Posted by Booty Princess at syr-24-59-115-15.twcny.rr.com on March 28, 2003 at 16:39:53:
In Reply to: Where does western greed COME from? posted by Smalls on March 28, 2003 at 16:31:27:
Or the protestant ethic. Come now. You can't say, for example, that Egyptian pharoah-tombs are not the GREEDIEST things in history. Do you really need solid-gold dishes to eat off of after you die? I dunno.
I agree the general idea of an afterlife probably contributes to the human desire to stockpile more goods than we could ever possibly use in our own lifetimes -- after all, as John Lennon said "when you're dead, you don't take nothing with you but your soul", but few people recognize this.
However, a notion of afterlife isn't essential to the idea of religion; and indeed, plenty of religions encourage their members to renounce their worldly goods. I'm not so sure this is always such a good idea, either, but it does happen. Personally, I think the law of the universe is balance; eat, drink and be merry, but don't gorge at the expense of others.
I leave you now with a quote:
"Why can't a man be satisfied?
Why can't a woman be satisfied?
Because you tell them so, you tell them of the land that is far away."
-- John Brown's Body
: The protestant work ethic. That old idea that if you want your neighbors to think you are blessed by God, you have lie cheat steal and work too damn hard so that you can LATER say "Oh no, this... God gave me this because I'm so good".
: This is the essential fundamental lie upon which our society is built.
: This culturally-subconscious... and sometimes conscious belief... that we are not rich or poor on a combination of dumb luck and dumb luck, but that it's God smiling on those He digs. If we're rich, no matter what we did to earn it, God must love us and... *drumroll*
: We're going to go to heaven and not *really* die.
: This whole damned schpiel comes back to looking for some rationale by which we are not mortal, as so much of human bullshit comes down to.
: Religion is the primary motivating factor... and those of us not slaves to that structure have to pick a side, either opposing that structure or cruely trying to squeeze dough out of the faithful by pretending to bow to the same structure they do. This is where the greed actually comes in, on the secondary level.
: The insult with the injury.
: Everybody wants to prove they're going to continue past this life... and that's what this war is about, who's going to heaven. And I consider that a tragedy, because I'm not so sure there's a heaven for ANYONE.
: Mike