What do you think God thinks of Capitalism?

And Revel, you can also find many Bible passages admonishing us to heal the sick and the afflicted, give to the poor, help people to rise up and walk. Jesus didn't limit his methods to do accomplish this but was rather innovative and creative as he went about. I think he would have approved ethical capitalism that helps people help themselves.

foxfrye,

One of the many reasons that I quit the religious boards (actually the main reason) was because for every passage or verse there are a million and one interpretations and it is tiresome going back and forth trying prove one interpretation that is the correct one.

Having said, I agree that Jesus tells us to heal the sick and help the poor.

As for if God would have approved of capitalism or socialism; I don't think God made that decision known.

I do know that throughout the Bible; God made it known that he disaproved of greed. One such glarying verse comes readily to my mind is "money is the root of all evil." (In Titus somewhere)

But this is a polical forum. Not everyone here or for that matter in the United States or the world believes in God at all or the Bible or both.

But in no place does the Bible suggest that the seeking and acquisition of wealth, comfort, satisfaction in themselves are evil. There is suggestion that wealth has its problems, but in itself it is not a bad thing.

Greed is bad only when it takes something away from somebody else. When greed produces opportunities for others to acquire wealth, comfort, satisfaction, it is a good thing. Jesus (and the apostle Paul) were strong advocates for common sense

Luke 12:15

foxfrye, I think you and I see the Bible and what Jesus said differently and I would just as soon as leave it at that.

Hmm. I don't think greed is ever a good thing.

Cycloptichorn

Never second guess God. Its asking for trouble.

Job 42:10-15

Proverbs 3:9-10

Proverbs 13:22

Isaiah 60:6-11

John 15:5-8

II Corinthians 9:10-11

I miss the option: "Are you kidding? I had my own son die a slow, painful death for the sake of marketing my multinational corporation and creating a good logo for it: the cross. I invented the dark side of capitalism 1750 years before Adam Smith even discovered its bright side."

Click here for definition of Capitalism

IMO, the word of God teaches us to be capitalist, not socialist. God teaches us to share and trade, Jesus was a carpenter before his ministry began, His labor created wealth to support His family.

But since you twisted the original question from the title content…
I believe God is ok with His followers marketing His religion. Didn’t Jesus send His disciples into the world to preach His Gospel? That’s marketing, is it not? Now when His people sale idols of god, that are supposed to portray His likeness or His image, I’m not sure how thrilled He would be about that, only because that is against one of His commandments.

Finally, some of the greatest figures in the bible where extremely wealthy such as Job, Abraham, and King David just to name a few.

Anyone that says preaching is marketing, I think can be ignored on the question of

It reminds me of Bush saying that resturant workers are factory workers.

I don't think that God wants us to sit around and not do anything for our food and shelter, on the other hand I don't think God wants us to consider wealth for its own sake to be something to be consumed with. If it works out like that then that is fine, but if that is all you think about is the getting of more wealth for whatever reason then you are not putting God first in your mind and heart which is the first of the two great commandments.

Jesus's point about the lillies and ravens was that the apostles and others were worried about how they were going to eat and have clothes if they were only doing the work of the kingdom. They should have faith that God would provide for those who are working for the Lord which is why we pay preachers in the church so that they will have food and shelter and still teach the scriptures.
[IN MY BELIEFS]

In any case, I am through with this thread. I think it is out of place. I respond to the thread because I am always interested in religious subjects, but I should't do this here and for now on I won't.

Marketing God
An interesting thread to stumble upon...I believe the original question was with regards to whether or not churches should advertise...and in this debate "church" referred to a Christian institution. Capitalism occurs in the debate as advertising is a method heavily employed in a capitalistic system. I followed that link for a definition of capitalism and found a lot of this:

"A socio-economic system characterized by private initiative and the private ownership of factors of production. In such a system individuals have the right to own and use wealth to earn income and to sell and purchase labor for wages. Furthermore, capitalism is predicated on a relative absence of governmental control of the economy. The function of regulating the economy is achieved largely through the operation of market forces, whereby the price mechanism acts as a signalling system which determines the allocation of resources and their uses."

That's all fine a good I suppose and we can draw from this that private ownership is step one. So who owns God? How can any church advertise their private cache of God? Or perhaps they are advertising their ownership of the "right way" to Heaven? What exactly is for sale here?

And if ownership is the issue who exactly owns any of this if it is God's creation. Did God somehow provide the title and lease? Ownership has a funny way of making people possesive, defensive, and yes greedy which is a sin I believe.

"If hard work payed off, slaves would be rich."

Billy Falcon this is priceless and so damn true. Capitalism in all it's glory has and continues to commodify ANYTHING on the face of this planet. It's all for sale. America's fine capitalistic model for the world came about by buying slave labor to build this country...the slaves and their off-spring did not have the same economic chances from the start hard work or not. There are countries that are being bled dry because of capitalism (investigate the Bolivian struggle for their water!) because the mind set of being able to buy/own anything in the world exists. The free market believes it is everywhere...at one time it was in the temple and Christ ripped it apart claiming it was turning the temple into a burglar's den...if it turned the temple into a burglar's den what do you think it does to a space less devoted to sacred pursuits???!!??? Is this what we really wish to continue pursuing, the growth of the burglar's den? Can anyone say Enron...

Truthmountain, that was a really good post. Bravo, new A2ker!

Truth, Welcome to A2K. Quite a post for a first contribution. Makes us think; but I'm not aware of any socio-economic system that is better than capitalism.

What disturbs me about the pro-capitalistic posts are the underlying assumptions.

'We are superior to all other nations in every respect.' This belief and attitude breeds ethnocentrism and zenophobia. It leads us to believe we are superior to all other nations in every way. It leaves Americans woefully uninformed about the rest of the world.

Can we seriously believe that under our system we "achieve, expand, invent, explore, innovate, imagine, accomplish, improve, and excel" more than any other
nations?

Exxxxcuse me! It seems to me that considerable accomplishments occurred in many countries in the science and the arts before 1776 and during our brief two centuries. Think of the Olympics - no other countries win any events? No inventions came out of Europe? No foreign scientists or artists ever accomplished, imagined, explored or improved anything? I'm talking about specific things like discovering America, astronomy, penicillin, jet engines, Marconi, Einstein, Mozart, DaVinci, Rembrandt, the Parthenon, wines, fashions, the statue of David. The list goes on for several million pages.

We Americans tend to be an insular people --- smugly satisfied and content, lacking in curiousity, condescending about other cultures.

Hi again and thanks for the welcomes. C.I. I guess my question to you is why leave things as they are? If we are informed and know that there are faults and problems with the current system, we see its failures and the way in which it negatively impacts our lives and the lives of others, then why hold on to it...especially when the teachings of our supposedly greatest being instructs us to work otherwise. Capitalism is a theory that has been put into practice...it's an experiment. Enough time has passed for us to see it isn't working per the restrictions of Christian theology. I think what is so upsetting is that Christian teachings have been around for 2004 years and to this day little attempt has been made to truly use them as a means of living on a larger scale. The US seperates church and state when it's convienient, but when it comes to making other countries bend to our will and desire (free trade) it's in the name of God this and Christ be with our troops that...onward Christian soldiers gather up that gold, I mean oil. Theft is theft. And Billy is right, a xenophobic mindset has seperated us from the larger world...

check this out...

http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-nybres063882751jul06,0,171411.column

T.M.