The Rational Proof of God's Existence
- Thread starter phildwyer
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In any case, there remains the question of whether anything, most of all 'value' is created. Clearly in the case of money-lending, my gain is someone else's loss. If you lend me a fiver, and I pay you back six, the additional pound isn't created at all - I have to get it from somewhere else.
Fruitloop said:
No, its not an activity like golf. Its an activity like *thinking.* Except that, in usury, (a) the object of thought is human life itself in alienated form, and (b) in usury the object of thought reproduces independently of any human intervention. Do you really not see the difference between usury and golf, or are you taking the piss?
Usury is simply the rental of money. I see no way in which it is like "*thinking.*". Like renting a car, it involves a one-way transference of money (just like a sale) in exchange for a loan of some item of property (which in this case happens to be a sum of money, although in the biblical sense could also be food etc). Does renting a car to someone somehow produce new value?
Fruitloop said:
The difference is that a car exists, while financial value does not. Nothing "changes hands" in usury. As I have often said before on this thread, anyone who believes in financial value *already* believes in a supernatural phenomenon. Usury allows this supernatural phenomenon to reproduce, and that is why it was universally assumed to be the work of Satan until the early modern period.
I don't in any sense believe in financial value as you define it, so I have no problems with the supernatural.
If I lend you five pounds at an interest rate of 20%, I first have to give you five pounds. As I've already pointed out, from a Christian perspective it was viewed as usury even if the goods that were given and returned were also cabbages, which whilst disgusting are far from supernatural.
My understanding of the Christian objection was that it was thought to involve charging twice for something - both for the thing itself and for the use of the thing (hence the term). Even so it has always been understood that there were situations where usury was acceptable and indeed inevitable (for example where there existed a risk to the article that was loaned).
If I lend you five pounds at an interest rate of 20%, I first have to give you five pounds. As I've already pointed out, from a Christian perspective it was viewed as usury even if the goods that were given and returned were also cabbages, which whilst disgusting are far from supernatural.
My understanding of the Christian objection was that it was thought to involve charging twice for something - both for the thing itself and for the use of the thing (hence the term). Even so it has always been understood that there were situations where usury was acceptable and indeed inevitable (for example where there existed a risk to the article that was loaned).
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
*gnaws own leg off*
Fruitloop said:
I'm going to say this one more time, so that there can be no doubt that you have been refuted. Usury is like thinking because it involves the "rental" of something (you call it "money," but what you mean is "financial value) which *does not exist* outside of thought. Indeed, usury is not merely *like* thinking, it is *only* thinking. Sorry, I don't know how to make it any clearer than that.
Further to this, in the case of fiat money (as opposed to commodity money which has inherent value), the security of its value relies on legal institutions which are themselves aspects of the real world. The Greek word for money is even derived from the word for law.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
but...phildwyer said:
but...
but jesus indulged in that foul practice!
do you have anything to substantiate this satan bit, or is it a load of old bollox?
phildwyer said:
(a) If this is true, then in order to be able to say that 'financial value' is the *only* idea to cross the threshold, you would need to be able to say that you knew every idea, ever. Otherwise, there may be an idea you've never heard of with the same status as 'financial value' that you had not previously taken into account.
(b) So, to sum up where we've got to so far on this point, 'financial value' is a spirit because it is harmful to humans. Other harmful ideas are not spirits because they derive from 'financial value'. Yet, it is possible that 'financial value' is derivative and still a spirit. Am I being dense or does that not make sense?
(c) Could you please explain your understanding of an essence, so I can properly consider this comment?
Random thought: Since the financial value of an object is different in different places (cigarettes in the UK cost more, or have a higher percieved value than, cigarettes in France for example), it would seem that it is non-universal. Does anything subjective really have a place in a rational proof?
parallelepipete
Aelod cysylltiol y Taliban Cymraeg
But it is a rational proof of the existence of semantics.Fruitloop said:
Pickman's model said:but...
but...
but jesus indulged in that foul practice!
do you have anything to substantiate this satan bit, or is it a load of old bollox?
What, Jesus indulged in usury? Kindly expound. And by "this Satan bit," do you mean the idea that usury was Satanic? If you do, I can cite you about three hundred texts that make this argument, but you'd be better off consulting the best modern discussion of them, which is Norman Jones's "God and the Moneylenders." Well worth a look, it makes you realize how strongly, and why, usury was associated with the devil--puts the modern economic system in a bit of historical and ethical perspective, like.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
st tho's aquinas said:
Pickman's model said:
Ha, you pisstaker, you think you can argue theology with me? That's the *objection,* the argument that Aquinas does *not* agree with, you TWIT. Jesus Christ, I wonder why I bother sometimes, I really do. Aquinas's own opinion, given in response to this objection is as follows:
"I answer that, To take usury for money lent is unjust in itself, because this is to sell what does not exist, and this evidently leads to inequality which is contrary to justice. On order to make this evident, we must observe that there are certain things the use of which consists in their consumption: thus we consume wine when we use it for drink and we consume wheat when we use it for food. Wherefore in such like things the use of the thing must not be reckoned apart from the thing itself, and whoever is granted the use of the thing, is granted the thing itself and for this reason, to lend things of this kin is to transfer the ownership. Accordingly if a man wanted to sell wine separately from the use of the wine, he would be selling the same thing twice, or he would be selling what does not exist, wherefore he would evidently commit a sin of injustice. On like manner he commits an injustice who lends wine or wheat, and asks for double payment, viz. one, the return of the thing in equal measure, the other, the price of the use, which is called usury."
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
i wonder why you bother any of the time.phildwyer said:
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
how would you explain matthew 19:29? sounds uncommon like usury to me.phildwyer said:
incidentally, how come you're apparently entirely ignorant of f w nietzsche?
& if yr so cunting top at theology, how d'you explain the complete absence of a proof of god's existence on this thread, despite the title's assertion?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
so what the fucking fuck's this fucking thread about then?ZWord said:
i wish i knew, i'd do it more.
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