I agree with that mostly except that money can be manipulated much easier then land, resources and services. However it is even possible to manipulate the relationships between people regarding land, resources and services.
— christian2017
The problem with using commodities and natural resources directly for barter is that they have limited application. Money have unlimited application, abstractly, hence transacting with them is much more powerful.

I agree, but during the middle ages they did have monasteries which many poor families sent their children too.
— christian2017
Even if the politics in this regard were standard, I suspect that a lot of the wealth of the church was accumulated through state funding, land ownership, or donations from the wealthy aristocracy. But this wealth came at the expense of the poor, whose rights were trumped in favor of their lords. Therefore, the pity offered in this way was not an entirely positive effect.

Many of the problems we have today are a distant extension of the industrial revolution. Automation, Globalism and money manipulation have made it hard for many poor people to be self sufficient.
— christian2017
The industrial revolution was even worse then the middle ages. And that says something. It is one of the grimmest periods in human history. When someone talks about the success of western capitalism, I always think about the initial price that was paid - slavery in south US and children working to death in Great Britain. Nonetheless, times have changed for the better.

Regarding money manipulation, as I already said - this is abuse of an instrument. This is not an excuse for the misfortune it causes, but the balance will be judged differently depending on the person's situation. If you take a non-electural government scheme for central welfare distribution, the same issue arises, because you have to rely on correctly functioning meritocratic system of appointments to office, and if it fails, you have a different kind of monster.

Regarding globalism, I am not sure what you mean. Different people have different issues with it. Do you mean the introduction of cheap labor into countries with high economic standards, cultural infusions, price pressure from imports, etc. To be honest, I do think that some of those effects are indeed abusive in a very specific technical sense (which I don't want to elaborate right now). At the same time, in any competitive situation, the person who is willing to sacrifice the most defines the expected performance - there is no level playing field. This turns any competition into terror experience for the participants. But unfortunately, I believe that natural competition is required for unbiased evaluation of performance - anything else is a test of some kind of norm or preference, which is not an objective test.

The suicide and opiod abuse rate in the US is extremely high.
— christian2017
I cannot comment on that. Maybe the capitalism in the US is managed poorly compared to other countries indeed. Yet, I don't think that I have ever seen a statement that capitalistic countries have higher suicide and substance abuse factors in general.

I would argue many modern Americans have become very fierce in their outlook on life due to the fact that in some sense American devalue human life more than any other people in the past 2000 years. I believe the Medieval man very often acted as a coward because they enjoyed life more than we do.
— christian2017
Maybe, or maybe they didn't know any better. Notice the rebellion I outlined in my second reply. It hasn't ended well for the poor folk. — simeonz

I don't have a problem with most of what you said. I would like to point out that automation has caused many jobs to disappear. Believe it or not automation has even taken away software development jobs. Developing software 50 years ago believe it or not was more contingent on an understanding of discrete mathematics where as in this modern age it is surprisingly much more competitive and relies more on memorizing APIs.

As far a globalism goes, i would rather be tempted to buy a $200 dollar toaster made in my own country then a $8 dollar toaster made in china, given the fact that I would more likely be paid a living wage if i worked in a factory.

I believe people in America would be more happy with a better job and at the same time having less material possessions due to the cost of labor.

Across the board, food stamps are deceptively a form of subsidizing goods such as food. There's a lot of socialism in America if you're poor enough to qualify for it.

Marginalized minorities, don't really get that much love though. — Wallows

Certain minorities are more likely to be turned down for jobs in America. I agree with that.

I'm sure that happens in some other countries. I couldn't name them all because i've only ever traveled to Canada.

I see that we're talking about money, so I might as well comment that the only instance where I picked out the fundamentally humanistic trait of Jesus, was his encounter with lenders/shylocks/money-lenders in the Bible. I don't think there's another instance in the New Testament where Jesus is infuriated more-so than towards money-lenders.

I don't have a problem with most of what you said. I would like to point out that automation has caused many jobs to disappear. Believe it or not automation has even taken away software development jobs. Developing software 50 years ago believe it or not was more contingent on an understanding of discrete mathematics where as in this modern age it is surprisingly much more competitive and relies more on memorizing APIs. — christian2017

This problem is actually going to get much worse, and I believe may cause the dissolution of societies as we know them today. It is frequently ignored, but it is the elephant in the room, and will have to be addressed sooner or later.

As far a globalism goes, i would rather be tempted to buy a $200 dollar toaster made in my own country then a $8 dollar toaster made in china, given the fact that I would more likely be paid a living wage if i worked in a factory.

I believe people in America would be more happy with a better job and at the same time having less material possessions due to the cost of labor. — christian2017

I understand your sentiment, and as I said, the use of cheap labor or the export of industries is abusive, because it transfers the economical welfare accumulated through the people of one country to a different location, with the difference becoming personal wealth of the entrepreneur. Even though, personally speaking, my country can use the investments, I cannot deny that I see a "glitch" in that.

I see that we're talking about money, so I might as well comment that the only instance where I picked out the fundamentally humanistic trait of Jesus, was his encounter with lenders/shylocks/money-lenders in the Bible. I don't think there's another instance in the New Testament where Jesus is infuriated more-so than towards money-lenders. — Wallows

I think that most people will agree that banking and stock trading (especially day-trading), even though being legitimate ways of making money, leave a lot to be desired in terms of ethical underpinnings.

I think that most people will agree that banking and stock trading (especially day-trading), even though being legitimate ways of making money, leave a lot to be desired in terms of ethical underpinnings. — simeonz

Yes, it does make one wonder just how the Vatican or Opus Dei maintain and expand their wealth through the stock market.

Yes, it does make one wonder just how the Vatican or Opus Dei maintain and expand their wealth through the stock market. — Wallows

Sorry, but honestly, I am not informed on the subject.

Sorry, but honestly, I am not informed on the subject. — simeonz

Yeah, it's definitely a message in the New Testament that often gets left out. Humdrum.

Yeah, it's definitely a message in the New Testament that often gets left out. — Wallows

My bad. I thought you were serious there.

My bad. I thought you were serious there. — simeonz

Semi-serious. I mean, if you account for all the years the Catholic Church has been around, and combine their liquid and non-liquid assets, along with probably being the first to invest in the stock markets, you should end up with a hefty sum of money accumulated throughout the years, no?

Considering many modern banks (as opposed to Banks that were around 4000 years ago) originated during Medieval times, i truly do wander if the Catholic church actively makes financial investments. I really have never thought about the relationship between the Catholic church and whether or not they make financial investments.

Holy Shit. You found me a new hobby for the next week.

Holy Shit. You found me a new hobby for the next week. — christian2017

Grazie. :cool:

Your assumption is half correct. I am baptised as a salvationist by family however I have my own path and beliefs. I suppose you coukd say I'm a neo Gnostic taoist who holds to the belief that Jesus was a prophet or wise man or that stories of wise men speaking truth against power in dark times ought to be revered for all the values in their particular narratives.

I try not to use the term gnostic anymore as ive read conflicting things about Gnosticism and its hard for me to keep an objective grasp of other uses but to me I just define it as a valuer of metaphor, allegory, analogy and finding wisdom in narratives on a basis if fiction first and then delve into historical truth. Historical Jesus/Isais also a very diversely described and conflicted subject I find too.

So formally I spiritually identify as a Tao Salvationist and philosophically I am an adaptive pragmatist and I espouse to pragmatic theories of ethics and morality.

How familiar are you with the many versions of the stories of Prophet Joseph? I'm not deviating from the OP I am going to tie this into politics and economics. Just what to get a feel for everyones familiarity with the narrative of the story. You may have also heard the title "King of Dreams"?

Semi-serious. I mean, if you account for all the years the Catholic Church has been around, and combine their liquid and non-liquid assets, along with probably being the first to invest in the stock markets, you should end up with a hefty sum of money accumulated throughout the years, no? — Wallows

Yes, but money does not necessarily equate prosperity. I could make the argument that the unshaken faith of its followers is a much more important asset for any church.

Yes, but money does not necessarily equate prosperity. I could make the argument that the unshaken faith of its followers is a much more important asset any church. — simeonz

True, true. I don't mean to instill any conspiracies, as Hollywood does that enough to no end with their Da Vinci Code - Angels, and Demons, ehh...

But, I'm mostly glad we have a socialist Pope Francis.

I've heard of the historian Josephus. I've never heard of the prophet Joseph. Ofcourse there is Joseph from the book of Genesis.

Do you read the Kabbalah? I find it very similar to Druidism and/or Wicca.

honestly the way I see it, in the Bible quotes of "helping out the less fortunate and thy neighbor" is a form of fighting materialism. The whole belief is that your life right now is just a test for the afterlife. Therefore material posession is but temporary. I can see why you might think its a socialistic thing. To be fair back then there weren't any machinery that made everything so accessible. So naturally people worked hard. To be fair socialism and capitalism was post Catholicisms time. We created these systems after we mastered trading. Now everyone has access to everything and everyone "can" get anything.

Seriously though, nice thread I like this

A question that arose in that thread, that concerns me is why aren't the majority of Abrahamic religions more left-leaning rather than being conservative in nature?

Now, I have no idea how to approach this question, rather than state the deviation from the norm that is the US. We had people like Max Weber, who grounded or reified the values of Christianity into Protestant work ethics and its more serious derivative being Calvinism, into being compatible with capitalism and with that enlightened self-interest.

Yet, having been influenced by the more mainstream version of Catholicism, which has been de facto eliminated from public discourse in the US, for whatever reason, I feel that socialism or in a more extreme version, even communism are the actual philosophies of Christianity, given a hard reading of the Bible.

Does anyone agree with this sentiment?
Why or why not? — Wallows

The way I see it, Catholicism, at least, relies on tradition, ritual and institution as much as its financial security for survival, so conservative leanings are very much in its best interests.

In Australia, the govermment has always relied on Catholicism to supplement its health and education systems, which makes for a complex political relationship that seems to create a kind of conservative socialism - at least since the 1970s.

In the US, the left-leaning movement of Progressive Christianity advocates political activism of a socialist nature, although it lacks the numbers, security and influence of its more traditional, conservative counterparts.

My own reading of the Bible suggests that Jesus, at least, took an apolitical stance, despite how he framed it in the context. He advocated self-rule: a less genetic or culturally-based version of the kingless, fathered state formed by the early Hebrews, except without the need for negative ethics. The idea was that it shouldn’t matter who appeared to have political or social authority, there is a universally recognised positive ethics that transcends, rather than overrides, any illusion of external control.

To be fair back then there weren't any machinery that made everything so accessible. So naturally people worked hard. To be fair socialism and capitalism was post Catholicisms time. We created these systems after we mastered trading. Now everyone has access to everything and everyone "can" get anything. — Reverie

Yeah; but, what about the blatant exploitation of foreign nations by capitalism? Isn't that something we should be concerned about as good Christians?

In Australia, the govermment has always relied on Catholicism to supplement its health and education systems, which makes for a complex political relationship that seems to create a kind of conservative socialism - at least since the 1970s. — Possibility

Do go on, Australia has always fascinated me...

The idea was that it shouldn’t matter who appeared to have political or social authority, there is a universally recognised positive ethics that transcends, rather than overrides, any illusion of external control. — Possibility

Cool point, man. I do wonder if the money changers and the clearing of The Second Temple by Jesus, was in any shape or manner a negative ethic shunned by Jesus?

Interesting question. I’ll state the obvious so apologies if someone else has touched on this already.

Any institution that lasts has a set of rules/laws. These are necessarily held in place by conservative attitudes not by more libertarian ideas. I think you’ll find conservatism is the mainstay across religions - which ones don’t hold strong conservative values?

I guess you could argue that buddhism is more inclined toward ‘socialism’ but it would be a soft cell. Rigor and repetition are what holds religious institutions together.

Do go on, Australia has always fascinated me... — Wallows

Since about the 1850s, small groups of Catholic sisters (mostly Sisters of St Joseph) have provided low cost education and health care for remote communities where there was insufficient public education or healthcare available. In the 1970s, the government established an arrangement, at least with Catholic schools, that required them to be subject to teaching and other quality standards in exchange for substantial funding. It’s been an interesting arrangement that seems to have influenced policy on both sides and is often misunderstood, although I’m not party to the details.

Cool point, man. I do wonder if the money changers and the clearing of The Second Temple by Jesus, was in any shape or manner a negative ethic shunned by Jesus? — Wallows

I don’t think that Jesus shunned negative ethics - he just found most of them more limiting than they needed to be. When he threw the money changers out of the temple, it was in response to the corruption of the temple authorities - in league with these money changers and animal sellers - who sought to make a profit from the strict regulations that prevented the poor from lawfully worshipping God.

A question that arose in that thread, that concerns me is why aren't the majority of Abrahamic religions more left-leaning rather than being conservative in nature? — Wallows

There is a simple and utterly natural reason for this.

And the answer is in the overt historical hostility of mainstream socialism, which is deeply ideological and inherent in leftist thinking. That many leftists are atheists isn't just a coincidence, but totally reasonable end result. Religion is the opium for the masses, something that the class enemy uses. And now when religion is losing popularity in the West, there's no reason for to approach especially Christianity.

You might find things in Abrahamic religions that seem to share things with socialism and be against capitalism, like Jesus being so against the money lenders or Muslims simply being against banking with interest. Well, a lot of things are universal and these issues have been around before modern socialism. Even liberalism and socialism share things too.

Well, for a long time (a millennium minimum) State and Church has been allied. The alliance bound the church to the preservation of whatever-ruling-class-status-quo prevailed. At the same time, there has always been (some, not a lot) resistance to this alliance. Other historical rivers flow into this question: the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the rise of Capitalism, the Industrial Revolution, and so on and so forth. Ebb and flow, action and reaction

The revolutionary Jesus was screwed early on by his success in the Roman Empire. Once a bunch of Christians (just like anybody else anywhere on earth) got a chance at power, they hung onto it. Doom. Holy Mother Church just isn't good soil for nurturing Marxists.

The revolutionary Jesus has been screwed and re-screwed many times over the succeeding centuries, as the church and individual Christians followed their preferential option to attach themselves to the rich and powerful.

Since about the 1850s, small groups of Catholic sisters (mostly Sisters of St Joseph) have provided low cost education and health care for remote communities where there was insufficient public education or healthcare available. — Possibility

A similar development took place in the United States, particularly in New England, the Upper Midwest, and Northwest, secular and religious culture produced large religious and non-profit social service, education, and medical establishments. The St. Joseph sisters (several varieties) were a part of this. So were Methodists, Lutherans, Jews, et al.

To a large extent, that legacy has withered. After the 1960s exodus of church membership across the church (Protestant and Catholic both), and the abrupt shrinkage of the lay orders, the churches began to lose the economic/membership base that had supported their work.

St. Joseph Carondelet nuns, for instance, were forced to sell their group of hospitals as they shrank and aged out of the capacity to continue on. Actually, the religious & non-profit hospitals were a high-water mark in both cost effectiveness and quality of delivered services.

Yeah, so why does the religiously oriented right hate on it so much, and this isn't something exclusive to the right in the US, also. Centrists like Clinton or Obama, have been staunchly opposed to anything resembling welfare, even if it is economically rational to embrace it!

They aren’t opposed to welfare, per se, but that welfare must be a product of the government.

Christianity started off as the religion of the dispossessed. After a period of class warfare the ruling class (polytheistic) adopted the religion of the lower classes and turned it into the state religion (Constantine). This was the formation of Catholicism. A new counter revolution happened under the banner of Protestantism and this was also eventually adopted by the ruling classes (Northern Europe). The ruling class is and always will be right-wing and any religion they adopt will always be as such interpreted. — ovdtogt

Yes. Jesus was not a Christian, but a Jewish reformer. Because he preached to the "dispossessed", and understood how the Romans would react to his rabble-rousing, he anticipated a period of extreme hardship for his followers, preceding the "end of the age". That may be why he advised a communal lifestyle of mutual support : "They had all things in common". (Acts 2:42, 4:32)

Years later, when it became obvious that Jesus was long gone, and the "end of the age" had not come, the early Christian tactic of circling the wagons, began to shift toward preparing for a long haul. By the time it became the State Religion of the dominant world power, a complete attitude adjustment was needed. The religion of poor subjugated Jews, meeting in humble homes, was converted into a replica of Roman emperor worship with pomp & splendor appropriate for a wealthy imperious gentile culture, and meeting in grandiose pagan temples. Thus Jesus, the crucified downtrodden Jew, was transformed into the risen triumphant Christ, ruling over the whole world from his exalted throne in the clouds.

So, the modern Christian religion has a split personality : a> the poor-in-spirit tend toward communism or socialism, while b> the rich & powerful tend toward individualism and capitalism. Ironically, some of the poor-in-money like to interpret their scriptures as offering them, in exchange for faith offerings, miraculous access to the wealth of the upper class, and un-christ-like displays of extravagance. Consequently, while a "hard reading" of the Bible may sound leftist, a looser reading can seem downright right-wing. Ironically, the current Pope*1 seems to be leaning leftward, making the conservative Curia uncomfortable.


*1 Caesar Augustus was the Pontifex Maximus of Roman emperor worship. And that title was inherited by Catholic Popes.

That is true is it is literally the last part in the 10 commandments. But my question is, how is that a capitalistic thing? Unless you have information I'm not aware about. How was it specifically a capitalistic thing and not an error of man? Since humans are corruptible.

he anticipated a period of extreme hardship for his followers, preceding the "end of the age". That may be why he advised a communal lifestyle of mutual support : "They had all things in common". — Gnomon

Smart... Real smart.. That makes a lot of sense. Jesus must have been a genius for his time to predict the outcome of his preaching. Or at least highly emotionally intelligent

Ironically, the current Pope*1 seems to be leaning leftward — Gnomon

I agree. Most Catholics I have spoken to truly despise the words and actions of the current pope. This thread was a great topic but in heart I just don't see Catholicism as a preacher of Socialism considering the amount of individualistic freedom the Bible preaches.

I agree. Most Catholics I have spoken to truly despise the words and actions of the current pope. This thread was a great topic but in heart I just don't see Catholicism as a preacher of Socialism considering the amount of individualistic freedom the Bible preaches. — Reverie

I see the current Pope as a duplicit man. I'm forbidden by forum rules to go into certain aspects of the current Pope. "Am i my brother's keeper?".

Many zoning laws are actually in opposition to a free market and the funny thing is someone who was truly fiscally conservative would see them for what they really are.

A very powerful description of how the powerful subvert the true meaning of social reform can be read in the book 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell.