This past and present political season has me thinking about God and Morality. I was born and raised Catholic. I was an Altar boy, sang in the choir and up to the day I went to college I went to Mass on a regular basis. Once I got to Saint Leo College I stopped going to Mass all together.
I had long thought out disagreements with the church, which were developed at Saint Augustine’s HS. Just like St. Augustine questioned his faith and God, I was taught to question by the St. John De Baptist De La Salle Brothers who presided over the institution, and I did.
I questioned everything and the theology and philosophy classes I took in college only made me question even more, but one thing was never in question. The central tenet of Christianity “Love thy Neighbor as thy self” never wavered. The belief we are all god’s children and we are all equal never slipped from my consciousness.
I was taught Christ walked with the poor, the defenseless and the sick. I was taught Jesus wanted the Jews to be kind to one another, and not take advantage of others.
My morality was formulated then and it has never wavered. I have always tried to be a good person. I have not always succeeded but I try. That belief, in trying to be a good person, also means, not getting over on another person. Growing up in the neighborhood I grew up in, if you tried to get over on people the word spread quickly and that became your reputation. There were behaviors that controlled much of the anti social behavior of those who skirted those Christian morays.
The story of Jesus kicking the money lenders out of the Temple has always stuck in my head. Who were the money lenders? They were the bankers of the day. Jesus felt the activities of the bankers was defiling gods place. This was used by Catholics years later in their Anti Semitic years. Being a banker, dealing with money, lending was all considered the jobs of the “Jews” The Antisemitism expressed by this profession has traveled through time for two thousand years. Of course the antisemitism was and is wrong, but what was Jesus saying about the profession and what is about the profession that for years Gentiles would not enter into its trade?
In “A Christmas Carol” Dickens makes Scrooge and Marley as evil greedy merchants of money. In the movies and other arts people who deal in money are all depicted in very negative lights. Of course the depictions were exaggerations as all depictions are. Bankers and people who lend money are no more evil than any other profession. I have known bankers and none had horns or tails. They were all decent people doing a job and a service.
At one time interest on loans was illegal. Loans were made just like personal loans have been made for years. The transaction was simple. I borrow one hundred dollars from you today I promise to pay you back by a certain date and I promise to give you one hundred and one dollars back. The charge for the money was a flat fee. It was simple, the borrower and the lender knew what they had to pay back and the lender knew what his profit would be. It was not exorbitant, excessive or usurious. Bankers and others dealing in money left unchecked gained the reputation of “Loan Sharks” squeezing every drop of profit out of borrower. These practices have been deemed morally wrong for some time now.
Christians, Jews and Muslims all have laws dealing with business and money. Ethics courses in universities teach fairness and promote moral business practices all across America. I can understand why some on the right are so afraid of Sharia law. In Muslim Banks the interest rate on lending is fixed at 1% by the Koran. Fairness and ethical business practices are principals in all three religions.
So when did unscrupulous banking and lending principals take over the normal ethical banking and lending principals? Just when the paradigm shift from ethics to profit at all cost happened I don’t know and I am not sure if anyone could put their finger on one moment in time that we could all say the point of ignition for the blaze of greedy bastardly behavior by many in the industry was? But we can’t. The corruption has been growing for years.
Today those “Greedy Bastards” as Dylan Ratigan calls them in his latest book by the same name http://www.dylanratigan.com/ are now so influential in the governing of America that the politicians who represent the American people are bought by those “Greedy Bastards.” The American government is stagnant because those with wealth have stacked the deck against the American Middle Class and diminished the chance of people in poverty from moving up in status by buying off the politicians Americans send to Washington to represent them and their interest.
At no time have I heard more people, people who claim to be Christian attack people in poverty. I have heard educated people, people who go to church every Sunday and say Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior, yet they say poor people should not be educated, that they are all drug and alcohol addicted, that they don’t want to work, that they are good for nothing, that they are a burden on society, that they are vermin.
The attacks on the people in poverty are record numbers. Republican politicians in many states have instituted drug testing requirements for unemployment, and other social services which include health care. In Florida the Republican Governor Rick Scott not only pushed through drug testing for his indigent citizens he did not think anything was wrong with granting his wife’s drug testing company the contract to test every welfare recipient in the State of Florida. 96% of all welfare recipients passed the drug test. The net savings for the State of Florida which was an excuse to push through the legislation was insignificant. (Catherine Whittenburg – Tampa Tribune: http://tbo.ly/pGP0Yv)
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