Money Worship Part 1

It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil.

The same person who said that also said the first and great commandment is to the love "the Lord thy God with all thy heart" and to "love thy neighbor as thyself."

He's also the one who said you cannot serve two masters...but that you have to choose either between 'God or Mammon'. For those who don't know what mammon is, that is wealth. Wealth can be described as materialism and as money, the worship of which is a major problem today.

Now, obviously not everyone in the world believes in God these days. Not the Christian God, or Buddha, or Allah,  or any of the other gods that were followed and worshipped over the course of human history. Since  it is the choice of any free-willed individual to decide for his or herself, fine. Only... I'm not so sure that is entirely true.

I think it is human nature to worship something. Be it philosophy, science, human ingenuity, sexuality, the physical body, nature, words, or superstars. The list is endless, really.

Let me give you an example. I once served as a missionary for my church  in post-communist Russia a couple decades back. The Russians were still disassembling statues of Lenin and renaming cities back to their original forms. I met this one man and his wife there who just wanted to talk philosophy with myself and my missionary companion. He was a photographer, and she was a ballerina. Talented, educated, pleasant individuals. And devout atheists. Our conversations were interesting, but the one that stuck with me the most was when he made the comment, "You know, not long ago I would not have been allowed to speak with you. But now, here we are, free to." Then he said, "The thing is, the Soviet Union claimed to have been atheist. But I think that is incorrect. Instead of having icons of Jesus Christ, we had them of Lenin. Our scripture was the writings of Lenin, Stalin, and Karl Marx. And the place that you now use as a place of worship, ironically is where they used to teach Marxist and Leninist philosophies." 

You see, we rented an old community center hall for our Sunday services where it still had some of the old Soviet sayings bolted to the walls.

He smiled and we chatted more. But what he wanted to share was that even declared atheists switch their worship to something else. His was mostly philosophy and art, and he was open about it.   

So, that got me thinking. With the divide between the super rich and the super poor growing wider and wider...it kind of makes me wonder if in fact there is a god that is being worshipped today by the super rich, and for that matter many others who wish to be super rich. Who is that god? you may ask. That's simple.

Profit.

And humans are being sacrificed to it in the name of the Economy, Profit's beloved son.

My question is, how many will die for this god?

May we fear and tremble.