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How Should People of Faith - Or Atheists Who Want to Talk With Them - Think of Bank Crime?
Anthony Freda/Daniel Zollinger
What Would Jesus – Or the Rabbis of Old – Do?
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.) Therefore, knowing a few bible verses may be essential for atheists to be able to speak to people of faith.
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 or traditional Jewish 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)
But shouldn’t we be deferential to the rich and powerful bankers?
No. Colossians 3:25 explains:
For the wrongdoer will have punishment for the wrong he has done, without respect for any man’s position.
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 are manipulating every market in the world.
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.
Shouldn’t We Wait Until the Economy Recovers?
Apologists for Wall Street criminals argue that we should wait until the economy recovers before we prosecute the criminals.
But Ecclesiastes 8:11 notes:
When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, people’s hearts are filled with schemes to do wrong.
Nobel prize winning economists agree.
Important 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.
Moreover, corrupt government officials are half the problem. Indeed, the big banks wouldn’t have grown so large, or gotten away with so many bad acts, had corrupt officials in Washington not condoned their actions.
The Wall Street criminals themselves are not the real problem. The deeper problem is the malignant, symbiotic relationship between corrupt government officials and corrupt bankers.
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Poor argument. If god designed humans he must not have very high standards. If he did the a-hole nearly killed me as a kid when my appendix burst. No praying to god was going to save me, medical science was the difference between life and death. Honestly you American Christian nuts are so far gone with your bible quoting and New Testament prophecies that we'll simply have to wait for a new generation.
Yours is a poor response to a real argument to a question you ( a scientist ?) asked. You fail to perceive that God's grace preserved your life through the instrumental means of medical science.
1 corinthians:
18For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
20Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
Incorrect. The original bible wasn't written in English. All english translations to date are replacing entire phrases & embelishing stories AND removing anything insulting TO the Vatican.
If quoting a bible is all you've got then, as I said, we'll just have to wait for a new, better educated generation. Why did god design the appendix in the first place and save himself the trouble of intervention down the track. You people are insane, that's all I can say. Your arguments are so bad they barely warrant response. Your god enacts shit awful designs then has to constantly intervene to save us from thiose shit awful designs. You people are crazy, that's all this to it.
You will be having much time to be waiting while you are having your dirtnap.
Your speaking of the words that are angries and not having the seeking of the talking of the thinkings is only making you looking like the having of the talking of the sillies that you are being poking at the funnies in the postings of your others.
Still waiting to see how god was created.
He never had a beginning , always existed.
I am what I am. I will be what I will be. I will be what I will to be.
Doubt you will figure that out in your lifetime
Wow, you must be a REAL nutter, to even deny plate tectonics and subduction!
But oh yeah, I forget, the earth is only 6000 years old.
PS: I hope you realize that you ARE insane. Delusional and schizophrenic, at the very least.
PPS: Downarrow away, all you believers in sky demon fantasies! I will take each and every one of them as a badge of honor.
Lengthy and interesting read that rips apart plate tectonics.
http://www.davidpratt.info/tecto.htm
http://io9.com/5841444/why-earth-might-have-started-out-as-a-gas-giant
http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Plate-Tectonics-Jupiter-Like-ebook/dp/B007V...
Disregarding your ultimate beliefs in a supreme being, everyone knows that justice is the basis of the social contract. Trust is essentially the belief that those you would contract with share your belief in the value of justice. Note also that the bible (God's word...) tells you to 'do justice,' ie, you are commanded to be just in your dealings with others. You have no duty to force justice on others, except by avoiding them. This is extended to include the duty not to condone injustice practiced by others. But we have a legal system (not a justice system) in this country, and you will encounter stiff resistance if you undertake to appropriate its functions to yourself; no vigilantes allowed: Holder will decide who needs to be prosecuted, and it won't be his cronies or Obummer's supporters. Thus injustice is ingrained in the social institutions in the US corporatocracy. If you believe you have some duty to resist injustice, why are you still doing business with the big banks?
Fishhawk
So all those fundamentalist Christians are good because they want to kill brown people in the Middle East?
Churches and religion, like government, have nothing to do with being good. It's all about control.
Dup.
Like anything tainted by man, Churches become corrupted, too. The principals, however, are the constants. Religeous Christian fanatics are little different from the the Muslim fanatics who want to kill white people in the West, or the Zionists who want to drive out any traces of Goyium from the Holy Land
The guidelines for living in harmony are in the religeous tenents. Carrying them out is another matter.
So, yes, you can allow the corrupted 'church' to control you, or you can build your own internal house of God and control yourself.
You can also be an atheist or agnostic and live a good, inspiring, uplifting life. In fact, give me a moral atheist any day over a funfamentalist who isconvinced it's their way or damnation.
Pretty much my sentiments. Most people can't control themselves and when they desire to control others, it shows how really stupid and vile they are.
You should read The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt.
Each man is his own temple to God.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20Brilliantly put. I'd burn through an entire quivers of UP arrows on you if I could.
Jesus Is Coming...
and Boy Is He Pissed..........
Unlike a lot of people I doubt his ire is so much about parades of naked gays as about Blankfein buying out .GOV and having the temerity to say he's doing God's work. What is happening in DC and on Wall Street is evil.
Anybody who knows their Bible knows why Sodom and Gommorrah were destroyed, and it wasn't because of gays.
Any culture that tells God to go fuck himself, and then attempts to take posession of things that are rightfully his (everybody trying to fuck over the angels)...the only punishment is absolute destruction. Backsliding into those ideas is not permissable, either (Lot's wife).
Interesting Post GW.
One could deduce that, like the poor, the sinners will always be among us, but could not prosper in their sin without a Pontius Pilate washing his hands instead of passing judgement.
Like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain
is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked.
Proverbs 25:26
Heathenish, though I be.
My question is how can reform be initiated without inviting collapse. In the death throes of the Soviet Union and its satellite regimes, many see that even "peaceful" reform is very wrenching.
Will Obama be like Lincoln and arrest members of Congress? Would that do us any good?
Or will Obama fall like Ceaucescu? Again, would that be a benefit?
There's no question *that* major change (back to free-market principles, not toward collectivism) is needed.
The question is how to bring it about with a minimum of bloodshed.
I'll note also that Robespierre's name is associated strongly with "terror" but the "terror" he was talking about was not random violence but the kind of swift justice that G.W. here mentions as being biblical and necessary to preserve public morals.
Robespierre was a lunatic atheist who despised the Roman Catholic church and whose life ended appropriately to the way he "lived".
What do you make of that?
Pol Pot was a 'Law and Order' kind of guy too. Very swift and efficient. Defense depositions lasted about 2 seconds.
AND a very accomplished athiest! Right up there with: Mao (60M+ innocent killed), Stalin (25% innocent Soviets killed), Hitler (25M+ innocent killed).
Haven't all US presidents been Christians or religious.
Truman - only leader to have nuked anyone, and Lincoln - who caused 750,000 deaths in a population of 31.4 million, included.
It is clear to see the problem is actually the government.
Everything government touches turns to crap. - Ringo Starr
Truman & Lincoln? Rank amateurs! They didn't even kill 1M innocent people! Athiests have accomplished SO MUCH MORE!!
Please DO NOT SLANDER the accomplishments of athiests by comparing them to amateurs like Truman (who ended the most destructive war ever) or Lincoln (who ended slavery in the US).
There is no question of Lincoln and Truman's religious beliefs.
Got any proof on Hitler's, Stalin's, and Mao's atheism?
"Truman (who ended the most destructive war ever) or Lincoln (who ended slavery in the US)"
Unbelievable ignorance.
WWII was over, the Japanese had surrendered. The War of Southern Secession was not over slavery and we are now all slaves to the federal government.
When it comes to murdering millions, upon millions, upon MILLIONS and MORE MILLIONS of innocent people - ATHIESTS RULE!!
Hitler's belief in athiesm:
The historian Ian Kershaw wrote that few people could really claim to "know" Hitler - "he was by temperament a very private, even secretive individual", unwilling to confide in others.[3] InHitler's Table Talk, and according to the testimony of various intimates, Hitler often voiced stridently negative views of Christianity. He angered the churches by appointing the neo-paganAlfred Rosenberg as official Nazi ideologist, and generally permitted anti-church radicals such as Himmler, Goebells and Bormann to conduct their persecutions of the churches. Alan Bullockwrote that Hitler was a rationalist and materialist, who saw Christianity as a religion "fit for slaves", and against the natural law of selection and survival of the fittest.[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_religious_views
Stalin and Mao were Communists, so that is sufficient proof. But, here's more:
[Stalin] officially adopted the Russian Communist Party’s stance on religion, claiming atheism and continuing the tradition of teaching atheism in schools and propagating the idea that religion was only damaging to a perfect communist society. Stalin even took it further than his predecessor, Lenin, and initiated a nationwide campaign to destroy churches and religious property and even persecute and kill church officials.2 It is said that under Stalin, the Russian Orthodox Church went from 50,000 to 500 open and operating churches.3 Stalin once said:
But for all accounts and purposes, Stalin was a hardcore atheist until the day he died.
http://hollowverse.com/joseph-stalin/
Mao:
Religion - none (athiest)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong
WWII timeline:
August, 1945:
Morality (public morals) in man is very similar to morality in ants.
Behaviors that promote the survival of the possessors of those behaviors.
Good stuff George, thank you.
Injustice debases the lives of everyone and erodes the social fabric; so many lessons of this in the last century and yet we repeat the same mistakes.
The corrupt in Washington and Wall Street are waging war on the common citizen; the bullets and the dying come about later as a result of their malfeasance - it is a war nonetheless.
What about agnostics? After all, atheism is itself a kind of religion. (Religious people make the absolute assertion that a creator exists with no proof, atheists make the absolute assertion that NO creator exists with no proof)
I assert (with no proof) that many who identify as religious are in fact agnostics.
The labels just don't work. If I had to pick one, it'd be Deist. ALL religions call me an atheist, but I don't see why you have to subscribe to one sect or another, to know that there is (obviously, imho) an entity that exists that is greater than yourself.
This is the great flaw that is ingrained in humans. Each has to believe in a higher power, but each one feels a need to place a label on his/her particular creed, and place it above all others.
We can talk about peak oil, peak credit or what have you, but the driver of peak conflict is religion.
That driver just failed vis-a-vis Syria, so I still have a glimmer of hope for mankind. The market only matters to the players. The rest of us will carry on, as we always have.
Demanding evidence is not a religion - we shouldn't believe in unicorns, parallel dimensions, teleportation or psychic powers or gods without evidence. Come on, it's a simple request.
Maybe you should try and understand why you accept it without proof.
http://www.thegreatdebate.org.uk/MentalismCB.html
• Religion, Superstition and Ethics
As I mentioned above, Schreber interpreted his delusions as religious and mystical insights into reality, and to the extent that all theological thinking presupposes the existence of supernatural beings and a 'psychic' or 'spiritual' dimension to the human mind, you could see it as similarly hyper-mentalistic. Indeed, such an approach readily suggests an intriguing new evolutionary insight into religion. According to this way of looking at it, theory of mind originally evolved to facilitate purely psychological inter-personal interactions in primeval societies. However, in the absence of the more mechanistic, scientific understanding of the physical world that was not to evolve until recently, existing mentalistic adaptations were applied to the universe as a whole, transferring concepts like agency, intention, culpability and prescience to deities, demons and supernatural entities of all kinds. As a result, reality as a whole - and not just social reality - became peopled with mental agents who could be influenced in ways analogous to those in which ordinary humans could be: through supplication (prayer), generosity (sacrifice), or contrition (penance). In this way, personal needs, failings and frustrations beyond the remedy of mere mortals could be redressed, and a mentalistic pre-adaptation set the scene for the evolution of religion, magic and superstition as independent cognitive systems.
Historically and socially, morality and religion are closely associated, and our routine tendency to name, blame and shame leaves little doubt that an ability to make and manipulate moral concepts such as justice, virtue and culpability are of enormous importance in our attempts to influence the behaviour of others by purely mental means (witness the frequency with which purely intellectual disagreements can lead to accusations of the 'wickedness' or 'immorality' of the view being criticized: (McKie & Thorpe, 2002).
• Law, Politics and Ideology
There is also a close affinity between ethics and law, particularly when the latter has a religious or scriptural basis as it does for example in Judaism or Islam. But all legal codes are mentalistic to the extent that they can - and typically do - lead to legal argument and contestation, for example in the conduct of trials. But you only have to compare this situation with that of laws as they are understood in natural science to see how different legal principles are from scientific ones. You could not, for example, advocate the repeal of the second law of thermodynamics in the way you might that of any human law, or dispute Mendelian inheritance in the same way that someone might challenge a will.
As for politics - at least in Western-style democracies - the adversarial nature of law finds an exact parallel in the similarly adversarial organization of political parties and legislatures into government and opposition, left as opposed to right wings of the political spectrum, conservatives versus progressives, and so on. Where ideology is concerned, no one will I think need to be convinced that the appeal of political ideologies lies in the arguments used to justify them, the emotions which they arouse, and in other mentalistic factors on which they rely, such as the personalities of political leaders or the beliefs of their followers. Indeed, and in so far as they are non-violent alternatives to more war-like social conflicts, you could see law, politics and ideology as the supreme cultural expression of mentalism as an evolved means of influencing others by psychological, rather than physical means.
Why is there always some hellbound intellect who shows up trying to drag anyone within earshot into the abyss with them? Is this where we get the term - "Misery loves company?"
Hey Einstein, look at the computer your'e on. Its a fairly sophisticated piece of equipment...Yes? Yeah, it happened by accident. There was this big bang - And, waalaa! Out of the caos came your computer!! Why not?? Is the seed and the four seasons that sustain us any less complicated? Yet...Listen to yourself!
"The FOOL has said in his heart...There is no GOD!!" Psalm 14:1-7
Lewshine please. It's voila! Not waala. It's chaos, not caos, even though I understand "the heat of the moment" and all that it entails. But please! Respect voila! It's an important word.
The Jesus Mysteries, by Freke & Gandy ~ http://www.amazon.com/The-Jesus-Mysteries-Original-Pagan/dp/0609807986
Talks extensively of the Pagan religions that predate Christianity and how this 'new' Christian religion was basically a re-boxed, re-marketed [pagan] religion utilized by the Roman Empire at the time. I would even go as far as to say that at least 10% of the book is references to back up the research.
The Genius of the Few, by Christian O'Brien ~ http://goldenageproject.org.uk/genius.php
Is a super fascinating story that also predates Christianity, by thousands & thousands of years. The familiar stories we have in the bible strangely belonged to another culture long before even the old testament existed. [The flood & Garden of Eden] And if you are familiar with the bible stories, the way it is presented by the oldest known civilization, the Sumerians, it finally makes sense.
Listen, nobody should try to impose their 'beliefs' on anyone else. Nor chastise anyone for where they are in their beliefs. I was once a Christian but after extensive travels that had me living abroad for years in Muslim and Buddhist countries, I had started to second guess the religion handed to me without question by my country, culture and family. Books like the above mentioned helped me to be at peace with not being religious or adhering to dogmatic systems of any kind.
Live and let live. Share knowledge when people are receptive to what you have to share.
"my truth today might not be my truth tomorrow from the wisdom gained in between"
Conversations about Sex, Religion & Politics - always gets interesting in the end =)
Amen. Repent and change and be on your way.
Truth tomorrow is truth you learned today.
You is what you is and that is free.
You will be what you will to be.
Infantile arguments. Stick to quoting the bible, I think that's the best you can hope for. A human being made the computer, the computter being a non bilogical entity. Natural processes made biological organisms through accretive complexity over many billions of years. It's sad to see such a horrible lack of basic education. Next you're goijng to claim the eartn is flat and animals lined up in twos on the ark. You christians are screwed because the bible is all you've got and it's full of fantastical bullshit that you once claimed was the word of god. Now you claim it isn't the word of god but an allegorical description of the world. You're stuck in a dead end which will see the abrahamic faiths die, there is no other possible outcome. All those gay cathloic priests will be shit out of luck and have to find their little boys some other way. Any god that allows the suffering that takes place on this earth to continue does not deserve worship, it deserves derision.
please - one example of fantastical bullshit?-- just one.... and second of all... don't clasify catholics as christian.. that is a straw man argument... that is like letting agnostics into atheist meetings and saying not all athiests don't believe in God... and maybe just maybe this suffering that you are so afraid is what this life is about.... maybe what is real requires suffering... pussified thinking is the new norm... might be all the soy
Tell that to a new born baby in Sudan who is torn from limb to limb you insensitive asshole. While you are not suffering the world is great, the world is dandy, god is marvellous. Have one of your children raped by a catholic priest and tell me you still love your god. Your god is ficticious, it's in the mind of mad people. There is so much unbridled suffering in this world that no personal god can possibly exist. I don't mind adult human beings suffering because we make the bed we lie in. I object wholeheartedly to the horrible suffering of children who have not had a chance to affect the world in which they live. Suffering at the hands of the US government for example as drones tear their flesh from theor limbs. When you accept suffering of this kind I can only hope that a drone targets you and tears alimb from your body.
fyi ... calling catholics christian is a straw man argument....
You have backed yourself into a corner. Answer me one simple question: Are we the only intelligent, PHYSICAL (not spirtitual) life forms in the known/unknown universe?
Can't answer the question without first defining "intelligent" and "physical" and "life"
How would me knowing the answer, which I do not, help you to know that God does indeed exist??