money has stalled our spiritual growth...perhaps it's designed to do just that

"Its time to defeat the powers that be - by adopting communisim!" Quoting Count 66

-I considered adding this as a reply to the above post by Count 66, and decided against because I'm not really discussing communism and wanted to preserve the continuity of both threads-

I was considering the plight of our world late last night -- as you do -- and stumbled upon a thought that resonated with me to the point that my body began to vibrate.

is money the root of all evil? No not actually, however, consider that money, and the value that we have imagined it to have have stunted our spiritual growth as a race--globally.

Consider much of the ancient thoughts of usury.

wikipedia

Usury (in the original sense of any interest) was at times denounced by a number of religious leaders and philosophers in the ancient world, including Plato, Aristotle, Cato, Cicero, Seneca[9], Plutarch,[citation needed] Aquinas[10], Muhammad[11], Moses,[citation needed] Philo[citation needed] and Gautama Buddha.[citation needed] For example, Cato in his De Re Rustica said: "And what do you think of usury?" — "What do you think of murder?" But one must always consider that usury, in historical context, has always been inextricably linked to economic abuses, mostly of the masses and of the poor; but sometimes of the financier and royalty, as bankrupt royalty has led to many a demise, thus frowning upon lending at interest or for a euphemistic "just profit"[clarification needed]. The main moral argument is that usury creates excessive profit and gain without "labor" which is deemed "work" in the Biblical context. Profits from usury are argued not to arise from any substantial labor or work but from mere avarice, greed, trickery and manipulation. In addition, usury is said to create a divide between people due to obsession with monetary gain. Most importantly, usury is the derivation of profit from biological time, which is linked to life, considered sacred, God-given and divine, leading to excessive worrying about money instead of God, thus subjugating a God-given sanctity of life to man-made artificial notions of material wealth. Interest of any kind is forbidden in Islam. As such, specialized codes of banking have developed to cater to investors wishing to obey Qur'anic law.

Many of the ancient philosophers and gnostics believed that usury was an abomination because it served to hinder natural law and spiritual growth.

Money is and has been used primarily for the dissemination of power. It is a representation of a value that we have placed arbitrarily but is ultimately worthless. If all of the money in the world disappeared today we would continue living, working and feeding our people (though I imagine the transition would be tough)

Insidiously, money has taken up position as our primary motivation in life. It truly serves to ground us spiritually in one spot and has prevented us from developing!

Notice that since the development of usury there has been little spiritual growth in our world. Our focus has turned outward to gaining and retaining money and the power that comes with it.

All the while wars are fought over money, or the ability to attain it and one might make the argument that the root cause of Islamic Jihad as we know it now is an act of resistance against the abomination that is Capitalism (note, don't swear at me, I'm a business owner and I do not support religious extremism in any way, I believe in the middle path, I'm just trying to make a point).

Further, our Capitalist system has forced the vast majority of us to rely on outsiders to make, manage, and maintain our money. Thus we've become dependent on the "system" for our subsistence and we've abandoned our true selves in exchange. Chilling, don't you think?

-more to follow-

reply to post by Tamale_214


Money in itself does not require usury.
Money is just a way of keeping track of who owes who favors.
In a gift-reciprocity system, I gave you apples three times, your pears you will give in return weren't ready yet, now your pears are ripe, how many times did I give you apples again? Money takes the place of remembering that, or arguing over each others' scratched-out IOU books, it's instant fungible accounting in your pocket.
There is nothing wrong with money in these uses.
The questionable part is the fractional reserve banking, where some persons (the banks) get a license to lend out money they don't already have, whereas the rest have to actually make the money and produce a hard tangible asset before they can get credited for it (leaving commodity futures out of this discussion here ok). This would seem inevitably to lead to the bankers getting ahead disproportionately in any situation of economic growth. And then in these exciting downturns, it seems like piles of wealth just vanish, but the financials in the meantime have managed to trade that hypothetical money for some hard assets.
It may be that the fractional reserve banking makes a society grow so much faster that the trade-off is worth it, or else maybe not.
But that ain't the fault of money in itself.

-continued-

on to my more outlandish ideas (the ones that resonate with me)

many have heard of the "reptilian agenda" (i suppose if someone on this site hasn't heard of it then they are very particular in what they read)

I will not go into the myriad of theories that abound, suffice it to say that if you google or ATS search "reptilian agenda" you'll most definitely find something.

Many have heard the term "the end game" with reference to 2012.
many have heard the notion that we are a "slave race"
many have heard the idea that some alien races are "consumerist or trade races"
many have heard that there is a galactic law preventing direct intervention with burgeoning planet races.
many have heard that in order to not defy this law, extra-planetary races must have permission to enter our space, and not just permission, but planetary desire.


consider this (or don't, but still consider that money is hurting us spiritually):

consider that an ancient race of consumerists visited our planet millenia ago, that they introduced the concept of money and usury to our ancient ancestors. Over time they popped in again, and again reaffirming their existence and reinforcing their consumerist agenda.

Over hundreds and thousands of years, we have subtly been manipulated into a consumer society, reliant on money for our happiness and well being. Our current capitalist system is the pinnacle of this consumerist society.

Consider that fear of losing our livelihood, or our house or our possessions is a greater fear for many than losing our connection to god, or our connection to our subconscious or our connection to one another.

Consider that economic meltdowns, such as the one occurring now, have been meticulously designed to entrench our fear of loss and to give our ancient visitors and in. So that one day (maybe soon) they will come down, offer us a solution to our economic woes and we will genuinely want them to help us, and we will ask them to help us, and they will, and then they will never leave.

We will not have slowed our spiritual growth, we will have stopped it completely and for all time.

Does this last sentence give you pause? It does for me.

Can it be that after thousands of years of adventure and searching for the unknown, for the unknowable; that we would be prepared to set aside that search for a life of easy chairs and dancing with the stars? Oh my, what are we doing? Many in our world will no doubt be thrilled to live this life, I am not one of them. My search is not over and I don't want someone/thing to stall my search on my behalf.

If there is no alien agenda, if there is no great conspiracy then fine. However, my thoughts do not change. The future of the human race ought not to be one of barcoloungers and survivor. It ought to be one of questioning and searching, for knowledge and discernment, for peace and tranquility.

Our education system in the west is failing, it is no longer the case that the younger generations are more educated and knowledgeable than the generation that came before (though this is not to say that intelligence is declining, only that education is declining). Many of our youth are so disinterested in schooling and learning that they are coming out of highschool barely able to read, hardly able to spell and certainly more interested in tv and videogames than discussing philosophy or politics or anything else for that matter.

I generalize of course, there are many many young people who have broken the chains of educatory doctrine and have developed a genuine inquisitiveness, however I fear that they are in the minority and that it is all a part of the plan.

I for one believe that our true destiny is to know god (whatever that is) and that our destiny has been diverted, that something built a dam diverting the stream of our true nature and hoarding the most base elements into a reservoir of ignorance and apathy.

search, quest, discover together.