Money, Evil, and Roots.



Someone responded to that meme by saying:

 "The actual proverb is, “The love of money is the root of all evil,” which comes from the Bible (1 Timothy 6:10).
Mark Twain is often misquoted or has sayings wrongly attributed to him, and this appears to be one of those cases."
--
In reply, I offer this: 

1. No Bible-version I can find words it exactly that way.
https://biblehub.com/1_timothy/6-10.htm

Reading across a vast range of renderings, I see that it just means:

People who place too much value on money end up creating problems for themselves;
where "evil" just means any situations that are intensely (but subjectively) regrettable.

2. The quoted meme *is* the actual proverb being cited.
Saying "That's not the actual proverb" (about the OP quote) is like:
If someone said "Don't be afraid of God; because God is love and we should not fear love", ...
someone then replying with "The actual quote is "Fear God".

No.

The actual quote is the quote we are seeing; because it's a different quote.

The OP is not getting the quote wrong.

The quote they cited is a counter-point to the popular (but usually misquoted) bible-quote.

The point of the Bible-quote is to say "It's possible to care too much about making money".

There's no way the author of that text is the first person in the world to ever say such a thing.
But we credit them for it anyways, because that's where we heard it from.

The point of the OP's quote is "But it's also possible to care too little about making money".

The reason Christian-letter writers (the stuff that later went into bibles) only warned against the pursuit of money, and never bothered to warn against being super-poor is:

They believed the literal end of the world was about to happen.

They didn't want anyone investing into their Earthly future,
because:
All the proper-Jews were about to be God-gifted a communist utopia (His kingdom on Earth).
And everyone else in the world was about to be violently exterminated (by Jesus) as vermin.
-Hence, no need for accumulating financial resources.

3. Here, with all of this in mind, I propose an even better quote:

Moral-Authoritarian ideologies like Christianity,
which propose we are all DISPOSIBLE "lest we join them", 
are the roots of all human-caused tragedy. 

 In other words:


4. As for who first said the OP's quote, a cursory Google search credits Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens).
However, even if someone else first said it,
or
even if there's no way to be sure who first said it, ...
that's

all besides the point.

As the late Christopher Hitchens pointed out, ...
Iconic historical figures like Socrates and Plato may-or-may-not have actually said something specific they are credited for. But that doesn't matter. Because those names merely represent the fact that "somebody said that stuff".
Those figures embody a set of ideas. Citing them by name is never really about the person who said it.
We don't need to know a source's real biographical data to be able to quote and discuss the wisdom handed down to us.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gods Exist; As A Way Of Thinking And Speaking That We Can Grow Past

Image
[Version 3.0 Please pardon the typos and other "wonk". This is a work in progress. Feedback would be greatly appreciated. But even if all you do is read it, I'll still be very grateful.  Thanks] ====== Some people worship actually-existing things; like the Sun.  Some Sun worshippers proceed without assuming the Sun is sentient.  They have that relationship to the Sun, as a brilliant, live-giving, and sometimes punishing power.  It's a humbling awe. It's also an idea that informs them of who they are. They are a recipient of life from a personified life-giver.  They are a subject to the threat that anyone who dares stare too long at the Sun may be struck blind. They are subject to limits and consequences, if they spend too much or too little time in the Sun's presence.  The Sun blesses us caretakers and sharers of the abundant life that the Sun imparts.  The Sun makes sure the lakes and sky share their life giving waters. It directly helps ~shape~ ever Sun-wors
Read more

Responding to "HOW DO YOU KNOW?" that (any) historical issue is a settled issue(?)

Image
This blog was inspired by a discussion happening in a forum on Facebook. Specifically, the issue on the table was: "Did the writers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke/Acts think that Jesus was either part of a Triune-Godhead, or at least the same "God" as the patriarchal deity of 2nd Temple Judaism?" Predictably, a Trinitarian religious fundamentalist said "yes". Predictably, an enabler of unspecified background has rushed in to support that fundamentalist. In context, it's really obvious to me that the enabler was raised in that same ideological culture; no matter how religious they may-or-may-not-be currently. So when I pointed out what actual scholars say about it, I also pointed out that this is a settled issue. In reply, he insisted: There are never any truly settled issues among qualified scholars. Both a real scholar and an honest (and minimally intelligent) laymen would realize this. [Note: this is just a variation of the stunt being
Read more

Christian-Fundamentalism's Relationship To Racism

Image
For now, I'll just start with a few key issues; in no particular order. 1. Atheism isn't a worldview or a values system. It's like being a non-astrologist, or a non-Leprechaun-ist. If someone doesn't believe in leprechauns in general, or if they more specifically don't believe in "The Eternal King of the Leprechauns", this really doesn't inform their personal views and values. 2. For context, I don't identify as an "atheist". The term "atheist" means "not a theist". The term "theist" means "believes in a god". The term "god" means: whatever the invoker wants it to mean. Therefore, the term "atheist" fails to make any meaningful distinction, because the term "god" fails to provide its own meaning. However, ... 3. Once a god-word-invoker does clarify their meaning, then (in that context) the term "atheist" can be contextually meaningfu
Read more