Money

Written on 2021/04/03 08:58 (metric, UTC-5) for Consciousness Prints Blog

What if I'm completely wrong about everything I've written on here so far about money and economics?

As Morgan Housel writes in The Psychology of Money (2020): "Your personal experiences with money make up maybe 0.00000001% of what's happened in the world, but maybe 80% of how you think the world works."

So likely to a lot of people I am very wrong in the beliefs about money and economics I've written about here so far but unless I consider other perspectives, other people's life experiences my beliefs make perfect sense to what I have experienced in life.

How do we aggregate the life experiences of all 8 billion people on this planet plus the billions more who came before us and who are still to come, to come up with good opinions and a good monetary system (or no monetary system) that works for the good of all of humanity? Is that possible? Is that crazy for me even to ask that question?

Well first things first: I have to consider some experiences and opinions about money and economics that are different or opposed to my own.

You can read Donate, or Credit or Ideal to get a sense of the conclusions I've come to about this before reading these opposing points/questions:

If there were no money how would we organize and keep track of everything? How would we decide what's fair and who gets what?
Money and competition is needed to incentivize people to work, if there were no money, no one would do anything useful for the world and everyone would just fend for themselves
It's for the best that some people are rich and some people are poor, we need rich people, people with a lot of resources and capital to be able to provide for the needs of everyone

These are just a few common viewpoints/questions that oppose mine.

Jesus of Nazareth, a.k.a Jesus Christ (4 BCE - 30/33 CE) is a person who's supposed teachings recorded in a well-known book called the "Bible" I have often turned to for advice to for how to live my life.

I'm pretty sure a lot of other people do too, it seems to be quite common from my experience.

Actually we can thank him, or at least, people who started believe certain things about him, for the fact that we have a long weekend this weekend.

You wouldn't know it based on the kinds of traditions people partake in on this weekend such as chicken egg-colouring and hunting, the name of this holiday "Easter", or the marketing and storylines that go along with this holiday such as bunnies delivering chocolates or other candy shaped as eggs, but some people use this weekend to reflect on the story that is recorded of how he died and supposedly came back to life.

Unbeknownst to most people who regard this person named Jesus as "the Christ" (and therefore call themselves "Christians") the idea of a person resurrecting is not unique to this story but also exists in many other religious stories and mythologies including the ancient Greek religion which greatly influenced the Jewish culture that historians and biblical scholars unanimously claim that this Jesus was part of in the first century of the Common Era.

"Hellenization" is the term that historians use to describe the widely spread Greek influence on culture and philosophy in the fourth century before the Common Era.

Whatever you believe about the nature of the person Jesus of Nazareth - whether he was "Christ", whether he was the incarnation of God, whether he was born from a woman who had never in her life had sexual intercourse, whether his physical body came back to life after being biologically dead, whether he was just a wise teacher, or maybe even if he was a just a regular person who lived through traumatic times and had mental health issues and therefore his words could just be considered crazy or insane or narcissistic or corrupt (which I think covers all three options of C.S. Lewis' "trilemma") - he was and definitely still is an influential person in the world.

So what is Jesus recorded to have said about money and economics?

Here are a list of verses from the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John related to money, the only books of the Bible, Jesus' life and teachings are recorded in (there are other teachings of his in historically verified writings that didn't make it into the canonical Bible as well).

The website I am screenshotting is drawing from the English Standard Version of the Bible, one of many English translations from the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts that were put together over the centuries to form this book. Here's some more information about this source, openbible.info/topics (I'm just using this because I'm too lazy to find all the verses about money another way myself and I like the crowd-driven nature of this internet Biblical index):

openbible.info/topics/money (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John):

Matthew 5:42 ESV / 1,316 helpful votes
- "Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you"
Matthew 6:1-4 ESV / 689 helpful votes
- “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you."
Matthew 6:19-21 ESV / 2,588 helpful votes
- “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
Matthew 6:24 ESV / 3,987 helpful votes
- “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money."
Matthew 6:25 ESV / 879 helpful votes
- “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?"
Matthew 6:31-33 ESV / 1,137 helpful votes
- "Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."
Matthew 19:21-26 ESV / 885 helpful votes Jesus said to him,
- “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” ...
Matthew 25:14-30 ESV / 1,193 helpful votes
- “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. ...
Mark 4:19 ESV / 986 helpful votes
- "But the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful."
Mark 8:36 ESV / 1,301 helpful votes
- "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?"
Mark 12:41-44 ESV / 936 helpful votes
- "And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
Luke 3:14 ESV / 762 helpful votes
- "Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”"
Luke 6:38 ESV / 1,605 helpful votes
- "Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”"
Luke 12:15 ESV / 3,081 helpful votes
- "And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”"
Luke 12:33-34 ESV / 1,350 helpful votes
- "Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
Luke 14:28-30 ESV / 1,945 helpful votes
- "For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’"
Luke 16:11 ESV / 1,543 helpful votes
- "If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?"
Luke 16:14 ESV / 1,081 helpful votes
- "The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him."
Luke 21:1-4 ESV / 747 helpful votes
- "Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”"
John 2:15 ESV / 3 helpful votes
- "And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables."

***

Does any of this make sense based on your own life experience? What if everyone lived considering these teachings, asking themselves the questions asked here? Lots to think about...

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