RLT63
Well-Known Member
What are people in poor villages going to do with $33,000? If you redistributed the wealth evenly in 6 months the people who were millionaires would be millionaires again.
21st Century Christianity - A brief manifesto for our age.
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Fair enough.
You can't believe in God and believe in relativism. The two contentions: 'God exists', and 'Everything is relative' are mutually exclusive. My position on truth is a little more nuanced than that, and is not dissimilar to my position on ethics (post #42). ie, there is an objective truth out there to be discovered, in the sense of a Grand Theory of Everything, a God's eye view of the universe, a complete account of all phenomena, but right now, there are gaps in our knowledge, and humanity doesn't yet know what that objective truth is. Until we do, we just have to pool our various subjectives, and make do with that.
Best wishes, 2RM.
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Obviously you do not believe that God's truths are objective truths. (That comes from having a second rate mind
).The Bible presents objective truth (the New Testament) as well as subjective truth (Ecclesiastes). Everything recorded in the NT is objective, factual, historical, and truthful, since all of it comes from divine revelation. The amazing thing is that it is extremely succinct, which shows that God does not waste words. And Christ's sayings were generally very brief and to the point. Even His parables are objective truths in that they present spiritual realities.
Probably pretty much exactly the same kind of thing as you do with your capital wealth. Buy a house, improve on it, get some transport, set up a rainy day fund for unexpected vicissitudes, maybe start a business, invest some for their old age, etc, etc. And why on earth shouldn't they?
Best wishes, 2RM.
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Obviously you do not believe that God's truths are objective truths. (That comes from having a second rate mind
The Bible presents objective truth (the New Testament) as well as subjective truth (Ecclesiastes). Everything recorded in the NT is objective, factual, historical, and truthful, since all of it comes from divine revelation. The amazing thing is that it is extremely succinct, which shows that God does not waste words. And Christ's sayings were generally very brief and to the point. Even His parables are objective truths in that they present spiritual realities.
Read my post again, and then tell me the Bible offers us 'a complete account of all phenomena'. For a long time, many people believed that it did, and thought fossils just chance rock formations. Or that they had been deliberately placed there by God to lead people astray. As if God was a trickster, who actively sought to mislead decent people who were curious about His world.
Best wishes, 2RM.
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RLT63
Well-Known Member
GEN2REV
Well-Known Member
There are other Mutual Exclusions as well, but I doubt you will agree.
It sounds a lot like you believe in God (simply by your admission), but there's a big BUT that you seem to be wrestling with.
See, believe it or not, you can't believe in God and believe in a Scientific Paradigm as well. The entire world (Universe?) that Science has constructed for us in public schools and mainstream media, including anthropology, medicine and even much of what our Museums and the Smithsonian Institute hold as the truth of the history of mankind, is all incompatible with the Bible.
Jesus said we cannot worship God and Mammon. Mammon is not just wealth, money, etc. It is also a god of the modern world, modern science, etc.
So, again, while you say you believe in God, your views seem somewhat New Age and quasi-popular science. Which, I will say, is not at all uncommon today to be sure.
Are you aware of that or do you feel I'm completely off base?
Clearly, if you are going to donate that sort of funding to people who have hitherto eked out a meagre existence on $2 per day or less, you are also going to need to teach them how to manage it. But we all know that realistically that kind of redistribution just isn't going to happen, though it should. So, we need to do what we can, when we can. Here is one of my favourite charities, that does a lot to help the poor out of poverty. And you are not even donating, just lending. You get your money back, to either spend on yourself if you want or to lend to someone else. In this way, even £15 per month can, over the long term, do a whole lot of good.
Best wishes, 2RM.
Sure you can. I do.
You mean with parts of the Bible. And whereas the science is evidence based and rigorously tested, parts of the Bible are clearly myth, and 'just so' story, without any corroboration whatsoever.
So you assert. Britannica, however, has:
Nowhere is science, modern or otherwise, mentioned there.
Quasi-popular science? Yes that is completely off base, not to mention insulting. And I would argue that science tells us a great deal more about the universe, and the world God gave us to inhabit, and ourselves, than the Bible does. And therefore, by implication, quite a lot about God Himself. As someone famous once said (I forget who) 'All of science is thinking God's thoughts, after Him'.
Best wishes, 2RM.
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Wrangler
Well-Known Member
Sickening. Communism 101: Class envy.
Communists, like you, think there is a fixed size to the pie and it's all about redistributing the slices of the pie. Because failure is not an option, it subsidizes and maximizes subpar performance.
Capitalism is about an ever growing pie and people who deserve it get a bigger slice of this ever growing pie. Because failure IS an option, it minimizes subpar performance.
This explains why starving is prevalent in countries that are not capitalistic countries. And why in America, a highly capitalistic country, obesity - not starving - is at epidemic levels.
Wrangler
Well-Known Member
Your feminine embrace of the communist ideal, is in stark contrast to the masculine embrace of reality where your utopian ideals always go up in flames every time it is tried.
It is shocking in the face of the greatest tyrannies in history - all embrace your ideology - Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and Communist China resulting in over 100M deaths, there are still those so fully indoctrinated as to passionately support it.
Ronald David Bruno
Well-Known Member
Your numbers are wrong! In 2019 the GDP of the World was about $87 trillion, divided by 8 billion people and you get less than $11,000 per person. The world population can not be sustained with a standard of living that Americans enjoy. The world leaders like Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, the Rothschilds, Soros, etc. know this and believe that the world is over-populated and unable to sustain itself for much longer. We have tripled our population in 70 years. In 70 years, could you imagine 24 billion people? There are wouldn't be enough resources to accommodate that many. But we won't ever come to that. Even stopping the growth is not going to accomplish their idea of a Utopian world. So their solution is de-population, which is their program everyone is on now with these vaccines. They cause blood clots, a 25% increase in cardiac arrests ( and this figure was given by a Doctor whistleblower who has analyzed the effects of the Covid-19 vaccines in Israel, where 70% of the population have been vaccinated). The mRNA produces spike proteins throughout the body and destroys your immune system, like HIV. My mother-in-law had a heart attack, caused by four blood clots. My 18 year old nephew had to be rushed to the hospital because he couldn't breathe - caused by a blockage in his lungs. He is thin and was totally healthy prior to the vaccine. My wife has had chronic health problems since the vaccine. I warned her not to, but she listened to her family and friends. I did not take it. Any pregnant woman who takes the vaccine in the first trimester will almost certainly have a miscarriage. This vaccine can also cause sterility, which is why they are pushing it on the youth. This is the New World Order, that progressive liberal movement you seem to be in favor of.
This income inequality has always existed. Those who get educated, learn a trade, work hard, prosper. Those who don't put much effort into it, the Bible clearly describes these lazy, sluggards who reap what they sow, nothing. The Bible says, if you don't work, you don't eat. There is strong work ethic in scripture. God tells us to look at the ants working, building, non-stop.
Besides you still don't get that God is sovereign and blesses some to be rich and others poor. Everything that is good comes from God and He hands it out accordingly. We are not to be greedy, and are to be good stewards, responsible, fair and honest workers. All those who do business with us should see that and be blessed.
God balances good and evil so that we know what good is. We appreciate what good is because we know evil. And we appreciate prosperity when we understand poverty. So we have those who are ambitious and those who are lazy and those in between that just do enough to get by. I was never that amibitious to become rich, nor did I think it was worth that effort, and was content with what I had as I am now. But you think those who are rich, have worked hard to aquire what they have should just divide what they earned with the sluggards who just come over the border with their hands out? We are to give to the Church, and 10% comes to mind aside from what we pay in taxes and much of that goes to welfare. The welfare system is what destroys many societies. It ruins a person's dignity, ambition and they reason, "Why work and not get much more than I can get it for free"? President Johnson started the welfare system in the US in the 60's. That was a bad move. I think this was purposed to keep the minorities dependent and poor in the inner city slums. I think he was a racist. Before that, people took pride in their work and would be ashamed to take a hand-out. Now the NWO wants to confiscate all the wealth and just divvy out an equal share to all. The elites on top will live like kings of course and everyone else will be slaves, living in squalor.
Besides all that, this world system is about to end in a few years and be replaced with a Millennial Kingdom where everyone is a believer, everyone knows the Lord and we will all live in peace and harmony. This present world is so corrupt and on it's way out. You think man can fix it? Nope, not with sin and evil in it. Jesus will rid the planet of sin and evil and unbelievers. That will be His population control; there will be a drastic reduction.
I have already tried to explain that I am not at all motivated by envy, and what does motivate me. (post #98) Interestingly, Marx devotes a considerable time in the beginning of Das Kapital to the plight of the Victorian working poor. It seems pity, not envy, was what really motivated that work.
So, all communism stems from Karl Marx's economic and political analysis in Das Kapital. In it, he uses the labour theory of value, (the LTV), which basically stipulates the value of goods and services to be directly related to the hours of labour it takes to produce them. If this is the case, Marx suggests, the only way you can, as a capitalist owner of the means of production, make a profit, is to pay your proletariat worker less than the value of the goods they produce. He calls this 'exploitation'. His analysis, therefore, completely depends on this idea of the LTV, and none of his theory and nothing he wrote works without it. Which is probably why his predictions about the future have proven so wildly inaccurate. Because it is quite clear to me that the value of goods and services depends not on what efforts, as measured in hours, were expended to produce them, commodify them, and bring them to market, but completely and solely on what the customer is able and prepared to pay for them. And, if you disagree with the LTV, you cannot be a communist.
As for the pie, yes, at any given point in time, it is fixed.
I hate to burst this capitalist pipe-dream for you, but the fact is, we live in a finite world with finite resources, and for that reason alone, we cannot have unlimited economic growth indefinately into the future. And that would be the case even if we used those resources wisely, and extracted maximum useful life-span from them. But we don't even do that. It wouldn't be 'economic' to do so.
So next, I ask out of genuine interest, on what grounds do you decide who deserves how much of the pie?
What countries do you have in mind? Because it seems to me the whole world (with the possible exception of Cuba, where people aren't rich, but aren't starving either) is pretty much free-market capitalist right now.
In America, the obese are often your urban poor. And they are obese because they eat too much rubbish, processed, junk food, because it's cheap, and do not exercise enough.
Best wishes, 2RM.
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Thank you for fact checking that for me. You are quite right, my figures were wrong. But it's not all bad news!
Let's take 2022 numbers.
Google now has world GDP at $95 trillion, which is about $12,000 per year per soul on earth.
Credit Suisse now estimates Total World Wealth at $463.6 trillion, or about $58,000 net worth per soul on earth.
Fairly shared, this now allows the conventional nuclear family $48,000 per year income, $232,000 net worth.
So, I shall be reviewing my own financial arrangments, and making the necessary adjustments, and see if I can't increase my net worth, some, and reduce my income, some, probably by giving more of it away.
But, I'm sure you would agree, that even $12,000 per year is a whole lot better than $2 per day, or less.
Best wishes, 2RM.
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True. Apparently we would need 5.1 planet earths to sustain the 8 billion of us at the current US standard of living. We obviously can't do that, then. So, we have to manage our ecological footprint a whole lot better if we are to achieve what I set out in the OP:
And we need to think about how to empower women to manage their fertility, and reduce family sizes. We could start by educating them properly (the higher the level of education, the smaller their families tend to be), making contraception better available, (Roman Catholics, in particular, need to change their doctrine on this) allowing them paid employment (Muslims, in particular, may need to adjust their attitudes towards women outside the home), and just generally, socially, making of the world a more female friendly place.
Best wishes, 2RM.
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So, this is a conspiracy theory. You have provided some anecdotal, circumstantial evidence for it, at least. But what you really need is a documented 'smoking gun', to prove the Covid vaccine was deliberately designed to cause blood clots, as well as protect from Covid, and that the individuals you mention have this agenda to depopulate the world, and the Covid vaccine is their chosen method to achieve that. I doubt you will find such a smoking gun, because, as the University of Utah puts it:
And as for miscarriages, the New England Journal of Health has:
Best wishes, 2RM.
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Indeed it has. I just question whether all the rich work hard (though doubtless some do) and whether all the poor are indolent, lazy and feckless (though doubtless some are). And I am by no means disparaging any work ethic. The best way out of poverty is to work (for at least a decent, living wage). And the best way out the drudgery of work is to find your God-given vocation, what He put you here on Earth to do, and you will discover what is meant by the phrase 'Our God, whose service is perfect freedom'.
Best wishes, 2RM.
The Victorians had similar conceptions of the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor. I think one can extend that to conceptions of the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' rich. Not all the rich have worked hard to aqcuire their wealth, just as not all the poor are sluggards. Cain asked of God: 'Am I my brother's keeper?' The answer is yes, we are, and everyone is our brother, or sister, because we are all God's children. The sooner we all realise that the happier we shall all be.
Best wishes, 2RM.
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Or maybe President Johnson just thought that it would be scandalous to have people starving on the streets in the richest nation on earth? It would certainly be a savage indictment of the American character. Nevertheless "Why work and not get much more than I can get it for free"? is a valid question. If wages are so depressed that one can't work one's way out of poverty, then neither the option to work or not to work are attractive. That is, if one takes a purely economic view of both people and work. So perhaps we need to take a more holistic view of both. In 'Good Work', EF Schumacher proposes three purposes of work as follows:
So, for Schumacher, work has a spiritual dimension quite separate from and independent of how much cash you get paid. And that is how the whole idea of work needs be presented to our youngsters, I think, rather than solely in mere money transaction terms.
Best wishes, 2RM.
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