you junk me. However, for them to do what they are doing or have done in the past 40 years is going way off the reservation. Now they steal by perpetual inflation that is so pernicious it can eat up a persons purchasing power in a half a generation. What confounds people is technological advance and globalization. It has mitigated much of the inflation you would think we would have had by now, and the fact that King Dollar holds the world reserve currency status thru a military hegemony, which is actually the main reason we are able to moderate inflation to the degree we have.
Or look up jubilee. The ancient practice that all debts are forgiven every 50 years.
Jubilee was part of the Jewish laws and does not apply to Gentiles. Jews have not even practiced/observed the Jubilee part of their law for many years.
Gentiles need to look to repudiating invalid public debts entered into under false pretences...or under color of law.