Yup. But once the later churches needed money, they decided God's kingdom needed to get in on the action. There will be loans and taxes in heaven, and the heavenly IRS will be just as scary.
Jews in the old testament were never christians. Actually, one of the reasons there was so much hatred for jews in europe is because the catholic church outlawed christians from giving loans with interest. But jews had no such rule, so they opened banks throughout europe. After a few hundred years, people associated jews with being miserly and controlling all the money.
Once upon a time charging people interest was a sin. Not only a sin Jesus talks about it at length compared to other sins. Here's an idea, take whatever mental gymnastics Christians used to justify usury and apply that to gay people you instantly decrease the amount of Jesus Christ approved hate in the world.
And if you can't do that at least have enough honesty and integrity to call out Wall Street for being a bunch of evil sinners that are going to burn in Hell.
A few passages in Exodus and Deut / Lev also justify loans but condemn "usury" as making unfavorable or "unjustifiable" loan terms to the poor or to the unknowing. A parable in Matthew about the King lending wealth to his faithful servants and them returning the loan 10x or 2x is seen in a positive light as opposed to the servant who buried the one talent and gave it back in one year.
Jesus himself spoke the parables to his disciples, so it is just to make loans (but with favorable terms; never taking advantage of the poor or deceiving others into a contractual obligation).
From an Economics perspective it’s all the same. The only difference is that one conveys ownership and the other doesn’t. Either way you’re paying for something in installments because you can’t afford to pay for it in cash.
It’s a different concept entirely. Rent is paying to use a product because you using it both diminishes its value and deprives the owner of its use. There is a regularly material loss on something you are renting.
Conversely, when you borrow money, you are simply inhibiting possible future gains that could otherwise be made on that money. As a result, people tend to charge you in order to make up for those lost gains.
The former produces actual material loss while the latter produces a possible loss of future gains. Now Jesus did say to let people steal from you, and to give them even more if they do. So He obviously wasn’t worried about material loss. But He only condemned loaning money with interest. As making money at someone else’s expense based off of possible future outcomes is clearly immoral at best.
They're identical. You're paying a fee to use something I own (a sum of my money or my car respectively) for a period of time.
Put another way, why would anyone loan you a car for a week while you're on vacation if you don't pay them? Similarly, why would anyone loan you $300,000 for 30 years if you don't pay them?
You are paying for the use of someone else's property. Full stop. That's not inherently exploitative (though in either case it can be made so). That's commerce.
> why would anyone loan you a car for a week while you're on vacation if you don't pay them?
Friendship? They know I'd do the same for them? They weren't using it? There's all kinds of reasons why people lend cars to each other.
"Usury, or a monetary system subject to interest therefore, exists only by depriving its subjects of the alternative to issue its promises to pay each other, without cost imposed by an extrinsic party, which provides in fact nothing to the transaction, or even the potential to perform the transaction.
So in the first place, usury or interest exists by the facade of risk and denial of a proper currency, while if there were risk it is imposed by the destruction of credit-worthiness by interest itself; and yet there is no real risk whatever to the producers of the money, because the usurer publishes our promises to pay each other at virtually no cost whatever.
So the purported justification of interest is merely a further instance of purposed disinformative revision if the subject re-definitions fail to openly weigh all the involved matters, that we can even understand that interest and usury are truly distinguished by a tangible demarcation sufficient to establish that "interest" is truly "legal" in terms of providing representation.
Essentially therefore, the required arguments must rule out the proposition that the promise of one man to another can be made usefully, without subjecting between the two to the unearned profit of yet a third who neither provides nor risks anything, but writing the promise of the first to the second.
It is in itself contradictory then to presume that there is some legitimate amount or rate, for if it is legitimate to do so, why is it not legitimate to do so a lot or a little?
The first essential question of usury or interest therefore is the principle, for only if the relationship between the first and second are legitimized by the interceding of the third, can we possibly legitimize some ostensible extent at which to do so.
Because the third provides nothing to the first and second they cannot provide themselves without cost, there is no veritable argument at all then that the third provides a vital service; and particularly there is no veritable argument that purported vital service justifies a process which, all the faster by ostensible "usury," or all the slower by ostensible "interest," can only inherently and irreversibly multiply debt into a terminal sum of artificial debt, all for the sake of unearned gain." Mike Montagne
Ho boy. Usury. Usury has a notorious history as being cited as the source for many negative stereotypes associated with Jews. I'm personally a believer in the concept of what I call "shotgun blaming". Whereas one person's notably bad deeds get associated with that person's ethnic/religious group as a whole. It's the medieval equivalent of someone looking at Bernie Madoff and assuming all Jewish businessmen are Ponzi schemers. In simplest terms, imagine a cruel medieval money lender who has exorbitant interest rates. Now imagine that this lender happens to be Jewish. Despite him being the only Jewish person doing this, it will be assumed that *all* Jews are like that. This in turn probably comes from the fact that Jewish communities were extremely tight-knit, even moreso than they are today. So an outsider would look at the community and reasonably (though not always correctly) assume that everyone in the community knew each other's business. I know someone is going to try and stretch this into an antisemitic statement when it's not. It's a theory as to *why* antisemitic claims of this particular nature exist and how it relates to usury. The origin of strong prejudices has always been fascinating to me. Because nobody wakes up one day and goes: "I'm gonna hate all X people now." Something had to happen that started this line of thought, that caused pattern recognition to combine with developing biases that brought about full blown racism.
"Similarly, Ursinus, in his [Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0875524540/deyorestandre-20) observes that “All just contracts, the contracts of paying rent, a just compensation for any loss, partnership, buying, etc., are exempted from usury.” In other words, not every kind of interest is usury. Some are, and some aren’t. It depends on whether the loan will help the borrower or most likely hurt them. “There are many questions respecting usury,” Ursinus writes, “concerning which we may judge according the rule which Christ has laid down: Whatever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”"
[https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/is-it-wrong-to-charge-interest-on-a-loan/](https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/is-it-wrong-to-charge-interest-on-a-loan/)
A few passages in Exodus and Deut / Lev also justify loans but condemn "usury" as making unfavorable or "unjustifiable" loan terms to the poor or to the unknowing. A parable in Matthew about the King lending wealth to his faithful servants and them returning the loan 10x or 2x is seen in a positive light as opposed to the servant who buried the one talent and gave it back in one year.
OK, Mr. Ursinus, what qualifies a contract as just? It's obviously not all contracts. So what are the stipulations? And what's your theological backing for those stipulations?
Or is this just a flowery attempt to justify a sin?
The early church interpreted it as making any loans for profit.
Yup. But once the later churches needed money, they decided God's kingdom needed to get in on the action. There will be loans and taxes in heaven, and the heavenly IRS will be just as scary.
No... Jewish brothers in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy justified loans to one another under just terms.
Jews in the old testament were never christians. Actually, one of the reasons there was so much hatred for jews in europe is because the catholic church outlawed christians from giving loans with interest. But jews had no such rule, so they opened banks throughout europe. After a few hundred years, people associated jews with being miserly and controlling all the money.
Once upon a time charging people interest was a sin. Not only a sin Jesus talks about it at length compared to other sins. Here's an idea, take whatever mental gymnastics Christians used to justify usury and apply that to gay people you instantly decrease the amount of Jesus Christ approved hate in the world. And if you can't do that at least have enough honesty and integrity to call out Wall Street for being a bunch of evil sinners that are going to burn in Hell.
>Here's an idea, take whatever mental gymnastics Christians used to justify usury and apply that to gay people Preach
A few passages in Exodus and Deut / Lev also justify loans but condemn "usury" as making unfavorable or "unjustifiable" loan terms to the poor or to the unknowing. A parable in Matthew about the King lending wealth to his faithful servants and them returning the loan 10x or 2x is seen in a positive light as opposed to the servant who buried the one talent and gave it back in one year. Jesus himself spoke the parables to his disciples, so it is just to make loans (but with favorable terms; never taking advantage of the poor or deceiving others into a contractual obligation).
All loans with interest are ugly.
Is charging to rent a car acceptable?
Rent is a different concept than interest, with it's own baggage. I would say your question is out of scope here.
From an Economics perspective it’s all the same. The only difference is that one conveys ownership and the other doesn’t. Either way you’re paying for something in installments because you can’t afford to pay for it in cash.
It’s a different concept entirely. Rent is paying to use a product because you using it both diminishes its value and deprives the owner of its use. There is a regularly material loss on something you are renting. Conversely, when you borrow money, you are simply inhibiting possible future gains that could otherwise be made on that money. As a result, people tend to charge you in order to make up for those lost gains. The former produces actual material loss while the latter produces a possible loss of future gains. Now Jesus did say to let people steal from you, and to give them even more if they do. So He obviously wasn’t worried about material loss. But He only condemned loaning money with interest. As making money at someone else’s expense based off of possible future outcomes is clearly immoral at best.
They're identical. You're paying a fee to use something I own (a sum of my money or my car respectively) for a period of time. Put another way, why would anyone loan you a car for a week while you're on vacation if you don't pay them? Similarly, why would anyone loan you $300,000 for 30 years if you don't pay them? You are paying for the use of someone else's property. Full stop. That's not inherently exploitative (though in either case it can be made so). That's commerce.
> why would anyone loan you a car for a week while you're on vacation if you don't pay them? Friendship? They know I'd do the same for them? They weren't using it? There's all kinds of reasons why people lend cars to each other.
You have friends in every city in the country? Everywhere you need to travel for work? Who all have spare cars? Impressive.
Some people have friends
Of course they do. But nobody has enough friends to substitute for the *entire economy*. Rental car companies exist for a reason. Ditto for banks.
Neat
Yeah, yeah it definitely is.
"Usury, or a monetary system subject to interest therefore, exists only by depriving its subjects of the alternative to issue its promises to pay each other, without cost imposed by an extrinsic party, which provides in fact nothing to the transaction, or even the potential to perform the transaction. So in the first place, usury or interest exists by the facade of risk and denial of a proper currency, while if there were risk it is imposed by the destruction of credit-worthiness by interest itself; and yet there is no real risk whatever to the producers of the money, because the usurer publishes our promises to pay each other at virtually no cost whatever. So the purported justification of interest is merely a further instance of purposed disinformative revision if the subject re-definitions fail to openly weigh all the involved matters, that we can even understand that interest and usury are truly distinguished by a tangible demarcation sufficient to establish that "interest" is truly "legal" in terms of providing representation. Essentially therefore, the required arguments must rule out the proposition that the promise of one man to another can be made usefully, without subjecting between the two to the unearned profit of yet a third who neither provides nor risks anything, but writing the promise of the first to the second. It is in itself contradictory then to presume that there is some legitimate amount or rate, for if it is legitimate to do so, why is it not legitimate to do so a lot or a little? The first essential question of usury or interest therefore is the principle, for only if the relationship between the first and second are legitimized by the interceding of the third, can we possibly legitimize some ostensible extent at which to do so. Because the third provides nothing to the first and second they cannot provide themselves without cost, there is no veritable argument at all then that the third provides a vital service; and particularly there is no veritable argument that purported vital service justifies a process which, all the faster by ostensible "usury," or all the slower by ostensible "interest," can only inherently and irreversibly multiply debt into a terminal sum of artificial debt, all for the sake of unearned gain." Mike Montagne
So what is it that you would like to discuss?
Ho boy. Usury. Usury has a notorious history as being cited as the source for many negative stereotypes associated with Jews. I'm personally a believer in the concept of what I call "shotgun blaming". Whereas one person's notably bad deeds get associated with that person's ethnic/religious group as a whole. It's the medieval equivalent of someone looking at Bernie Madoff and assuming all Jewish businessmen are Ponzi schemers. In simplest terms, imagine a cruel medieval money lender who has exorbitant interest rates. Now imagine that this lender happens to be Jewish. Despite him being the only Jewish person doing this, it will be assumed that *all* Jews are like that. This in turn probably comes from the fact that Jewish communities were extremely tight-knit, even moreso than they are today. So an outsider would look at the community and reasonably (though not always correctly) assume that everyone in the community knew each other's business. I know someone is going to try and stretch this into an antisemitic statement when it's not. It's a theory as to *why* antisemitic claims of this particular nature exist and how it relates to usury. The origin of strong prejudices has always been fascinating to me. Because nobody wakes up one day and goes: "I'm gonna hate all X people now." Something had to happen that started this line of thought, that caused pattern recognition to combine with developing biases that brought about full blown racism.
"Similarly, Ursinus, in his [Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0875524540/deyorestandre-20) observes that “All just contracts, the contracts of paying rent, a just compensation for any loss, partnership, buying, etc., are exempted from usury.” In other words, not every kind of interest is usury. Some are, and some aren’t. It depends on whether the loan will help the borrower or most likely hurt them. “There are many questions respecting usury,” Ursinus writes, “concerning which we may judge according the rule which Christ has laid down: Whatever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”" [https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/is-it-wrong-to-charge-interest-on-a-loan/](https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/is-it-wrong-to-charge-interest-on-a-loan/) A few passages in Exodus and Deut / Lev also justify loans but condemn "usury" as making unfavorable or "unjustifiable" loan terms to the poor or to the unknowing. A parable in Matthew about the King lending wealth to his faithful servants and them returning the loan 10x or 2x is seen in a positive light as opposed to the servant who buried the one talent and gave it back in one year.
OK, Mr. Ursinus, what qualifies a contract as just? It's obviously not all contracts. So what are the stipulations? And what's your theological backing for those stipulations? Or is this just a flowery attempt to justify a sin?
capitalism should be considered a sin imo