From: gray@graeghama.plus.comb.invalid
Brian M. Scott wrote:
> On Sun, 17 Aug 2008 00:04:10 -0500, Ric Locke
> wrote in
> in
> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>
>> On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:38:18 +0100, Jonathan L Cunningham
>> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>>> Yes, I was wondering how "love of money" came to be
>>> "money".
>
>>> That's a bit like taking "paedophilia is evil" and
>>> concluding that therefore children are all evil. Or
>>> blaming a woman for inciting a man to rape her.
>
>>> The fallacy is a bit more obvious in the last two
>>> examples: why isn't it equally obvious when applied to
>>> money? Curious, eh?
>
>> It's thanks to generations of the greedy attempting to
>> confuse the issue.
>
>> Christ's teaching is absolutely clear: You're supposed to
>> be paying attention to getting to Heaven, and worldly
>> things are a distraction.
>
> That's one view of it; taken to extremes it leads to ascetic
> anchorism. It's hardly the only view, however.
>
> [...]
>
>> But if you want to get money to support your schemes and
>> unable or unwilling to earn it -- that is, if you're a
>> thief, a Prince, or a Socialist --
>
> Whether a thief, a prince, or for that matter a priest or
> minister earns his wealth is a matter of opinion and depends
> on the specifics in each case.
>
>> you must of of necessity take it away from somebody else,
>> and that has to be justified somehow. After all, we all
>> know it's bad to take things without compensation, right?
>> And if you're self-defined in your own mind as
>> existentially Good, you can't simply rob people. The
>> solution is straightforward: redefining "evil".
>
>> "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a
>> needle, than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God."
>> If you ignore the actual content and context of the
>> teaching, it's easy to conclude that since Good people go
>> to Heaven and Evil people do not, and the rich man cannot
>> go to Heaven, it must be because he is Evil. And we all
>> know that it's OK, even virtuous, to be unkind to Evil
>> People -- therefore robbing The Rich is not only OK, it
>> is the duty of the Virtuous. So the Good Prince can rob
>> the filthy Jews, and the Good Socialist can rob the
>> filthy Capitalists, and congratulate themselves on their
>> Goodness.
>
> And the Good Capitalist can rob the stupid and lazy poor
> ('cause if they weren't stupid and lazy, they wouldn't be
> poor, and the wouldn't let themselves be robbed, right?).
>
Except for the priest of faithful ministry, all of the above
groups are clearly flirting with toxic irritant flammable heresy,
which explains much of the evil that has been observed to follow
from their actions.
The Good Church -- fortunately composed of persons specially
trained to resist the world, the flesh, and the devil -- must
relieve all other persons, to the maximum practical extent, of
the occasions for dangerous temptation. Where practicable, these
occasions should be directly converted into large and shiny
glorifications of God, thus turning a trap for the weak into a
help along the road.
For *any* other faction to arrogate this world-sanctifying and
temptation-spurning role unto itself is thus the very worst sort
of hubris. Gimme a pontificate!
It is one of the more interesting challenges of fantasy making
this familiar scenario play out -- or fail interestingly -- in
worlds where gods or God are conspicuously activist, but less
than awesomely subtle.
--
Cheers,
Gray
---
To unmung address, lop off the 'be invalid' command.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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