The LOVE of money.
Not only that, but in the original Greek “love of money” is all one word: φιλαργυρία (philarghyría) or silver-love; ‘silver’ being more or less synonymous with the currency made from it and wealth in general.
It is very much the in the spirit of how you might decribe a dragon as ‘gold-hungry’ instead of just ‘greedy’.
Flipping through David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5000 Years
Turns out some of the first coinage was a means of providing field pay to soldiers. Its local circulation - combined with Roman taxation - was effectively used to extort occupied nations into paying for their own conquest. Locals were forced to pay the Roman designated governor in coin only Roman soldiers were provided, on pain of confiscation, enslavement, and death.
This practice of minting coinage to recollect as tribute has been a cornerstone of imperial economics into the modern day.
SQRT(EVIL)=LOVE ?
💯👏👍
Because conveniently misquoting the bible does not make a convincing point.
A recent translation is Timothy 6:10 is “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”Because conveniently misquoting the bible does not make a convincing point.
Are you sure about tha bub? that seems to be a succeesful strategy for the religious types for centuries
The full idiom is actually “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.”
Money itself is fine. Greed, is the root of many evils.
Looks at the average American church
I know Lemmy isn’t fond of religion, but I have a story.
Years ago, when I lived in the Northwoods, I’d go to this little Lutheran church every so often; mostly for a free lunch because I needed one. They were the rainbow flag kind of Lutheran, not the bigoted kind. Mostly old ladies. I was always the youngest person there by a few decades, and I was in my 20’s.
Anyway, whenever the basket would come around the pastor made it clear that the church didn’t need money. The building and people who worked there were all paid for by the denomination. What was given in the offering would go to neighbors in need.
Shit, that town had a lot of need, and way too many people too proud to ask for help.
That offering basket paid my bills a few times.
good story, thanks for sharing it… there are definitely true stories that make religion a positive force in the world
unfortunately those are harder and harder to find
Only because the bad ones get more attention. Kinda like HOAs.
hmmmm there are plenty of seriously bad ones (all the child rape) and proof that their institutions rather protect itself than the kids… you’d need to be saving lives with miracles on the daily to compensate for that one and that is only ONE category of horrible stuff organized religion has pulled
Just because there are plenty of seriously bad ones doesn’t mean that all of them are bad, or even that the majority are.
It also doesn’t mean that the churches who aren’t bad are responsible for compensating for the ones who are bad.
sure but in the same way I would not encourage a 15 year old girl to hitchhike, I would not trust any underage kid with any church… even though hitchhiking is, statistically speaking, safer
The ELCA vs Missouri synod.
Taking all that evil crap off of your hands of course /s
It’s the same as Jesus dying for our sins. wink wink
Probably deemed a necessary evil.
Real answer is the church community is supposed to help their communities and less fortunate than they. Now the mega churches that abuse this power will rot in hell for sure.
They also have to pay the preacher and keep the lights on.
Well my church has a very low operating budget and thus most of the money goes back to the community. Local community too.
I would much rather my church have some money than money be forcefully taken from me (taxes) to the government.
Yeah my church pays one pastor and feeds about 200 families per week.
When quoted in churches, it’s usually quoting from the letter 1 Timothy:
If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.
But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. 1 Timothy 6:3-11 NIV
Because things cost money? I don’t get it
Protecting pedophiles isn’t cheap
“Money is the root of all evil! Why don’t you give that to us so that we can dispose of it properly for you…”
True story, I said this to my dad once and he corrected me that it’s “the LOVE of money…” so that I wouldn’t become a filthy pinko commie
If money is the root of all evil, the church tried to stack as much evil as possible in the Vatican. Ever been there? I’ve never ever seen as much riches in one place stacked up from floor to ceiling. The church sure loves collecting all evil and then proudly show it to everyone. The more evil you have, the more status within the church. Is that why they molest children? They didn’t get enough money and they need more evil?
Doesn’t that answer your own question?
You won’t like the answer
It’s evil to be in the hands of the dirty stupid general public since they are inferior, but it’s godly for money to be in the hands of Authority because by definition Authority is perfect and good.
I’m kind of kidding but as I was writing that I realized that’s actually true, especially historically. Religion was the sole tool for control of the underclass. It’s still there, but its influence is waning, and authoritarians are leaning more on technology for control these days.
I’d definitely consider a pyramid scam to be evil…
