The Love of Money

[Maxmars]

I  must respectfully disagree my good friend Max.

While a dollar for a homeless person can mean the difference between a meal and going hungry and a thousand dollars could be a rounding error for one with wealth, a dollar is still a dollar.

Whether a ghetto dollar, a dollar from a strippers ass crack, a middle-class blue-collar dollar or Elon Musk's dollar, each dollar holds the same intrinsic value. Societal differences don't change the value of the dollar, only what that dollar might mean to the individual.

Perhaps we are caught between value and meaning.

One dollar can mean the world to someone, while still being to others, just a dollar.

Dollars can be clung to like a security blanket, or burned as a prank.... same value.


The sin I was trying to coral is not about "value" but "meaning."


I mean we can say "Money makes the world go around," but not "A symbol makes the world go around."

If we hadn't conflated quantity with quality... and made it a virtue goal... things might be different.

[Moon68]

Perhaps we are caught between value and meaning.

One dollar can mean the world to someone, while still being to others, just a dollar.

Dollars can be clung to like a security blanket, or burned as a prank.... same value.


The sin I was trying to coral is not about "value" but "meaning."


I mean we can say "Money makes the world go around," but not "A symbol makes the world go around."

If we hadn't conflated quantity with quality... and made it a virtue goal... things might be different.

It appears we are saying essentially the same thing here. In the end, all money is God's money and we, sinful, unworthy and fallible as we are, are just stewards of the medium of exchange.

[SurferSoul]

I LOVE brisket. If you tried to help yourself to MY brisket there's a fair chance you'll end up missing digits.

Does that make me a nasty, evil miser?

Nobody has any right to what someone else has and that person has the right to do with it as they are so compelled.

That isn’t the point, nobody is trying to help themselves to your brisket, but if you don’t share and should run out of brisket, you sure as hell better not help yourself to someone else’s, no matter how much you love it. Which you would because your love for brisket would compel you to so. Thus you wouldn’t have any fingers left and would have to eat any scraps thrown to you off the floor like a dog.

[Moon68]

That isn’t the point, nobody is trying to help themselves to your brisket, but if you don’t share and should run out of brisket, you sure as hell better not help yourself to someone else’s, no matter how much you love it. Which you would because your love for brisket would compel you to so. Thus you wouldn’t have any fingers left and would have to eat any scraps thrown to you off the floor like a dog.

Not true.

I would make more brisket because I learned how make it for myself therefore all my digits remain intact 

That's the difference between makers and takers and moochers.

[MalevolentTwitch]

Perhaps we are caught between value and meaning.

One dollar can mean the world to someone, while still being to others, just a dollar.

Dollars can be clung to like a security blanket, or burned as a prank.... same value.


The sin I was trying to coral is not about "value" but "meaning."


I mean we can say "Money makes the world go around," but not "A symbol makes the world go around."

If we hadn't conflated quantity with quality... and made it a virtue goal... things might be different.

Again we are coming back to the difference between "inherent value" and "perceived value." Which, in my opinion, is exactly what the issue with, "The love of money," is actually all about. There are inherently valuable and worthwhile people whose focus is to the benefit of others, and we ignore and belittle them... Meanwhile, there are parasites that leach off of others for personal gain but don't actually DO anything... Yet they are paid millions purely for entertainment value and we exalt them... That's what the "Love of Money" issue is all about. Loving money purely for the sake of money. 

The reality is that money is just a medium. It's still just a tool. The intent of the hand that uses it, is what matters....

[Maxmars]

Again we are coming back to the difference between "inherent value" and "perceived value." Which, in my opinion, is exactly what the issue with, "The love of money," is actually all about. There are inherently valuable and worthwhile people whose focus is to the benefit of others, and we ignore and belittle them... Meanwhile, there are parasites that leach off of others for personal gain but don't actually DO anything... Yet they are paid millions purely for entertainment value and we exalt them... That's what the "Love of Money" issue is all about. Loving money purely for the sake of money. 

The reality is that money is just a medium. It's still just a tool. The intent of the hand that uses it, is what matters....

For a symbol to have any value, preconceived, contrived, or denied... it must have meaning.

What does it mean to "be" money?
Of course it is a tool, it has to be, it is implicitly for "use."

I think value is calculated... meaning is discerned.

I will avoid the "meaning" of money in the future... as it relates to "the intent of use"...
which we all should avoid in this conversation... because that's where the moral hazard is.

[UltraBudgie]

[cherokeetroy]

Money has no intrinsic value outside of what people choose to give it. Without that determination, it's simply ink on paper. I think the idea of sin (which can be translated as 'missing the mark') comes in when people allow their own self worth to be directly tied to the perceived value of money. When you do that, you compromise yourself. Now you have a price. You can be bought.

Even worse is when we allow the perceived value of money to be worth more than the value of human life. That belief leads to quite a bit of the misery we see in the world.

[CriticalStinker]

So, let me get this straight. If I were to be an axe murderer and gave you my axe, would you then be guilty of the sin of murder? I mean, I cleaned it all up and polished it all pretty but you would still be a murderer too because of "sin by acquisition"?

That makes no sense to me.

No, I mean by how they acquired it.

If someone becomes rich by being greedy and exploiting people, the sin isn’t having the money, it’s what was done to get it.

This isn’t necessarily my opinion, as while I was raised Christian, I’m agnostic. It was from the words of Jesus himself.

Matthew 19:24
 And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to gothrough the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enterinto the kingdom of God.

Thats why I said there is a difference in opinion depending on if we’re talking societal or religious context.

[Moon68]

No, I mean by how they acquired it.

If someone becomes rich by being greedy and exploiting people, the sin isn’t having the money, it’s what was done to get it.

This isn’t necessarily my opinion, as while I was raised Christian, I’m agnostic. It was from the words of Jesus himself.

Thats why I said there is a difference in opinion depending on if we’re talking societal or religious context.

Why does it always have to be framed that in order to be wealthy somebody was greedy and exploited people? I've never understood that position. Wealth isn't finite, because one has others do not. It's always struck me as the position of the envious.

And the often misquoted:
 

 
Matthew 19:24
 And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

That quote refers to the impossibility of a rich man to buy his way to heaven instead of believing in God. If a man is refuses to give up his wealth to give his soul to God, then:

 
Matthew 19:24
 And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.