What was up with today's first reading? (communism)

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SacredHeartBassist said:
and btw, my family is from iran. they charge interest there too so idk why you think the muslims are shaming us. it’s a myth that they don’t charge interest
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No, it’s not. Saudi American Bank, based in Riyadh, DOES run a Muslim account service where no interest is drawn for Muslim clients. Lived there, banked there, had a credit card through there, as did my husband. Not a myth. I would imagine all banks in Muslim countries have such a service. Those accounts that are interest-bearing/charging are also handled by non-Muslims. They’re business savvy people - they’re not daft.
 
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I suppose you’re right, but I would examine what @pianistclare just wrote, about looking at the spirit of the law. The laws and culture of our society should foster cooperation on matters affecting the common good. Look what a mess unrestrained greed and pride has made of our country. There is a better way and we should try to figure it out.
 
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Vico said:
Ver. 32. All things were common. Happy would it be for society, if the rich of the present day were to imitate, in some degree, this charity of the first disciples, by distributing to those that want. Both would hereby become more happy; nor would the rich derive less pleasure from such actions, than the poor. (St. Chrysostom, hom. xi. in Acts.)
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Jesus said “the poor you will always have with you”, and indeed this has been the case. In medieval times, those who had lost everything might show up at a monastery, asking to be taken into the community. They were always given the hardest jobs and made to work longer hours to test their tenacity.

Two monks I know collected a little nest egg while in the Monastery (still not sure how that was done) and after some years, moved out and got an apartment. They had been doing the bulk of the physical labor for the monastery for years and were tired of it.
 
RandomAlias said:
The laws and culture of our society should foster cooperation on matters affecting the common good. Look what a mess unrestrained greed and pride has made of our country. There is a better way and we should try to figure it out.
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I have been working on my geneology. My ancestors came over with the pilgrims in the 1600’s. It sounds like the early communities of European Americans were more like communal living. Every able body was valued and everyone worked together to build, heal, worship, put out the fires and fight the Natives.

And speaking of those Natives, it seems they had been living here communally for 10,000 years or so before the Europeans came and shared their Christian love, diseases, and weapons with them, which decimated entire tribes.
 
philipl said:
Like produce the highest standard of living in the world.
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Not denying the economic success, but saying that capitalism as it stands today is too closely allied with greed, poverty, injustice, crime, and other social disorders. From what I’ve read, the early Christians were in some ways better off. They were doing something right. They had something that we have lost.
 
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I have nothing at all against private property (indeed, I wouldn’t even refer to keeping sufficient resources to raise one’s children as “hoarding”) — but I’m not sure you’re right there. In societies based on more communal living and ownership, people still provide for children.

Remember, if you lived in such a setup, you wouldn’t just be putting resources in and then never seeing them again. You would also be receiving whatever of the collected resources of everyone that you and your family required.
 
Like I said earlier then everything will become broken and worn. People don’t care about things that belong to others. That’s why section 8 housing has broken windows
 
As I’m not Muslim, I couldn’t tell you what their policies were for those accounts. They didn’t exactly discuss them with non-users.

But I do know they have them. When you filled out applications, they asked you your religion, and it was expressly so you could be deferred to the correct department.

We were charged and were paid interest on our accounts because we’re not Muslims.Like I said, they know what they’re doing.
 
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that’s the policy of one bank and that’s saudi arabia. not every muslim country disallows charging interest to fellow muslims.
 
That’s all over the Middle East at multiple banks. My husband lived in the region for nearly a decade and we have friends who are lawyers there.

It’s all over, not just one bank and not just KSA.
 
Who said it was? I didn’t.

Larger banks in the US have specific departments that handle transactions like that for specific clients. I know HSBC (yeah, I know they’re not American, but you get my point) does the same thing in a separate division. It’s not unique, and it does happen.
 
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So here is the way it was explained to my. If you want to borrow x number of dollars, you have a fee charged to borrow that money. It is not called interest.
 
As I recall, there were no funding fees for Muslims - don’t quote me - because that’s the bank making money off the customer.

I have no clue how it works, and I don’t know the particulars, because it didn’t affect me. But I do know the way money was loaned and invested by them was completely different and handled by a separate division. I know that their cards were different and their investments were different. I can ask my husband out of curiosity.

I feel pretty certain the interest we were charged paid fees across the board for everyone. And no, our rates weren’t abnormally high for the era.
 
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i’m telling you that in iran, they charge fees to muslims too
 
That doesn’t prove they don’t anywhere else. Dubai, Bahrain, KSA, Abu Dhabi, Qatar…it’s different.

You said that just because Iran does it everyone does. I’m saying that’s not the case. I’ve never lived there and I have no idea - but I’ve spent a chunk of my life on and dealing with the Arabian Peninsula and know otherwise for that region. I told you I also don’t know particulars and I don’t know how it works - that the accounts are handled differently and there are separate rules depending on what religion you tell them you are.
 
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I believe there are still Kibbutz in Israel…they may not be exactly the same as in earlier years but I think they are still a collective community…I’m sure they don’t consider themselves or their communities communists…I don’t think there is anything wrong with having wealth…it’s how you handle that wealth…Jesus gave the example how it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter heaven…that presupposes that the rich person is greedy with what ultimately…like all things…belongs to God…isn’t it better for a rich person to give charitably of their wealth whereby they can continually contribute to helping those in need…than to give it all away all at the one time…that might help some needy people for a while…then what… their benefactor has nothing left to give…I do think credit companies…banks etc are greedy with the interest they charge and in my opinion are evil…but then people are consumed with materialism and want everything they can get now…so it’s just greedy money lenders reaping the reward from greedy consumers
 
The priest giving the homily for the Mass I was at referenced this reading and then said, “Yeah, right.”
He pointed out that if things had really been this perfect, you wouldn’t have all the letters of instruction from Paul and such.
He basically suggested that it wasn’t as perfect as portrayed, or that such an ideal arrangement maybe worked for just a short time as everyone expected Jesus to return right away.
 
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