“Original Sin” KaronLot , you peeked my curiosity, what do you mean by ‘original sin’
Were you possibly refering to sins of the father type scenario or if someone commits an initial wrong, that this might prove to be a continued behaviour…?
@porridge would be best to explain that.
Notion of original sin eg Catholicism. The concept that some people are born evil and not just nurture. Works for animals sometimes too.
The orthodox Christian view of original sin is that all humans are naturally inclined to do wrong through their nature.
Seems the thread has drifted a little to conflate having wealth with doing or being bad. I won’t say evil because that word really opens a can of worms!
I wouldn’t say that having wealth means someone is necessarily predisposed to being a horrid person. All people can be good and kind towards others, whether financially or in another way, say in time or effort. Folks without money concerns may have more ability to be generous towards others but whether they spread it widely or even only in their own flesh and blood is quite individual.
I have known more than a few greatly wealthy people. Some are very open, kind and exceedingly generous with everything including money. They lead by example and teach their children to be open handed with those less fortunate. Some I have found to be as tight and controlling with everything including money and their own families, as though their greatest fear was losing it. (The money I expect more than the family!)
I suppose that people are just still people, with all the traits good and bad whether they have wealth or not. We are in danger of generalising I think, when we categorise any group of human beings, which can be misleading. Just as all people with little money are not always the ‘salt of the earth’ either.
As Kazza and AM earlier explained, we are what all as we do. That is the only way we can measure a person’s worth. I have always believed that if blessed ourselves we should in turn make life better for others.
It’s a bit rich though - apparently we are the creation of god, you know, that divine flawless being, yet apparently he was not able to create man without flaws.
He, so the story goes, gave us free will - but clearly not the wit to use it; then got his nose all out of joint when the devil tempted Eve and she fell for it.
Thus, according to doctrine, god punishes all in perpetuity for his own mistake.
Piss poor deity if you ask me.
Anyway to get back to the topic.
If a man starts an enterprise manufacturing widgets and gets fat on the profits, has he not simply stolen from his workers their rightful reward from their labours?
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Yeah but it let the Catholic religion and its institutions make everyone feel flawed and guilty apparently… which must have been a good moneys(p)inner and had great potential as an instrument of control.
Yeah, well, I realise that many find consolation and strength in religion but my opinion of most Earthly “religions” is that they are anything but divine and are mostly on the make.
Especially the Catholic church.
PS I wish to make it 100% clear that my opprobrium is for the organisation and its senior members, only a little for ordinary priests and none at all for the congregation (for the most part, sometimes ordinary people do heinous things in the name of divine inspiration and that can’t be overlooked).
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If a man organises individuals, who alone would make a pittance, into a group that collectively under his guidance earn substantially more than they might alone, and he grows very wealthy as a result, where has he stolen?
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He has stolen from them the opportunity to work collectively under a more benign boss.
And if that man who has grown rich and now powerful goes to his local representative and says “buy shares in my firm and I will make you rich, and I will fund your campaign to get re-elected, just so long as you ignore the pollution I pour into the rivers, and you ignore the deaths in my factory because there is no safety and you ignore the hole in that hillside from which I extract the coal with which to run my factory”.
Has he not stolen from us all?
The second situation you describe is not the same as the first.
The workers might be able to organise themselves, but there’s a very good chance they could not. Having run a business of my own and seen multiple businesses both succeed and fail, I do not believe ordinary men and women are generally capable of doing such a thing successfully without considerable luck and help. In such a situation no, he has not stolen, but he has only enabled them to do better than they could without him.
The second situation you describe is not connected to the first, but may happen just as ‘ordinary’ people fly-tip or build ignoring planning regs, knowingly pollute the environment etc. Only the scale is different.
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I’m mostly tossing things up for discussion.
You might be right - not everybody is a born leader but I’m not clear that actually makes it right that the bosses exploit the workers - and the natural inclination is for many to do just that - which is why we have employee protection laws and elfin safety and all that. If the world was full of altruistic factory owners doing the best by their workers and taking a justifiable extra reward we would not need to legislate for employee rights.
It is also very clear that the concentration of almost all the world’s wealth into the hands of a few, almost exclusively male, individuals is a good idea.
It’s a fair question.
Too late for that 
The first question is why God would create people. It wasn’t a scientific exercise: he created people so that he could have a relationship with them. If you’re a father or mother, you know the feeling! Repeatedly throughout the Bible, God compares himself to a mother or a father, or describes himself as having parental characteristics.
It would indeed be a piss-poor God who, in those circumstances, created children programmed to love him.
God loves to spend time with his children. Right at the beginning, he would walk with them in the cool of the evening (being careful here not to take Genesis as a scientific text!).
God created two “special” trees - again, this isn’t a botanical text: the trees stand for something - the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There was only one tree the fruit of which man was warned not to eat, because eating it would lead to death: the second tree.
You could consider the knowledge of good&evil as a symbol of the law. We couldn’t even get not eating it right. We chose to substitute our opinions of what is right and wrong for the wisdom the creator (who was plainly in a position to know what was best for us) gave us.
TBH, I find the idea of original sin difficult to understand. I don’t find the idea of a God who loves me, and would rescue me from the consequences of my own poor choices difficult to understand, though it’s a lifetime of growing into the faith.
The tree of life may symbolise grace: the idea that, however I screw up, repeatedly, carelessly and deliberately, God forgives me because Jesus took the penalty for all of the stuff I do wrong. Certainly that’s the heart of the good news.
This is a game with rules that are set so that the discussion is already framed. 
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With that very premise billybutcher… this means that no one can or should improve their lives.
For example, say from starting a small business and making great profits in doing this to become reasonably wealthy. You would not be able to do this if folk followed your example of manufacturing widgets and getting fat on the profits.
So what choices do we have. I guess you could say - “I will start a business, but once I make a certain amount of money I will stop, due to giving employment to my fellow workers, but not wanting to exploit their good nature of being employed and making me rich in the process”
I mean where does it end…?
I believe there are folk who are equipments with all the natural emotional and mental talents of becoming business owner, etc and there are others who would much prefer to leave all the working out to others and just do their job, get paid at end of week and go home to the wife/hubby/kids
Although perhaps I’m looking at it, in more simple terms.
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Absolutely. I think you have to be unusual to want the responsibility of running a business.
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As far as I can recall from my 1950s infant schooling by the Sisters of Mercy (big misnomer!) after the Fall (nothing to do with later Mancunian post-punk) everyone was born with the taint of Original Sin that stained the soul and could only be removed by baptism into the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, after baptism your soul got more and more stained again through venial sin, but hopefully not mortal sin (which completely shafted your chance of getting into Heaven). It was only when one was old enough to make your first Confession that the soul got cleansed again.
At the time, I tended to visualise this complex theological doctrine that had evolved over many centuries, through the medium of early ITV ads for washing powder…
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I read all topics to a greater or lesser extent. Many are started for information and others to generate opinions.
This topic certainly takes the biscuit
for the latter.
Success in life is at the expense of the masses and is contrary to what God created us for.
God, the biggest con of all and no matter what religion or faith is the root of all evil.
Human nature is exactly that, a force of nature that always has and always will be out of control.
Do gooders and charitable people are to be applauded but rest assured that every such person makes sure that their lot is secure before helping others and will quicjly stop doing so if thier personal situation is threatened.
For what its worth I don’t believe in any god or religion which is nothing more than big business profiting from the masses.
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I appreciate someone who speaks openly about how they feel on any subject and must say this post from JohnBoy says it as it is.
I’m not sure if do gooders should be applauded, as such, but do feel strongly that everyone when they choose to do something kind or considerate towards others, it should always be done with an open heart and benefit the person on the receiving end of the good deed, etc.
As ~JohnBoy mentions, there are those folk who do things for their own benefit and tend to lose sight of any benefit/or not, that others might get.
I truly believe giving should be unconditional, other than the nice feeling it gives you - the giver.
Would like to mention I am an ‘Absolute Athiest’… !!!
You don’t have to have or find religion to be kind as a human being or for that matter, be a good business person that looks after their workers.
You can still make lots of money, doing whatever you do (legally, of course) and still treat everyone with kind, consideration and respect.
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I am suspicious of most charities. Many years ago I donated annually to a charity which provided solutions to people living in third world countries. Very laudable and practical as I discouvered during my travels in Asia. One day i read an aticle in the Guardian which advocated charities as a go to place fornew graduates seeking jobs. Had a look at the finances of this soi disant charity. The salaries of the guys who ran it were phenomenal. I wrote a letter of complaint and the reply was that they had all quit good jobs in industry and commerce and felt the need to be compensated for the benefits they had lost. The budget was around 25 million. Not exactly big. At the same time there were many people like me who had taken early retirement when they were barely fifty and more than qualified to run a small enterprise on a voluntary basis. Over the years I have come across several more similar cases where charities are run as much for the benefit of the management as for those they are claiming to help. I’ve also met charity workers sick and tired at the abuse of the system at the sharp end;
Enough said.
Gus