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5 episodes with Protestant work ethic
4 episodes with Protestant work ethic
2 episodes with Protestant work ethic
2 episodes with Protestant work ethic
2 episodes with Protestant work ethic
2 episodes with Protestant work ethic
2 episodes with Protestant work ethic
2 episodes with Protestant work ethic
2 episodes with Protestant work ethic
Are work and Sabbath polar opposites? The Rev. Dr. Joel Biermann, Waldemar A. and June Schuette Professor of Systematic Theology and author of Day 7: For Work, Rest, or Play from Concordia Publishing House joins Andy and Sarah for a series on what Sabbath means for us. In this episode on chapter 3, they discuss how the “Protestant Work Ethic” affects how we consider work, our culture's “therapeutic” mindset, how the concept of being “made to work” is affected by the fall, the ways in which work and Sabbath are related, how we define and categorize work, whether work is part of what it means to be human, and what we learn about vocation from Luther's teaching. Find Day 7: For Work, Rest, or Play at cph.org/day-7-for-work-rest-or-play. As you grab your morning coffee (and pastry, let's be honest), join hosts Andy Bates and Sarah Gulseth as they bring you stories of the intersection of Lutheran life and a secular world. Catch real-life stories of mercy work of the LCMS and partners, updates from missionaries across the ocean, and practical talk about how to live boldly Lutheran. Have a topic you'd like to hear about on The Coffee Hour? Contact us at: listener@kfuo.org.
In this episode of 'Play Saves the World', Daniel Hilty interviews Julian Davis Reed, an artist theologian who explores the intersection of black music and spirituality through his project 'Notes of Rest'. Julian discusses the importance of rest in the context of faith, the role of black music in understanding scripture, and the challenges of integrating his artistic and theological pursuits. The conversation delves into the cultural significance of rest, the pushback against the Protestant work ethic, and the transformative power of music in spiritual formation. In this conversation, Julian Davis and Daniel explore the complexities of being a musician, particularly the exhausting lifestyle that comes with touring and performing. They discuss the importance of rest, the tension between work and play, and how silence and stillness play a crucial role in music and spirituality. Julian shares personal practices that help him maintain balance and creativity, while also reflecting on the nature of labor in the music industry and the need to preserve the joy of making music. The conversation culminates in a discussion about art, faith, and the gratuity of God, emphasizing the importance of recognizing the gift of creativity beyond commercial value. Takeaways Julian Davis Reed emphasizes the importance of rest in spiritual practice. Black music serves as a lens to understand scripture and faith. The concept of 'two-ness' in black identity influences musical expression. Music emerges from both pain and hope, reflecting the black experience. The integration of music, theology, and community is essential for spiritual growth. Rest is a form of resistance against societal pressures to be productive. Julian's project 'Notes of Rest' invites people to explore biblical practices of rest. The pandemic highlighted the need for rest and reflection in our lives. Sound and silence coexist in the experience of faith and spirituality. The conversation challenges the Protestant work ethic and promotes a holistic view of rest. The life of a touring musician is often exhausting. Rest is essential for musicians, yet often overlooked. There is a tension between the demands of work and the need for rest. Silence and stillness are integral to the experience of music. Musicians often feel pressured to take every gig due to financial constraints. The concept of labor in music is complex and often undervalued. Preserving the joy of music is crucial for artists. Art serves as a reminder of the gratuity of God's gifts. The commercialization of music can overshadow its spiritual significance. Consciousness and grace are vital in navigating the music industry. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Julian Davis Reed and His Ministry 03:00 The Intersection of Black Music and Spirituality 06:00 Understanding Rest Through Music and Scripture 09:59 The Genesis of Notes of Rest 16:56 Confronting the Protestant Work Ethic and Embracing Rest 22:39 The Exhausting Life of a Musician 24:10 The Importance of Rest in Music 26:09 The Tension Between Work and Rest 28:01 The Role of Silence and Stillness 30:23 The Nature of Labor in Music 32:36 Preserving the Playfulness of Music 34:15 Art, Faith, and the Gratuity of God 36:05 Consciousness and Grace in Music
To define what play is, we have to define what work is. (This isn't all that unusual – scholars do it with secular vs. religious, or prose vs. poetry.) Work or labor is intentional human activity to support our needs and wants, or those of others or our larger group. Work is something we do for another purpose – it is 2-eyed, 1 eye to the activity itself and 1 to its outside result (payment, food, etc.). It is a means to an end. Work isn't inherently bad. In the Bible it is implied that humans would work the earth before the Fall. Work is not a result of original sin, but original sin corrupts work, so that the ground is cursed, and there are thorns and thistles in our gardening. We will now sweat to make the bread we must eat. In fact, work can be marvelous - a sense of purpose and contribution and accomplishment - The pleasure of your earned paycheck for your labor - The ability to form and improve our world - The freedom to engage in different kinds of work to support us - The notion of vocation, that our work might be something God calls us to do with our time and energy Work and play are not necessarily opposed to each other Sometimes the distinction is said to be productivity, but this isn't true (e.g., work day with nothing getting done versus Minecraft) Jane McGonagal says that play is just work we enjoy Brian Sutton-Smith: the opposite of work is depression One person's work can be another person's play (e.g., computer programming, professional athletes, spreadsheets) Work being play would be awesome!!! But clearly work can be oppressive Some forms of work are oppressive or dangerous – factories, or gig economy with no benefits and vulnerable employment Being underpaid because your labor is set by supply and demand You might hate your job but are stuck with it because you need the money If you cannot work you will have no way to support yourself You are vulnerable to work changing, being fired, AI The instrumentalization of all things, including our time (Oliver Burkeman) When we are only a cog in the machine, when we spend our days only in service to some other goal, then everything become a means to an end, and we never get to the end itself. Such instrumentalization also generates a disturbing lack of presence. We are always lost in the future (or sometimes the past), which spiritual traditions (and psychology) tell us are often the causes of restlessness and fear: “do not worry about tomorrow” (Luke 12), Buddhism's grounding the present Protestant work ethic A rather strange valuing of work due to Protestant ideas about grace, salvation, and human effort (since you are saved by grace alone but cannot know if you are truly among the elect who are saved, your best hope is to be a good worker in the vague hope that this indicates your salvation, but it cannot actually impact it) As a result, we come to tie our sense of self worth and value to our work, to our productivity through work – so if you fail at work you fail at life. We value others based on their wealth and work habits Martin Luther King Jr. tied the Protestant Work Ethic to racism and the exploitation of the poor (“We have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifice. The fact is that capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor—both black and white, here and abroad.”) This impacts many Western Protestant cultures where one should stay extremely busy and complain about work a lot – don't take vacation, let work consume you because it's inherently good to work. As a result, we can feel a profound lack of freedom, value, and agency. The truth is: work is often overwhelming. It can be good. But it cannot save us. It is not our true purpose.
Summary This message discusses the Protestant work ethic and its impact on the Western world, emphasizing the importance of hard work, productivity, and frugality. It also highlights the need to revive this work ethic within the Christian community. The conversation delves into the importance of work ethic, the value of hard work, and the impact of dedicated workers in the church. It emphasizes the need for workers who are committed, dedicated, and willing to go the extra mile to spread the gospel and support the mission of the church. Support this Conference: https://www.thedoortempe.com/give Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the Protestant Work Ethic10:09 Historical Impact of the Protestant Work Ethic30:00 Diligence and Servanthood in the Church36:11 The Protestant Work Ethic: A Call to Dedicated Service39:46 Fellowship and World Evangelism: The Power of Collaboration01:00:13 Financial Support for International Outreach and Church PlantingTakeaways The Protestant work ethic emphasizes the importance of hard work, productivity, and frugality and has significantly impacted the Western world. There is a need to revive the Protestant work ethic within the Christian community, emphasizing the values of diligence and servanthood. The speaker shares historical examples, personal anecdotes, and observations to illustrate the significance of the Protestant work ethic in the context of the church and society. The importance of a strong work ethic in the church and the impact of dedicated workers. There is a need for workers who are committed, dedicated, and willing to go the extra mile to spread the gospel and support the church's mission. The significance of fellowship and collaboration in achieving the mission of world evangelism and church planting. The financial and logistical support required for international outreach and the planting of churches in various locations. Sound Bites "The Protestant work ethic has had a significant impact on the Western world, and it is rooted in the values of diligence and servanthood." "If something is worth doing, it's worth doing well. If it's not worth doing, don't do it at all." "Do it with all of your might. There is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going." "We are literally a fellowship of hard workers. Realize that it is in the DNA of our fellowship." "The true riches are the precious souls. We're talking Asia, Africa, South America, different states and nations." Find a CFM Church near you: https://cfmmap.org SUBSCRIBE TO PREMIUM: Subscribe for only $2.99/month on Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/taking-the-land/subscribe Subscribe for only $3/month on Supercast: https://taking-the-land.supercast.com/ Subscribe for only $4.99/month on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3vy1s5b Visit our sponsors: ***FEATURED*** Global Passport Express: Mention this ad to get a 10% discount on all services: https://bit.ly/TTL-GPE Pastor Mike Ashcraft's Financial Services: (310) 403-6471 $100 Credit for Text In Church: https://bit.ly/TTL-TIC 10% Discount Off First Order from Advanced Creative Design: advancedcreativedesign23@gmail.com
Send us a Text Message.Episode #37 of The Happiest Sad Person Podcast. Join me, Alessandra, as I discuss designing my own hodgepodge syllabus for my life-long education plan (or at least for the foreseeable future). I also muse on the sadness that is adulthood, how we "childify" America, and how to find the simple joys as a grown-up -- for me it naturally involves dry erase markers.It's a perfect combo of social commentary and self-betterment, what's better than that? :)Things mentioned:75 HardImpressionist Paintings of LeisureHistory of LeisureCan't Hurt Me by David GogginsGoggins on LeadershipRogan and Goggins the First Time AroundBUD/S & Seal TrainingThe Compound effectKeats' "When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be"Masterpieces of World Literature ClassGoethe book I BoughtHarvard Classics and Their Lore (including both the good and the bad)Goggins' Cookie JarDavid and Goliath by Malcolm GladwellAcromegaly and GoliathDiseases in the BibleThe American Child ConundrumThe Over-parenting Crisis You Probably Haven't Realized is a ProblemThe History of the Protestant Work Ethic and Puritanical AmericaThe Origins of Pull Yourself up by Your BootstrapsExistential America Returning Perhaps?Links: Podcast InstagramPersonal InstagramHow I host my podcast (affiliate link)Support the Show.
Most of us are defined by our jobs: "and what do you do?" And it seems employers have always had the upper hand. Philosopher and economist Elizabeth Anderson says workers deserve better.
More on fatigue. The Protestant Work Ethic meats Yoga. Are we there yet?
This Episode we are joined by Matt Ballentine, an Engagement Manager at Equal Experts. We do a deep dive into workplace culture and user-needs-centric cybersecurity.Matt believes that the essence of modern leadership isn't just about supervision, but about becoming a nexus between people and ideas.From the transformative shift of T-shaped managers to the pivotal role of psychological safety, we'll journey through the strategies leaders need to adopt to thrive in today's interconnected age.Get ready to challenge your understanding of work, play, and the art of connection in this two-part episode.Links to everything Matt discussed in this episode can be found in the show notes and if you liked the show, please do leave us a review and share on LinkedIin or in your teams, it really helps us spread the word and get high-quality guests, like Matt, on future episodes. We hope you enjoyed this episode - See you next time, keep secure, and don't forget to ask yourself, ‘Am I a compromising position here?' Show NotesCollaboration by Morten Hanson Praise for Cyber Saint, Ben Aung @ Sage!Did Using Militaristic Language Make the Pandemic Feel Even Worse? The Protestant Work Ethic 100 Coffees ProjectTalk: The Science of Conversation by Elizabeth StokoeCampbell's LawAbout Matt BallantineMatt is a sociologist who has accidently found himself working in the world of technology for thirty years. Today he's an engagement manager for software development business Equal Experts, and previously he's held leadership roles at the BBC, Microsoft, Reuters, global marketing agency Imagination and London housing provider RHP.In a parallel work universe he produces and presents a long-running technology management podcast WB-40, he's created a playing card deck to help inspire better innovation called PlayCards and most recently run a project to build a relationships through the medium of coffee (or tea). Matt lives in South West London with his partner, two children and a small family of saxophones.Links related to Matt BallantineHis PlayCards: https://stamplondon.co.uk/His Website: https://mmitii.mattballantine.com/His Podcast: https://wb40podcast.com/His PlayCards: https://stamplondon.co.uk/His Website: https://mmitii.mattballantine.com/
For this episode, I am delighted to welcome the distinguished philosopher Michael Sandel, whose Harvard course on moral philosophy has been followed by millions of people online. Michael's book The Tyranny of Merit trenchantly analyses the perversion of meritocracy and what the rule of the credentialed and of technocrats is doing to our democracies. While the social and political elite claims for itself to rule through merit alone, the idea of merit itself has not only been corrupted by mechanisms of exclusion, it is also a fraught concept in itself. In our conversation, we explore the politics of humiliation, the theological dimension of thinking that we get what we deserve, the populist backlash against a sense of entitlement, and how to address these fault lines which threaten to split our societies in two.Michael Sandel will appear at the Vienna Humanities Festival 2023: https://www.humanitiesfestival.at/sandel
Ever considered a day filled with play before work? Curious how that could help in recharging your batteries and accomplishing all that must be done? Well, this is the episode you don't want to miss. Millions of people are trudging through life getting all the “essentials” done, and burning out by Friday at noon, with nothing left in the tank for playing on the weekends. Have you ever considered what would happen if you flip the Protestant Work Ethic upside down? Well, I'm doing it! It's important to be able to recognize your own low battery, your need for self-care, and identify what your unique recharging process looks like. I hope you'll find the courage to challenge accepted work vs play ideas, figure out what refuels you, and give yourself the permission to do what it takes.It's time for YOU to shine - and it doesn't need to look like anyone else.Learn more here:Get involved! Core Values CoursePlease leave us a rating and review!Apple: just scroll to the bottom, choose a rating and write a review.Podchaser (Android): you can go to this link here and leave a rating and review! https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/intentional-optimists-unconven-1406762 Skillshare: Spark your creativity. Get 40% Off Annual MembershipDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show
Special 3 + hour Contain guide to the history of Leisure and Free Time...where did it go? when did it start? What can you do to Live Free...T*O*D*A*Y? Including:Benjamin Klein Hunnicutt's fantastic book Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream (2010), the Desert Island sound of Vini Reilly / Durutti Column, Democratic Vistas by Walt Whitman-a heavy examination of his promethean tendencies, Percy McKay's Community Theatre, "Communism is Free Time and Nothing Else" maxim of Damn Jehu, debunking the myth of the "Protestant Work Ethic", AFL-CIO psyop: how sectarian labor organizations ended up destroying the demand for shorter work hours, The Art and Craft of the Machine / Broadacre City that 'turns off by itself' by Frank Lloyd Wright, the db left's consent for degrowth/stagnation state control, The Arts and Crafts movement of 1901, the strange, suspicious anti-truster Herbert Hovenkamp's Science and Religion in America 1800-1860, Post-Marxist Volunteerist Jacques Ranciere's Saloonmaxxing, Goon Cave Reality, and how we can find ways to make the technology and productive forces work for us rather than against us. Part 2 is up now on Patreon
Protestant Work Ethic: the Protestant Work Ethic is a set of principles emphasizing the importance of hard work, thrift, and personal responsibility. https://links.artisanenglish.jp/ProtestantWorkEthic Thanks for visiting ArtisanEnglish.jp's The Posts – The Podcast today. These podcasts and posts are created to help our students and anyone who wants to access them to improve their English vocabulary. Take the first step to perfect your English ability take a FREE TRIAL LESSON with me, David, at https://www.artisanenglish.jp/contact/ https://links.artisanenglish.jp/TrialLesson I provide 100% error correction, fantastic discussion topics and detailed after-lesson written feedback. Website: https://www.artisanenglish.jp Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artisanenglish.jp Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/david.artisanenglish.jp/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ArtisanEnglish YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT_UtvyQI9nVO3oX-z9t2mg Spotify Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/artisanenglishjp --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/artisanenglishjp/message
In this episode, Lawrence Lerner shares his story about coming out as Pagan in a Protestant United States workplace culture. He also shares relevant practices to honor our bodies and nature as business leaders. Lawrence Lerner has 25 years of success as a C-level executive in digital transformation, is a pioneer in payment technology, has generated $100M in revenue, and is recognized for building outstanding team culture. He identifies as Pagan, a spiritual path he chose 40 years ago, when he was a young adult. Lawrence is President of Pagan Pride in Washington, promoting earth-first religions, equality, and economic empowerment. As a Pagan priest, he leads ceremonies and offers guidance to others who follow this path of honoring nature and beliefs predating major world religions.He was a speaker at the 2019 World Economic Forum on both the role of faith in business and blockchain. Lawrence will present at the 2023 Parliament of the World's Religions (PoWR).Topics covered during the episode include:-Lawrence's experience coming out as Pagan at work in 2017-The origins of Paganism and Wicca-The wisdom of Paganism for living a natural, holistic life-The importance of choosing a religious or spiritual path that feels authentic and leads to greater connection-The roots of religious conversion as a means to acquire power (see Professor Timothy Snyder's course The Making of Modern Ukraine)-The Protestant Work Ethic & The Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber (1930) and how Protestantism contributed to the creation of a version of capitalism that causes burnout and bodily oppression-The Ten Commandments & The 42 Principles of Maat-What nature teaches us about designing workplaces that care for and value ALL bodies for their unique contribution (see the nRhythm Regenerative Leadership program)-Tips to create workplaces inclusive of Pagan identities, including flex holidays and equitable dress code policies-An invitation to join the Interfaith Business Network at 2023 PoWR! Email i n t e r f a i t h b u s i n e s s n e t w o r k @gmail.com if you plan to attend so we can meet up (Lawrence and Angie will be attending for sure).Lawrence shares his website (tokeepsilent.me), podcast (To Keep Silent - Confessions of a Modern Male Witch), business blog (lawrenceilerner.com), YouTube, and LinkedIn for listeners to connect with him. You can also find him on Twitter and Instagram (@RevInnovator). Two books coming this year. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and let us know your thoughts on Twitter!
We are in the time of mid-winter. Imbolc and the time of the Snow Moon remind us to get ready for spring but spring is not yet here. The full moon on Feb. 5th is almost here. Let me illuminate something for you.Mid-Winter is time to rest.Even though the days are getting a little longer, it's not yet time to put your plants in the ground or start budding.This episode reminds you to rest. It consists of an introduction and then a fifteen-minute guided meditation with Michael Jamanis's rich evocative soundtrack to help you slow down your mind and body.So many of us think that we have to start the new year with a bang, but I don't agree.We are still in the deep of winter for many of us; it's still a time when yin energy dominates. That is, it's time to go slow, turn inward, sleep more and allow our energy to be restored. It's not the time to “jump” into goals or launch new initiatives. It's time to rest and clean or purify.Unfortunately, the Protestant Work Ethic, extraction thinking, fear and capitalism all work together to make us feel guilty about resting. We might feel self-indulgent or privileged if we decline invitations to work or serve and instead choose rest.Think about it.How do you feel when you rest?Do you hide that you are resting?What words do you use to describe rest?Lazy.Idle.Indulgent.But rest isn't something to save up for vacation; it's part of the natural rhythm of each day and of the winter season.If we ignore winter's slow energy and keep going, we might find ourselves emotionally tapped out and with lower immunity. We may not have that energy burst when spring comes on the equinox.We get depleted when we are out of sync with the seasons.So,I invite you to listen to your Wise Self and find out if she needs rest. Next month, I'll have a special episode about “springing forward” and going after what you want.March is a time to articulate your vision and manifest.Next month, I invite you to gestate your vision and give yourself permission to focus on that which pleases you. I'll be hosting a Micro-Retreat that includes creating a vision board and trusting your Wise Self. If you'd like to get the info, click on the link below to get on the waiting list for “The Gift of Presence Micro-Retreat.” https://www.dramandakemp.com/gift-of-presence-sign-upYou can subscribe to the Michael Jamanis youtube channel for more great music to relax, meditate or study with at the link below.https://www.youtube.com/user/michaeljamanisSupport the showMother tree Network Podcast--Where Spirituality and Earth Wisdom Meet Racial Justice and Women's Leadership. Want to become your unlimited self and evolve the planet?Go here to get the Mother Tree podcast + Show Notes sent to your inbox https://www.dramandakemp.com/podcast
Pastor Brian Sauvé preaches Nehemiah 3 in this expository series through Nehemiah.
Pastor Brian Sauvé preaches Nehemiah 3 in this expository series through Nehemiah.
This week we are analyzing what could be the start of grind culture. We are traveling back to Germany during the early 20th century to get to know Weber & the Protestant Work Ethic.
Join us as we explore the value of hard work, the distinction between idleness and rest, and how our faith can help us find the equilibrium we all so desperately need.
Pay pigs and prayer warriors, we come to you with tragic news. Unfortunately, Kenny has perished in a tragic dressage horse related incident. However, due to their connection to the Kennedys, they will be back and stronger than ever due to the same cybernetics that they gave to Robert Kennedy. And rejoice! for the All-Mother of Big Soy Naturals, the legendary Joan Summer of Eating for Free has arrived to replace Kendall. This week, Ceres and Joan tackle the Protestant sexual politic of the incoming generations. Where every other two bit verified Twitter user has gotten it wrong, your they and she-devils are here to get it right. The duo talk about the trend of sexual puritanism and how it all ties back to FOSTA-SESTA, hyper-individualism, a commodity-based culture, and a rise in the belief that sexual relations should be used only to produce new labor. Stay on that sigma grindset! And by grindset we mean grinding your genitals together in public. PatreonTwitterWebsiteCeres' TwitterKendall's TwitterJoan's TwitterListen to Eating for Free!Works Cited and Further Reading:Glamdemon2004 InterviewCasual Sex is Out, Companionship is InHow the Catholic World is ChangingCompton's Cafeteria RiotFOSTA SESTA Threatens the Internet As We Know ItTrends in Frequency of Sexual Activity 18-44 through 2000-2018Negotiations by Herbert MarcuseI saw Goody Proctor at the Devil's Sacrament!
Over 100 years ago sociologist Max Weber first wrote about the "Protestant Work Ethic." He made the case that much of the progress seen in society can be accredited back to a shift in thinking about God and the world during the Reformation era. Today as a society we can struggle with seeking after instant gratification, entitlement , laziness, and work without overarching purpose. This week Pastor Ryan digs into the book of Proverbs and we will discover that our "work matters to God and God matters to our work."
When we allowed secularists to rewrite history, they wrote our history books so that the American Founders were secularists too. We lost the nature of the founding of America to a narrative of a secular enlightenment. We left Europe for a New World to escape a monarchy that dictated your job and class, how much they could take from you, and what you would believe. What are we headed towards again? An America where you have to appeal for a license to be a plumber or lawyer, where your money is either taxed or devalued in your hands (inflation is hidden taxation), and where dissent from the secular humanist orthodoxy is a prison level offense (look to Australia's laws concerning prayer as conversion therapy and you'll see where America is headed.) If you don't believe me, just try to be legal counsel for someone else without having a license to practice. Ofcourse having a guarantee of education is important, but that's what a degree is for. Why do I have to apply for a license, permission to do something that isn't my right to do, so that I can pursue a career in law? My clients should be able to ask, “Did you go to law school? What are your recommendations?” They ask these things anyway, they usually assume the license. This means that the government, and not God, has decreed what occupation you may consider. This is why we left Europe 400 years ago. And what about taxes? If you can tax a right, is it a right? Your income is yours, why should the government have it? If you paid for it, you have a right to your homestead. The government was never meant to garner money by taxing its citizens, but by trade and tariffs (yes these are a tax, but on foreign goods). Our government ran without income tax until 1913. This came with an enormous expansion of the government and an increase in welfare by the State, instead of the Church. This means that the government “allows” you a portion of your income, and they “allow” you to stay on what you think is your land, try not paying your property tax some time and you'll see whose land they think it is. This again, lends back to the Feudal System that the Founding Fathers were seeking to escape. Yet, we put ourselves back into bondage when we forget our history and our God. On the note of religion, many cultures have allowed “Christianity” to exist, as long as the Christians didn't hold Christ as the exclusive Truth. If you bowed to the State and/or local religions, many cultures never cared if you also believed in Christ. But if you refused to bow to the government or false gods, it was a different story. The Church of Smyrna mentioned in Revelation endured this. Biblical Scholar William Barclay on Smyrna: “Emperor worship had begin as spontaneous demonstration of gratitude to Rome; but toward the end of the first century, in the days of Domitian, the final step was taken and Caesar worship became compulsory. Once a year the Roman citizen must burn a pinch of incense on the altar to the godhead of Caesar; and having done so, he was given a certificate to guarantee that he had performed his religious duty...All that the Christians had to do was to burn that pinch of incense, say, ‘Caesar is Lord,' receive their certificate, and go away and worship as they pleased. But that is precisely what the Christians would not do. They would give no man the name of Lord; that name they would keep for Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. They would not conform.” If you do not believe that we are or will be shortly facing this sort of treatment, know that Australia is legalizing imprisonment for people who pray for LGBT individuals. The same movement wants to duplicate this in the United States. Parents are having their children removed for not chemically castrating teenagers and preteens with so-called “gender affirmation treatment.” That is a long winded way of saying that we are seeing the regression back to a centralized government built on man's law and not God's Natural Law. But how did we get a free and prosperous United States of America? What made her exceptional? When the Pilgrims came from the Old World to Plymouth Rock on November 11, 1620, they were coming from a feudal system. They weren't familiar with individualism, they were used to quotas and hard labor. They had lived all of their lives under tyranny. This led to some unfortunate circumstances which included a “Common Storehouse System” where the fruits of the community's labor were stored. Some worked hard and others didn't. This led to a famine and eventually a new reading of 2 Thessalonians 3:10: “For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.” This was the basis for the “Protestant Work Ethic”. This is where we understood that your food is your own. Your income is your own, not someone else's. Charity is commanded by the Bible, entitlements by definition are antithetical to the Scriptures. Now that we've covered the basis of the individual work ethic, formed out of the Bible and Human experience, the next question is where did we get our government structure? Well, our legal system is founded on “Common Law” or God's Natural Law. A University of Houston study found that of 15,000 documents from America's Founding Fathers, 34% of the quotations used were directly out of Scripture. No other source was so widely quoted. For a group of atheists and deists, this is an interesting pattern. In fact, these men founded a nation on the concept that the majority of the individuals in the nation had the Spirit of God in their hearts, or at least understood the same moral code. This led to the Federalist ideal that limited government at the Federal level so that the states, counties, and individuals would have more freedom. This system relied on citizens to be Spirit Filled or at least Biblically virtuous. Just to give you some quotes back up that claim: John Adams to the Massachusetts Militia in 10-11-1798: “Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge, or Gallantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other” "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim tribute to patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness -- these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. . . . reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles." George Washington "Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles." Patrick Henry We have always been framed as a soft theocracy. Just remember that when pseudo-intellectuals attempt to inform you about the secularist nature of our America's founding. Notes on Smyrna: https://www.bible.com/events/43944 John Adams' Letter to the Massachusetts Militia: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-3102 Bible Most Quoted Document by Founders: https://www.faithfacts.org/christ-and-the-culture/the-bible-and-government https://www.loc.gov/resource/mtj1.046_0212_0213/?st=gallery
Episode 98 of our book read/podcast covering major topics in various fields of psychology moves us into PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION! This summer we are going to discuss religion from a psychological and historical perspective as we investigate the evolutionary origins and modern social systems of religion. In this episode we discuss THE PROTESTANT WORK ETHIC. So yeah, I guess its religion in that Protestant is in the name, but it's more a discussion on how those early views have been shaped and warped into a worldview of hard work and no joy today. Is it a belief system, a modern religion, or something else. Join us as we discuss why we cant stop working and feel bad for having fun. PSD Website: https://psychosocialdistancingpodcast.com/ Thomas' Webpage: https://sexography.org/ Thomas' Twitter: https://twitter.com/TBrooks_SexPsy Daniel's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ScienceInChaos Theological Perspective of the Week: Hellenism
So, let's start out with the elephant in the room, no matter how we look at the plight of the African Americans in our society, there IS a problem. There may be more to it, however than simply discrimination, although that DOES happen, albeit not as it did in Jim Crow and Slavery days. Statistically there is an issue with wealth distribution between Whites, Hispanics, Blacks, and Asian, but is this really an issue of systemic racism? How can the Naturalized Nigerian-American make more than 10% the average American, as seen in the below Yahoo Finance data? Is this a sign of discriminatory practices in a country that an immigrant can make more than the average income of its natural born citizens? Before you read this next paragraph, I need you to consider that these are the statistics and data. They have little to do with race, as we will attempt to show in a moment, but the truth is what will help us aid those communities who have remained wounded and poor for centuries. When discussing police policy, many will point to the disproportionate incarceration of the African American, this is a reality. However, according to the below study on homicides and crime in 2019 America, over 50% of the homicides in this nation are committed by those of African descent. It is important to note that in 2019 America, 14% of the population fit this description. One critical piece to this puzzle lies in the next bit of information from the FBI Stats from 2019: 48.7% of the homicides in the United States occurred in the South. As Christians, we are supposed to look to our Master and King for His solutions to oppression as well as matters of society. However, the Enemy of Our Souls, is in the business of offering counter solutions, like Legal or Critical Theory. The idea that the only dynamics in life are that of oppressors and oppressed is at the root of this theory and Critical Race Theory strives to critique the Western Culture (built on Judeo-Christian Principles) as a power structure of oppressors and oppressed that must be reorganized. (As we have discussed before, this is all derivative of failed Marxist Theory. It has simply been repackaged as a different set of oppressors and oppressed.) So, what would the tenets of CRT be? Well, here are the 5 tenets of Critical Race Theory from Nicholas Daniel Harlep of University of Wisconsin Milwaukee in 2009: “There are five major components or tenets of CRT: (1) the notion that racism is ordinary and not aberrational; “Firstly, racism is ordinary : the overall ethos of majority culture promotes and promulgates a notion of “color-blindness” and “meritocracy.” These two notions are mutually intertwined and serve to marginalize certain enclaves of people—predominantly people of color. Color-blindness and meritocratic rhetoric serve two primary functions: Critical Race Theory first, they allow whites to feel consciously irresponsible for the hardships people of color face and encounter daily and, secondly, they also maintain whites' power and strongholds within society.First, color-blindness legitimizes racism's need for an “other” in order to flourish and maintain its influence within the fabric of society. Racism and white supremacy are not aberrant, insofar as the oppressors—the status quo—exploit the “others” (the oppressed) in order to maintain their elitist control, as well as to claim that they are neutral. Close examination repudiates this false sense of neutrality. Second, meritocracy allows the empowered—the status quo—to feel “good” and have a clear conscience: many would ask why the powerful would not have a clear conscience since they maintain a majority of the wealth and power in society. The powerful maintain power and only relinquish portions of it when they have nothing to lose; furthermore, they receive platitudes and compliments when they do choose to dole out portions of their power” (2) the idea of an interest convergence; “Secondly, Bell's (1980) theory of interest convergence is a critical component within the cogs of CRT. Common sense belief s are formulated by the majority “status quo.” The beliefs created by the majority—the haves—oppress minority groups—the have-nots and have-too-littles. Stated more precisely, interest convergence is the notion that whites will allow and support racial justice/progress to the extent that there is something positive in it for them, or a “convergence” between the interests of whites and non-whites. CRT focuses on informing the public how certain stories act and serve to silence and distort certain enclaves of people and cultures (typically people of color), while simultaneously building-up and legitimizing others', typically the majority—status quo (which retains or gains even more power through these transactions).” This author then continues with a parable about aliens and white people making a deal where white people get a perfect world after sacrificing the blacks to the aliens. This is to prove the point that whites only reverse racist behavior if it benefits whites. (Charming, right?) (3) the social construction of race; I totally agree with this one…. (4) the idea of storytelling and counter-storytelling; “Fourthly, the idea of storytelling comes from its powerful, persuasive, and explanatory ability to unlearn beliefs that are commonly believed to be true. CRT calls this concept “storytelling” and “counter-storytelling.” This dichotomy—storytelling and counter-storytelling—is predicated upon the belief that schools are neutral spaces that treat everyone justly; however, close examination refutes this: simply evaluating graduation rates accomplishes this. School curricula continue to be structured around mainstream white, middle-class values. There continues to be a widening of the racial achievement gap (the separation of students of color's achievement and the achievement of Anglo-Americans). Whose needs do these values and curricula serve? It is not students of color? Hackman and Rauscher (2004) draw attention to the fact that under the guise of mainstream curriculum certain enclaves of students become marginalized through curriculum and praxis that are insensitive and inequitable. Hackman and Rauscher (2004) state the following:[...] often under-funded [...] mandates across the nation leave many educators wondering how best to serve their students, particularly those students who do not fit into the mainstream [author's emphasis] profile or curriculum. In today's schools, the needs of students with disabilities and members of other marginalized groups often go unmet, and as such, more inclusive educational approaches need to be adopted to ensure that all students have access to a solid education. (p. 114) CRT's counter-storytelling is a necessary tool given the curricula in equity in the U.S. educational system. Without CRT's counter-sto rytelling, the true stories would never be publicly proclaimed, and perhaps the world would come to believe and perceive that all was fine.” This translates to a disdain of the Scientific Method, Mathematics, Logic and Rhetoric, for less logical and more empathetic “story based learning”. (Because melanin, prevents people from thinking logically… oh yes, this ultimately came out of 1930s Germany. This makes more sense now.) (5) the notion that whites have actually been recipients of civil rights legislation. Fifthly, whites have actually been recipients of civil rights legislation. It is worth citing Taylor (2009) at length: Fifty years post Brown, de jure separation has been replaced by de facto segregation, as White flight from public schools has created a two-tiered system in many cities and student assignments have shifted from mandatory busing to neighborhood preferences. Most children of color currently attend schools with relatively few Whites; very few White children attend schools where they are the minority. Clarenton, South Carolina, one of the case schools used by civil rights lawyers Thurgood Marshall and Charles H ouston, remains as segregated as it was before 1954. The educational progress of African Americans that has occurred has thus been allowed only if it is perceived by the majority as cost-free, or nearly so. Preferably, these changes have come incrementally, and without social disruptions such as marches, boycotts, and riots. Importantly, for most Whites, advances must come without affirmative action. (p. 6-7) The irony is that, although whites have undeniably been the recipients of civil rights legislation, it has also been verified that affirmative action, too, best serves whites (e.g., Delgado & Stefancic, 2001; Delgado, 2009). Delgado (2009) exhorts and explicitly requests that “[...] we should demystify, interrogate, and destabilize affirmative action. The program was designed by others to promote their purposes, not ours” (p. 111). Lawrence (2002) states this similarly: “The dismantling of affirmative action is segregation. Its purpose and meaning are the same as the Jim Crow laws'' (p. xv).” I actually agree here to the point that the majority of well intentioned laws, and some of them ill-intentioned, leveled at fixing racism do not fix the problem. These laws only create more problems more egregious than the original issue. So, instead of simply smelling a rotten egg, let's attempt to figure out how we are to fix the issue. But before we do, it is important to note how we got to where we are. Let's look to Thomas Sowell for some history. In a great commentary on the issue “The Origin of Black American Culture and Ebonics, Sowell deconstructs the origins of certain behaviors and characteristics of different cultures. He starts out reading a historical excerpt describing a terror of a people decending on 1950s Indianapolis, people who did not regard work, the law, their children, and who's moral standards were so low that they would shame an alley cat. The folks of Indianapolis were not making a racist cry for relief from African-Americans settling in their towns, but white rednecks. These Celtic rough and rowdy characters would sooner kill their brother or best friend than take an insult. This subculture is one that Sowell, and other historians, trace to modern day hood culture. With a link below, it is an interesting listen, but Sowell makes several very good points. The most salient, I think, is the fact that these white southerners were in a cycle of intergenerational poverty that even freshly arrived Germans, Danes, and even freed African slaves would out perform in every way from education to commercial success. This intergenerational poverty had been present in these families before they even came to the New World from the British Isles. Not only did these lack the Protestant Work Ethic, but promiscuity was rampant. One clergy member noted that 9/10 of those brides he officiated for were pregnant at the ceremony. This was in stark contrast to those in the North where such things were far from normal. Rape was also often punished less severely than petty theft, whereas in the North, rape was a hanging offense. This culture of Godlessness was the culture that many poor and enslaved African Americans lived within, even after emancipation. They had picked up the most destructive tendencies of Anglo Culture. After gaining their freedom, Sowell notes, those who escaped the RedNeck Culture often ultimately made it to the middle class, some even before the 1960s. Now, this does not mean that things were at all easy, but this is not simply an issue of oppressed and oppressors. The presence of successful members of society with high melanin content in their skin suggests cultural issues. This is where the Church needs to step in. What does our Father in Heaven say about the philosophies of this World? Colossians 2:8 “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.” If it does not comport with scripture, it should be out. This counter reality narrative is vain, deceitful, and destructive. Ibram Kendi once wrote in regards to antiracism, a component of CRT: “The only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” In A Rhythm of Prayer: A Collection of Meditations for Renewal Chanequa Walker-Barnes, a self-proclaimed theologian prayed: “Dear God, Please help me to hate White people. Or at least want to hate them. At least, I want to stop caring about them, individually and collectively. I want to stop caring about their misguided, racist souls, to stop believing that they can better, that they can stop being racist.” Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” James 2:9 “But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.” CRT is toxic and antithetical to the Biblical Worldview. It may sound nice, like every other trap the Enemy of Our Souls lays before us, but in the end, bitter sadness awaits. We as a Church need to not only be informed about what CRT is, and we also need to be a Holy people. We need to address racism in every form, whether it is racism or the new ant-racism of CRT, we need to unify as one diverse body under and in Christ. If the World sees that, perhaps some will realize how wrong this belief truly is. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-could-actually-more-nigerian-133011858.html https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/ucr.asp?table_in=2 https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/facts-about-the-us-black-population/ https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED506735.pdf
Part 1: Jggy wit itI personally do a lot of woodworking, making cabinets or entertainment centers, I'm currently trying to build a window. I have tools that help me, such as a table saw is great, but sometimes there is a finicky cut in a difficult spot and you need a handsaw. The hand saw has a downside to it: I'm not skillful enough or experienced enough to make sure it cuts it a perfect 90° angle while staying parallel to the edge and lined up on my marks. One trick is to clamp another board on the line you're cutting, and use that board as a guide, making sure that you stay 90° perpendicular and you're cutting straight back and forth. This is a very simple version of a "jig." Crawford talks about experts making things easier for themselves by "partially jigging" or "informational restructuring" the environment. So as you're working, you start setting things up around you interacting with your environment, this can be information in the digital space or production in a workshop. Perhaps consider the workflow of a chef in the kitchen. Not only does structuring your environment help you to be better at what you're doing, it reduces cognitive effort, so you're not having to re-solve your problems or waste steps... instead you jig up a workflow, keep your attention on point, and also restrict the freedom of your wandering mind. This is how you build an environment that allows you to get in the Flow State. The dark side is of course slewing into the opposite extreme: we now use "over determined jigs" which replace the skill... and the mind along with it. “Cheap men need expensive jigs; expensive men need only the tools in the toolbox” Matthew Crawford This is similar to Christopher Schwartz who wrote The Anarchist's Workbench and The Anarchist's Design Book : If it's a choice between buying a jig or learning a skill, learn the skill. The goal is to move between autonomy and the assembly line."Advanced cognition depends crucially on our ability to dissipate reasoning"Matthew Crawford To think complex thoughts we need to unburden our limited capacity brain from having to consider everything, allowing us to use more bandwidth to focus deeply on a specific task. The great achievements of knowledge that came before us and practical wisdom are now embodied in complex structures: the structures of linguistics, politics, society, and institutional constraints. These are huge, complex jigs that are often invisible to us. Yet, we can focus on our daily job or current task because we have outsourced some daily reasoning (mental bandwidth or cognitive load) for some structure and stability. Step 55: Cultural Jigs PART 2: Cultural Jigs Max Weber, the German sociologist who wrote The Protestant Work Ethic, pointed out that there was a change in the way the church perceived wealth. We went from the "camel through the eye of the needle" thing about the difficulty of rich people getting into heaven TO accumulating wealth is a sign of God's favor. The status of your soul was visible in your portfolio, conspicuous wealth was proof of election to God's elite. This ideology ran deep in America, conflating being a good Christian with thrift and freedom. "Be Frugal and be free."Benjamin Franklin Today we have reversed "Be Frugal and be free," not back to "blessed are the poor," but to "be free now, pay it off later." It is now moral, neigh virtuous, to carry debt. "Consumer credit" with a good FICO or "credit score" requires a credit card and a mortgage: proof of debt carried long term. We even have "good debt" now: home mortgages and student loans are encouraged. This is not a moral judgment, but a cultural change over time: we have dismantled the moral cultural norms held previously, and now the "non-thinking lazy individual" is looking for a jig to guide them. Today, they are "nudged" by administrative actions. There is a book called "Nudge" about how policy can be made to make up for lazy human bias. Crawford relates this to “choice architecture,” the policy that structures your available decisions. For instance, in "Nudge," if you start a new job with a retirement package they find that people are often so lazy or blase that they will not check the box to opt-in, even though it is in their best interest. So, the administration sets it up to auto-enroll you. Then people won't even check a box or make a phone call to opt-out. There is nothing but default behavior.The problem here, as Crawford describes, is one of "character." Character seems to come from habit, which we have discussed previously as a predictable or reliable pattern of responses developed over time to solve specific problems. habit seems to work from the outside in; from behavior to personality"Matthew Crawford Your behavior is shaped by your environment, through cultural norms, which then form your "character." The circumstances that shape us are often through administrative and cultural nudges. The ramifications are: if you were auto-enrolled in your 401k and you never unenroll, you have never really faced down anything, made a decision, or confronted temptation (should I save for the future or have more money now?) You have only allowed the virtues of the current system to be further stamped into your personality, and you have fallen deeper into the rut in which your stereotypical life is laid out for you. Without the friction of making decisions, we don't develop character, we are developed by external design. Our acquiescence, our inaction, allows our attention and priorities to be managed by others. This is the manipulation by attention pirates we mentioned in the last episode. Living by "default mode" means being adrift on the current, readily swayed and shaped, nudged, or herded into place. The administration says, “relax, we will take care of you” while the corporation, with no accountability to the common good, says “you have been softened up, now let us take advantage of you.” “Choice architecture will happen. We just need to be aware so we can choose our architect. “ Matthew Crawford Step 55: Cultural Jigs Part 3: How did we get here? In behavioral economics, they do studies in isolated environments to control variables. The tests show on average, we have little skill at practical reasoning. So we outsource it. Living in a "capitalist representative democracy technocracy" (a few of our cultural jigs) we have been habituated to hand over decision power to sciencey specialists, or really anyone. According to behavioral economics, we can't be bothered to think too much about it. Historically, after WWII "the left" started a project of liberation. They busily unmask and discredited “cultural Authority,” which means dismantling our inherited cultural jigs. These jigs, things like churches, family, and trust in government, provided coherence for individuals. This lack of coherence means that individuals are at a loss for how they fit into society. This is exactly the same problem Otto von Bismarck solved in 1871 by applying military bureaucracy to the German state: individuals were running around in packs, terrorizing each other, and upending stability for everyone. For a society to work you need stability, shared goals, and a sense of contribution to those goals. The project of Liberation led to a new unencumbered self. Into this void of meaning (dismantled cultural authority) steps "the right." They offer up the idea of the "rational actor" who is reasoning and maximized profit. A sciencey/economic solution to a cultural problem. Cultural authority's role is to regulate society, as much as to provide a framework for stability, so who regulates this ideal economic, reasoning man? Free markets.As we know from the 1980s free markets deregulate everything. Our increased liberation has de-regulated us. This means we now have to spend more time, energy, attention self-regulating. In this time of the individual as their own authority, you have to have self-discipline. But all solutions are increasingly economic. We can relieve the burden of self-regulation by payment for "cultural jigs." Consider paying an accountant so you can relieve the burden of taxes, which in turn can make you more irresponsible, less self-regulated. By paying them you can avoid going to jail, and if you have enough money they shelter your wealth from taxes, allowing you to get richer while being less responsible. Double this class luxury of outsourcing self-discipline to paying for tutors, chefs, and fitness trainers: we pay for others to nag us, feed us, and make us smarter. Earlier we talked about dismantling cultural authority for liberation. This was done by both "the left" (dissolving cultural, traditional, and parental authority) and the right (de-regulating state authority in favor of markets), yet it seems the "disciplinary functions of our culture" still exist. Crawford says there remains a cultural cost for not having discipline: If you can afford a therapist to help save your marriage, help you raise your kids, and get them into pedigreed schools it passes social capital forward (as well as the financial capital) which allows the next generation to pay for their offspring to regulate their discipline: this ensures a dynastic succession through affording better cultural jigs. In the 50s and 60s, you had Protestant thrift, parental authority, and cultural shaming around gluttony. These were not great models in all respects, but they were available to everyone. The need for discipline around finances, behavior, and consumption has now moved from readily accessible churches, parents, and friends to privately paid life coaches, therapists, and personal trainers. Discipline has been privatized in the space left vacant from the culture wars.Step 55: Cultural Jigs OUTRO: human flourishingCrawford brings up the example of a chef cooking in a kitchen, who gets into a flow state, just chopping and spinning, and handling five tasks at once with impeccable timing. He is savoring his own human excellence, he is a human flourishing within the carefully modeled constraints of the kitchen. He can improvise, he is wholly absorbed and connected to his environment. "Living skillfully requires that some things be settled." Crawford wants to remind us that "the ideal of freedom from external influence doesn't capture all the elements that contribute to an impressive human performance." On a larger level, this episode is questioning the ideal of the “free” individual, pursuing their internal desires, and over-indexing the world inside their head. Crawford is asking us to look at the external conditions that shape our character. So, our next episode will be looking more at the individual human - what exactly happens when we become skilled because there is a type of freedom in undertaking the discipline to hone your skills. How does our cognition shift when we are skilled? And what exactly is embodied perception or embodied knowledge?
#036 Is God Pro-Work? If so, from where does Anti-Work stem?Anti-Work Redditor has disastrous interview. But this brings attention to the issue of Marxists wanting to dismantle society for the promise of less “work”. In an astoundingly bizarre Reuters Foundation doc, you can find a number of people stumping for anti-work, who at least have a better spoken argument. They even go so far as to invoke the Protestant Work Ethic as the flaw in our World today! https://youtu.be/4Ht9zWy_xVQ Just because a specific spouse is abusive, a singular politician is corrupt, or a single bottle of milk in the fridge is spoiled, a reasonable person will not jump to the conclusion that marriage is bad, society must be torn down, and cows produce poisonous tainted milk. The institution of work is actually God ordained. We were made to work for God's Glory! This does not mean that corrupt or tyrannical bosses/working conditions don't exist. We will face that on this earth, and I would really prefer the government be in the position of investigating corruption than to be in a position with enough authority to become corrupt in this space (Case in point, it already has).
Can you attract money? I firmly believe that you can! And this belief doesn't stem from the "believe in it and it will come true" philosophy. This goes beyond wishful thinking and enters into one of my favorite topics: Mindset. We all know at least one person who seems to attract disasters...someone who always has some bad news to catch you up on. I don't think this is because they were "born under a bad sign", or other such nonsense - I think they attract disasters because they are looking for them. If you seek the negative in everything, that's likely what you'll find. Adjusting your mindset changes the way you view the world, and it changes the way the world views you. Your overall attitude about life will determine how people interact with you. This week, I want to talk about how you can change your mindset to attract wealth. [00:35] The law of wealth attraction [02:21] It's not about making money [03:19] Here's why...(The Protestant Work Ethic) [04:15] Who works a billion times harder than you? [04:47] The best economic system....ever [06:10] The Effort-Income Link [08:36] If you're new... [09:07] Attracting wealth and money [10:22] Impartation and Activation for 2022 [14:33] It is a new economy [17:23] The money magnet [24:00] Two quick stories to wrap up How You Can Help Subscribe to the show in iTunes and give us a rating and review. Make sure you put your real name and website in the text of the review itself. We will definitely mention you on this show. We are also on Stitcher.com, so if you prefer Stitcher, please subscribe there. Connect with Ray on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram Visit Ray's community on Facebook – This is a friendly group of writers, entrepreneurs, and coaches who share ideas and helpful advice.
Today we remember the life of Michael Novak - influential author of the Spirit of Democratic Capitalism. He tweaked Weber's famous Protestant Work Ethic and claimed that free capitalist economies owed more to a Catholic Work Ethic
VIDEO VERSION: https://youtu.be/oqRUliKFl60 Today I got to chat with Sam from the amazing YouTube channel 'We're In Hell'. We are both restaurant industry peeps turned youtubers so I figured it would be a fun conversation! Go watch his video 'Why Are Cooking Shows?': https://youtu.be/9i3zKU8Q6ZI And the Protestant Work Ethic video I mentioned: https://youtu.be/LhG1F0uCvVQ And on twitter: https://twitter.com/WereInHellYT?s=20 ______________________________________________ kelgore's patreon: https://www.patreon.com/kelgoretrout
Summary by Peyton Smith Hour 1: It's always a treat and honor to have Mr. Tom Quiggin join us on Americanuck Radio.Tom is a court expert on terrorism, intelligence analysts, and he served in Bosnia and Croatia.He is the author of the following books. 1. SUBMISSION: The Danger of Political Islam to Canada (With a Warning to America)2. The New Order of Fear (Book One of the Great Reset Trilogy)Today he came by to discuss the subject of his newest work, which is The Great Reset.Tom gets into all the aspects of this overtly totalitarian system run by elites. What is the Great Reset?It is a push towards a more totalitarian system based on reworked Marxian theories. It is a rebranding of the globalization we were talking about before the pandemic situation in the context of issues suh as the UN Agenda 2030 etc. It is more of a movement than an organization. The idea of the Great Reset are at work when you hear terms such as Build Back Better, the Green Revolution, Sustainable Development, Stakeholder Capitalism and Equity.It is not unreasonable to think of it as the former idea of the New World Order – but on steroids.This isn't nearly as binary to be consigned to either Conservative or Liberal. No matter what political stripe, this sickness infects both sides of the aisle.Is this a conspiracy theory?Journalists have attempted to deny the reality of the Great Reset – Rachel Gilmore of Canada, for instance describes the Great Reset as a “debunked conspiracy theory.” She seems to blame conservatives for advancing the conspiracy theory.Canadian Liberal Member of Parliament Mark Gerretsen says that the whole idea is a conspiracy theory and it took place in the form of suggesting that the intent behind the discussion regarding global economics was motivated by a desire for a supposed "new world order". https://twitter.com/MarkGerretsen/status/1354085397672976385BOOK BY KLAUS SCHWAB – COVID 19 and the Great Reset, Head of the World Economic ForumBANK OF CANADA – The Great Reset -In August of 2020 the deputy governor of the Bank of Canada put out a presentation called the Great Reset Supporting The Transition To A Greener Smarter Economy. The paper goes on to say “COVID-19 is a shock and an opportunity,” and “Pivot to a greener, smarter economy. PMO Website of TRUDEAU “Today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke with His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales and the Commonwealth group of Permanent Representatives to the United Nations regarding financing for development and the Great Reset initiative. The Prime Minister thanked His Royal Highness for initiating the discussion at such a critical time and for championing the Great Reset initiative to build a better and more sustainable future for allDoes this sound like a conspiracy theory?More like a conspiracy fact.How does one know they are in trouble?When any government let's it's people know that there is trouble, but to not fear. The government will be there to help.-------------------The conversation moves toward climate change, and how it is western nations who are being punished...but not China. Why are the green new deal nazi's giving China the pass?Mike and Tom gets into this with excellent depth.There is much that is known about China, but much that isn't. This part of the conversation gets into that which isn't commonly known about China.‐-------------------Should Christians be worried about the Great Reset? Yes. Christian theology and what you might call Judeo Christian thought are under attack for several reasons:a. Family as the basis of societal organization (needs to be crushed so state can become the basic building block). Children are the responsibility of the parents (indoctrination not education, pod schools and home schools). Consider that here in Ontario a 12 year old can I go into a vaccination site and get a coronavirus vaccine without the parents permission. The government is arguing that a 12 year old can understand the pros and cons of taking an experimental vaccine. Is the parents asked whether the child got the vaccine or not they are told that they will be given no information due to privacy concerns. In the state of Washington in the United states a 12 year old can begin the surgical hormonal and psychological transmission from boy to girl or girl to boy without the parents being told about it. This is about the state taking control of your children.b. Hierarchy and Equality – but get different outcomes, must be responsible. (Not Equity)c. Protestant Work Ethic – the stress on personal responsibility, self reliance and self control is under attack. Directly targeted by the Smithsonian Institute in the USA. d. Separation of Church and State – unacceptable as the state itself must be the organization and determining factor. For the Great Reset folks, there is only one way of thinking and that is their way and the state will determine everything in your life, based on their ideology.Every attack and attempt to water down or perverse the Christian faith is a win for these monsters----------------------Why did Tom write his new book?Warning about the Great Reset and what could go wrong.Action/Thriller – educate about the Great Reset and its pitfalls, but in an entertaining wayFictional – but based on real world situations and charactersWarning about the alliances between Islamists/Globalists and those so-called elites who are aiming for a totalitarian system with central controlPrime Minister Trudeau killed off in first book – supporter of Great Reset but seen as a liability.Fictional – avoid lawsuits as freedom of speech in Canada is under attack (C10 and C36)We can all feel blessed that a man of Tom's caliber puts pen to paper like this, because it is for our benefit as a society.This is an absolutely splendid hour 1, which must be heard in full!----------------------Tom returns for hour 2, and explains how Justin Trudeau met a fictional demise in his book. Trudeau is strangled with a pair of halal socks from transport minister Omar Alghebra. Yes, really.He's really seen as a mascot for the Great Reset, rather than an actual ally.Why Kill Justin Trudeau? Justin Trudeau is killed off as sort of a moral lesson. Trudeau is of course completely pro globalist, pro great reset and pro-Islamists. He is of course openly an avowedly anti Christian. He mocks Christianity. He has thrown in his political and personal future with the globalists and the Islamists. He thinks it gives him credibility and profile. But in reality, the players on the international scene who have real weight and power regard Justin Trudeau as a lightweight. He is pro great reset, but they see him more as a mascot then a player.A deal can't be made with the devil without one meeting a certain demise.We must understand how fear is used to manipulate us, and perpetuate the Great Reset.Tom's book is a stark warning, which must be heeded!Those who ask for a Great Reset really have no idea what they are asking for. What took place in the Soviet Union, Cambodia, and China are examples of what happens when this madness completely unfolds.---------------------Mike and Tom get into the censorship bills in Canada, C-10, and C-36.Steven Guilbeault couldn't be further out of whack in thinking that those who rant on twitter are a threat to democracy.If one's feelings are hurt by a tweet, they can complain to the CRTC and the tweet is removed. The same could be done with a podcast or even a broadcast.These evil bills are really a couple of the greatest threats to personal freedom. Further elaboration on this and more fills out the first segment of hour 2----------------------All those who push the Great Reset are all very bizarre, and not likeable.With the exception of President Xi, all other progenitors of the Great Reset are only good at getting elected.Governing by virtue signaling isn't governing, as Tom so eloquently says. Whether it be Justin Trudeau or Kamala Harris, this is absolutely true.Making the most politically correct statement, followed by throwing a flood of dollars at every problem, is a shortcut to actually thinking.Governing and actually solving problems is very hard, difficult work. Those leaders that actually do that should be praised, especially in the sad climate of today.--------------------Degradation of information is also a horrible problem across today's media.Democracy is based on fundamental distrust of government. The moment the government is left to their own devices, without any credible media oversight, then madness ensues.Tom discusses his time in Yugoslavia, and how he used to brief journalists who believed in supporting a narrative rather than getting down to the truth and getting near the real action.Why don't people buy newspapers anymore?Because the product is mediocre.---------------------Mike and Tom discuss the United Church of Canada flying an LGBTQ flag. Would Muslims tolerate this?In the west, we really are being taught to be tolerant of intolerance.Within political Islam, if one chooses to leave the faith they can be killed. Should this be tolerated by westerners on our own soil?Mike and Tom elaborate on all of this, and much more.-----------------------Brilliant hour 2 with Tom!Find his book, The New Order Of Fear, here:https://www.amazon.com/New-Order-Fear-Great-Trilogy/dp/B097SPK3Z4Check out Tom's podcast, The Quiggin Report:https://m.soundcloud.com/quigginreport/ep-139-family-execution
PART IThe art world is a complicated place with diverse motivations, bizarre criteria and social norms, yet it also offers profound friendships and solidarity through community. Ryder speaks of the psychology that drove him to choose art as a form of self-help therapy versus a more stable career path, but also his ridiculous tendency to apply "salvation through works" to his art practice. PART IIA story about farting in church, followed by Ryder's current drawing of business people asleep, levitating through farting. With lots of dumb humor Ryder also brings up the psycho-pathologies of cognitive capitalism that capture, shape us, and determine our existential ennui. For long-time listeners you will see the references to Max Weber, Robert Jackall, Michael Sandel, and even Baudrillard, Gamsci, Mark Twain, and William James.
Wow, oh wow, did you know that working harder can get you closer to God? Neither did Katie! And Chris had never seen the cult classical musical "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," but now... he has! Shoutout to our amazing friend Alex Goldman for the wonderful theme song, "Love Theme from Anything But That." Check out Alex's other work on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/thealexgoldman Find us on Instagram at @anythingbutthatpod Email us any feedback and tell us things your spouse/partner/roommate loves that you hate at anythingbutthatpodcast@gmail.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/anything-but-that/support
Today I talk about the protestant work ethic. Do you enjoy our society's sole focus on productivity and working over everything else? If so, you can thank the myth of the protestant work ethic for making that possible!
Philosopher Elizabeth Anderson joins Andy on the show to discuss the relationship between so-called bullsh*t jobs and the Protestant work ethic. The post BS Jobs and the Protestant Work Ethic appeared first on Prindle Institute.
The Bangkok Podcast | Conversations on Life in Thailand's Buzzing Capital
This week Greg and Ed return to the Seven Deadly Sins series with a discussion of GREED in Thai culture. As an opening caveat, Greg makes clear that greed exists in all cultures, and the guys aren’t saying it’s worse in Thailand than anywhere else, but every country and culture deals with it in different ways, and the guys want to talk their way through its different facets to try and understand it better. Ed begins with the claim that there is something in Thai-Chinese culture about the pursuit of wealth that is more open and less modest than in the American Midwest where he grew up. He speculates that it might be the northern European influence on the area, built on the Protestant Work Ethic which values labor but tends to be low key and not ostentatious when it comes to money. The guys continue their discussion, touching on data about the high consumer debt in Thailand, how expensive things like cars and bags give you status (even if you can’t afford it), and some choice words from previously published studies on Thais and greed that ponder if the country’s endemic corruption is something that can ever be solved. It’s a big, deep, messy, and complicated topic, and Greg and Ed just scratch the surface. What are your thoughts on how greed presents itself in Thai culture? Don’t forget that Patrons get the ad-free version of the show as well as swag and other perks. And we’ll keep our Facebook, Twitter, and LINE accounts active so you can send us comments, questions, or whatever you want to share.
Gut Decisions“The core of the managerial mystique is decision-making prowess” Robert JackallSo, if decisions were easy, they would be made by someone else, so it is only the big money, big risk decisions that are looked at to determine your prowess. 1,000’s of jobs and the future of the division are on the line. How do you make the call? By your gut.The rules of a manager are :“(1) Avoid making any decisions if at all possible; and(2) if a decision has to be made, involve as many people as you can so that, if things go south, you’re able to point in as many directions as possible.”You have heard of that moral dilemma thought experiment developed by Utilitarians, such as Peter Singer: the trolley experiment?In the corporate version, no one takes action: 5 people are hit by the trolley and then everyone blames everyone else for not jumping. Another great day at the office dodging responsibility. So, your primary GUT DECISION for your survival in company: Who is going to get blamed? BLAME TIME For managers, to be BLAMED is to be injured verbally in public. And since we know that “image is crucial” this is a serious threat. The wise manager knows it has nothing to do with facts or the merits of a case, but is a socially construed manifestation born largely of being in the Wrong place, at the Wrong time.As Jackall says: “Bureaucracy expands the freedom of those on top by giving them the power to restrict the freedom of those beneath.” ON THE FAST TRACK The goal here is to outrun your mistakes! Jump up the ladder, then when the person who replaces you inherits your screw-ups, you blame it on them and fire them.A manager can defer costs for short-term profits or gains. This sets up what Jackal calls “probationary crucibles” in which managers are tested under extreme pressures, reshaping them to make decisions for short-term expediency, for their own survival. In the end, the games played for a manager to “look good” and “meet the numbers” actually cost the company: it is a parasitic relationship that drains the company rather than keeping it healthy.There is a natural selfishness… people want to make the system work for themselves. And when they get to the top, they can’t criticize the system that got them there.Manager in Moral MazesFlexibility, & Dexterity with Symbols As you climb, the rules of the game are, you never publicly criticize or disagree with one another or the company policy. You just wear an agreeable face and use ambiguous language. But when blame time shows up, everyone has already built defenses and set up scapegoats. Jackall says the higher you go in the corporate world, the better you need to be with manipulating symbols without becoming attached or identified with them. Thus “truth” takes a backseat for the imperative of appearances, which champions adroit talk requiring moral flexibility and dexterity with symbols.And what happens when there is definitive proof of your mistakes? You say you were in accordance with the rules at the time, claiming that risk is necessary to make money, while you personally avoid risk by hiding in a bureaucracy. As Jackalll saysYou socialize the risks and harms of the corporate industry, while privatizing the benefits.THE BUREAUCRATIC ETHICJackall shows the contrast from the original protestant ethic: an ideology of self-confident, frugality, and independence. It championed stewardship responsibilities, where your word was your bond. But it also signaled success as God’s favor, and that was used to explain away the misery of the poor and unlucky.What has happened is that bureaucracy“breaks apart substance from appearance, action from responsibility, and language from meaning.”Robert JackallWith survival tied to such a fickle, mercurial fate corporate bureaucracy erodes internal, and external, morality. It generates its own rules and moral standards, primarily through social context: what is fashionable becomes true, since everyone is looking at each other for moral cues, but to rise in the ranks the only virtue to be found is self-interest masked as company loyalty.2008 The Great RecessionJackal has a 2009 essay added to Moral Mazes. It proves his 1988 book prophetic. Corporate Culture and Bureaucratic ethics expanded into a societal consciousness of short-term profits with super shady logic, yet everyone was doing it so it became conscionable. And it broke our economy.This is an egregious example of “socializing risk and privatizing profit.” It proves the protective power of bureaucracy, and encourages future recklessness.
In this episode, we talk about something my father used to talk about called the "Protestant Work Ethic". We talk about the importance of working smarter, not just harder; as well as focusing on and declaring your goals to the masses. My dad would talk about work ethic in the context of sports and some accompanying stories. Let's go!
Part I: Protestant Work EthicMax Weber has a phrase: “secular ascetism” where you subjugate your impulses to God’s will, through “restless, continuous, systematic work in a worldly calling”. This entangles religious values (hard work, self-reliance, frugality) with work values and success, but over time the religious trappings slipped, opening up to conspicuous wealth and consumer culture. So, while frugality disappeared, self-reliance, gumption, and a foggy notion that morality is linked to success/wealth remained in the workplace. Yet, also the workplace was becoming industrialized through Taylorism, supercharging bureaucracy. This new bureaucratic structure took those once human/religious virtues and built them into the workplace through regularized time-schedules, work procedures, and administrative hierarchies.We don’t need to know your character, we have spreadsheets. This system of bureaucratic industry spread into government and private sector, needing clerks, technicians, and myriad levels of managers to maintain it. A new class emerged: the big salaried man completely dependent and devoted to the corporation. (So much for self-reliance or dedication to God or even family.) As Jackall points out, is not just being IN the organization, but OF the organization. PART I: Pyramid PoliticsCorporations centralize authority in the CEO (the King) while decentralizing it through Presidents, VP’s, District and Regional Managers. Reporting becomes a “web of commitments'' tying people to goals and reinforcing fealty relationships.To issue a command from the top triggers a cascade of downward pressure to achieve an improbable task, especially when bound by a bureaucratic system. Hence a willingness to sacrifice or bend rules to achieve the King’s whims is championed as “loyalty,” and CEO’s tend to promote those who have the “capacity for creative problem solving” … which is usually shady.But you must be loyal in the right order: The rule is, you should be loyal to your boss directly above you. Equally, part of your job is to protect your boss from embarrassing themselves or the company. “symbolically reinforce at every turn his own subordination and his willing acceptance of the obligations of his fealty.”Robert Jackall Credit and the Kingdetails are pushed down and credit is pulled upBosses give vague instructions, purportedly to encourage subordinates autonomy. But really it is a cover your ass method, 1) because they don’t understand the details, or 2) they need a fall guy and deniability.Credit or praise is a currency, not to be casually bestowed, it is to be used at the boss’s prudence.This type of sagacity is especially egregious around the CEO where managers engage in irrational budget expenditures to appease a perceived preference, a wish, a whim. Jackall talks of repainting a whole building to impress a CEO, or dropping $10k on a custom made book… and the justification is, if you don’t appease the capricious king or queen today, your head could be on a pike tomorrow. One tool in a CEO’s chest is the “shake up” where they reorganize the whole company. This does a number of things: it reorganizes existing fealty or alliances, breaking up plots or troublesome dissenters. It also hides mistakes, as now no one is sure where the blame should land when things go badly. And it makes the Board and Wall street think you are aggressive. Meanwhile, it promotes anxiousness and stress throughout your company, often reinforcing the perception of needing to cater to the CEO's capricious moods, lest you be fired.PART II: Success and FailureStriving for success is a moral imperative in America. Once you become a manager, you have proven competency, and beyond and it becomes much more about social factors, where you must align yourself with the “style and ethos of the corporation.” So… if you want to rise, you have to re-make yourself into what they company desires by staying attuned to social cues. This is known as Self-rationalization or self-streamlining, and it sounds a bit sociopathic, but we probably all do it to a certain extent: Such a manager “dispassionately takes stock of himself, treating himself as an object, as a commodity. He analyses his strengths and weaknesses and decides what he needs to change in order to survive and flourish in his organization. And then he systematically undertakes a program to reconstruct his image ...” (p.59) Appearance: indeed, the clothes do make the man. Self-Control: Control all emotion behind a mask of amiable blandness, never lose your temper, never reveal a secret.Be a Team Player: Convictions of any sort are suspect:“To me, a person can have any beliefs they want, as long as they leave them at home.” Managers want team player who will agree with consensus, even though they personally disagree. “Someone who is talking team play is out to squash dissent… The troublemaker is often a creative person, but creative people don’t get ahead. Dependable team players do. In fact, bosses don’t want to hear the truth.”Style: Be witty, charming, affable, articulate, with an indefinable sophistication when you give reports and mingle.PART III: Social PerformanceSo, I know it’s hard to believe that being a chameleon good at team play with some lucky connections is all it takes: you have to hit your numbers most of the time. But even if you are hitting your numbers all the time, but lacking the right personality or team play, you will never rise. When there is no longer an objective standard for success, it isn’t your performance that breaks you, it is other people. Managers realize, more than most, that there is a capriciousness to their advancement, often based on organizational contingency, luck and timing. And that is internal to the company, but there are also external factors that disrupt the workplace and market. Managers are very very aware of the ‘optics’ - it might actually be the key point to survival - and they realize the only thing they can do to better ensure their fate is to be seen working hard, putting in the hours (even though productivity may not help), and better streamlining yourself, wearing the right masks, practicing the vocabularies of discourse, knowing the right people, and subtly self-promoting.
Moving through the psychology of guilt vs Shame, and onto the societal implications of a shame-based or guilt-based culture, invoking Max Weber's "Protestant Work Ethic" as roots for our meritocracy, Hannah Arendt and Timothy Snyder's texts on the Nazi occupations and how people not only obeyed in advance, but used words to distance themselves from reality. This is linked to the American South, and the desire to avert shame or guilt of self through cultural constructions that benefit some while shaming others. https://letusthinkaboutit.com/step-22-guilt-shame--group-think/2:48 Social pressure uses Shame/Guilt to normalize behaviors, which is better than more laws.5:01 Protestant Ideals: "Your Wee wee is from the devil"7:23 Down with the Hierarchy! Don't obey him, obey me!10:03 Shame leads to Rage: "it is not people that have passions, but passions that have people." 11:58 groupthink belief machine16:06 "Their ideology ruined their relationship with reality"18:02 Driven into toxic social groups through guilt, shame and a lack of forgiveness, people offer unwavering loyalty for guilt absolution.20:44 Guilt and shame isolate people, for acceptance they pledge loyalty to toxic tribes.
As we move deeper into our life of discipleship, we learn that there are different ways to wait. As a culture, I believe that we struggle with waiting because we view waiting as passive. We equate waiting with inactivity which runs counter to a deeply engrained Protestant Work Ethic which prizes productivity. And yet, as people of faith we are reminded that there are times when we must ‘wait upon the Lord'. The activities associated with waiting, chief among them prayer, are too often diminished because they are not seen as kinetic enough. For those who know the power of prayer to connect us to God and one another, we know that prayer is anything but passive. These are challenges that make Advent more difficult for us. Advent is a season of waiting and expectation, but to this as passive is an adventure in missing the point. Advent is not about waiting around for God to show up with a big splash. Nor is it sitting around waiting for Jesus to come at the end of all things. Christmas and the experience of God's incarnation in Jesus remind us of what Scripture witnesses…the risen Christ is always showing up, especially in bleak times. This is meaningful to us in this Advent season. As we have been shaken by so many of the experiences of this year, one thing is clear. We need Advent. We need a season where we seek out the gifts and grace that God has for us for this time. We need to engage with the power and the hope that will guide us into a new year and whatever will come next.
In this episode, I talk about the Christian view of and motivation for work. I also talk about the massive rise of those on unemployment due to the Corona virus and how the Christian should think about these things. Let me know what you think
MAPSOC.ORG // 00:14:00 - Alchemy and John Dee // 01:13:00 - (A Long Transition into) Number Theory of Reality
In the short-term we are dealing with massive changes due to Covid19. People are working from home, not working at all, or possibly not working again. But, what happens when the crisis subsides? There are some serious long-term changes that we can see developing, many of which have been brewing for a long time now. topics include: Corona Virus, economy, jobs, working, technology, Ai, robotization, Boston Dynamics, automation, UBI, stimulus, government subsidizing life, military life, generation gap, Boomers, Millennials, Zoomers, online life, media, YouTubers, Protestant Work Ethic, MAGA
The crew tackles the subject of "work ethic" and the Protestant perspective.
Zac and Michael debate hope and despair in the wake of Super Tuesday before diving into the history and implications of the the Protestant work ethic and how miserable it's making all of us. Bonus: John Piper negs us with coronavirus!
Writing early in the 20th century, Weber sees how rational capitalism had developed in the West but not so much in other civilizations around the world. His project is to find out why. He finds a connection between modern economic life and ascetic Protestantism, which held that economic achievement was evidence of God's favor. Disclaimer: This episode has some sound quality issues. Our apologies, if you experience difficulty listening.
In economics, there has always been a big debate about what drives economic growth. In the end, economists have assumed that positive “shocks” to an economy just kind of happen. However, there have been some thinkers who looked inside the black-box and focused on entrepreneurship. The three most interesting thinkers have to be Max Weber – known was his idea of the “Protestant Work Ethic” , Joseph Schumpeter – famed for his concept of “Creative Destruction” and Frank Knight who worked on differentiating uncertainty from risk. I’ll elaborate on each on this podcast. I hope you find this helpful. You can subscribe to my podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Overcast, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for “Deep See With Bilal”. Also make sure to rate and review this podcast and enjoy! Bilal
The Protestant Work Ethic rears its ugly head in the discussion of framing legalizing marijuana as Adult Use vs Recreational Marijuana. Inspiration: http://marijuanapolitics.com/call-adult-use/ ---------------------------------------- To Follow Mr. Sativa on Social Media: Twitter - https://twitter.com/icsativapod Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/iamcannabissativa/ Please become a Patreon at just $1 a month - http://bit.ly/2NJmshn My Twitch Channel - https://www.twitch.tv/iamcannabissativa My Weedtube Channel - https://www.theweedtube.com/user/iamcannabissativa My YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdMtiTbOFE3D39rpLfLglaw? Get Great Quality CBD products from Sequoia Organics: https://www.sequoiaorganics.co/?a_aid=iamcannabissativa Get Inexpensive CBD Flower Delivered to Your Door Quickly and Cheaply in New England: https://shop.bostonhempire.com/?ref=dscotland --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/iamcannabissativapodcast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/iamcannabissativapodcast/support
John Ashe is the lead pastor of Journey Community Church Antrim, N. Ireland. https://journeycommunity.co.uk/ He has been married for 18+ years to Rachel. They have two children and an amazing community of people at Journey. Values: Honesty Shared Work Family Communication What do you value? How independent are your kids? How can we help them become more independent? Protestant Work Ethic: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/protestant-work-ethic/ Lastleaf (lastleaf.org) leads a trip every summer to Journey Antrim, N. Ireland.
We cover the basic ideas from Max Weber's "The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" to set the foundation for the colonizing of New England and explore one theory for how modern capitalism came into being.
The Lads talk about VR, the Sony Walkmann (German?!) and America's "Protestant Work Ethic" (also, Germany?!).
"Protestant" Work Ethic is a Biblical philosophy that we show our faith in God not by being busy but working effectively and productively.
"Protestant" Work Ethic is a Biblical philosophy that we show our faith in God not by being busy but working effectively and productively.
Oliver Burkeman is a British journalist based in Brooklyn. He writes a longstanding weekly column for The Guardian - the ironically-titled ‘This Column Will Change Your Life’ - and is also the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking. In this episode, we discuss:Seneca. Self-Help. Cynicism. Oxbridge. Los Angeles. The microcosm of Brooklyn. Road rage. Getting Things Done. The news cycle. Digital Minimalism. Parenting. What the Amish get right. Alexa. Jung. Matt Groening. Morning Pages. Capitalism. Busyness. The Protestant Work Ethic.Full transcripts are available at i-p.world
❄ Merry Christmas! ❄ In today's Christmas episode we talk to futurist Martin Ford, popular speaker and author of bestselling books Rise of Robots and now Architects of Intelligence. This episode can be seen as the finale to the last three (#43 - robotics and #44 - global problems). We discuss where the future of AI, robotics, and other high-tech fields seems to be headed, based on the existing research and the lay of the land. Most important - Martin clarifies what might be reasonable to expect in terms of future progress in these areas, based on what he's learned from talking to the 23 leading innovators in these fields. Here's a rough outline of the conversation: What is a robot? Martin's definition. Is Martin positive or pessimist about the future in general? Will the job market be more or less mismatched in 10 years? The Protestant Work Ethic is now mismatched to highly technological economy; how can we shift this value/tradition? Universal basic income - could it work? Is it compatible with open borders? What did Martin Learn from the 23 Architects of Intelligence? (Demis Hassabis, Nick Boström, Ray Kurzweil, Geoffrey Hinton, etc) What's an evolutionary network vs neural network? The leading AI companies - what are they up to? Why bundling & leveraging existing technology in business model will be paramount. Can normal people invest in AI startups? Longevity escape velocity - and will Ray Kurzweil live forever? Deep Mind + will Google achieve AI monopoly? What are some Future Skills recommended by Martin? And much more...! More about Martin: Website Twitter New book - Architects of Intelligence ============= If you enjoyed this conversation: *Subscribe to Future Skills on: iTunes | Android | Stitcher | Spotify | Soundcloud *Subscribe to our newsletter for episode summaries for another 10 industries we did not get around to talking about in this episode. *Rate us on iTunes. It will help more people find us and prepare properly.
In the early 20th century, Max Weber argued that Protestantism created wealth. Finally, there are data to prove if he was right. All it took were some missionary experiments in the Philippines and a clever map-matching trick that goes back to 16th-century Germany.
Today’s episode took some surprising turns and I’m proud of our guest Hillary for going there with me. Hillary and I went even deeper than I expected -- we talked about money stories, trusting yourself with money, working HARD for the money (*so hard for it, honey…), and so many other incredible and highly valuable topics for any working creative professional. For one thing, Hillary said it took 4 years for her to graduate from imposter syndrome. 4 YEARS. She was slightly kidding, but she also wasn’t -- and this is something I totally identify with too. I still have fleeting moments of feeling like a fraud when I talk about money because I’m not some kind of billionaire (yet). But her experiences are so relatable. Like when Hillary shared what she called her “Protestant Work Ethic” believing that she had to exhaust herself and work ‘round the clock in order to “earn” every penny. That shit is so real and exemplifies one of the biggest myths about making money that I want to bust up RIGHT NOW: MAKING MONEY DOES NOT HAVE TO BE HARD. IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE PAINFUL. IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE BRUTAL, EXHAUST YOU, OR TEAR OR WEAR YOU DOWN. And FYI, Hillary’s business DOES NOT fall apart because she decides to travel, or take a few days off, or chill for an afternoon, etc. Remember, her parting words: Be mindful of the way you work and what’s NOT working for you NOW. Don’t wait until you’re in the hospital because you burned yourself out. Some other things we mentioned on the show: The lovely and amazing Alexandra Franzen, who helped Hillary get her start in copywriting. Different ways of selling service-based work: by hour, by package, by day, by week, or by retainer. The concept of selling VALUE and not TIME. If your $2,000 sales page makes someone $1.5 Million -- then it’s probably high time you raise your rates for a sales page. KPI = Key Performance Indicator. A metric or measurable way of evaluating your progress or performance in any particular area. How our parents impact our attitude towards money, for better or worse. Why being a millennial can make us work harder to prove we’re not “entitled” and also because there are a lot of things that are systematically harder for us than our parents. Finally, here is a marching band Hillary can hire when she receives that $5 million. ;) #bestanswerever IF YOU’RE NOT IN LOVE WITH HILLARY AND ALL OF HER SAGE WISDOM, ARE YOU EVEN HUMAN? Go follow, like, and check her out here: http://www.hillaryweiss.com Twitter: hcweiss Instagram: hcweiss Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theweissness
Today's episode took some surprising turns and I'm proud of our guest Hillary for going there with me. Hillary and I went even deeper than I expected -- we talked about money stories, trusting yourself with money, working HARD for the money (*so hard for it, honey…), and so many other incredible and highly valuable topics for any working creative professional. For one thing, Hillary said it took 4 years for her to graduate from imposter syndrome. 4 YEARS. She was slightly kidding, but she also wasn't -- and this is something I totally identify with too. I still have fleeting moments of feeling like a fraud when I talk about money because I'm not some kind of billionaire (yet). But her experiences are so relatable. Like when Hillary shared what she called her “Protestant Work Ethic” believing that she had to exhaust herself and work ‘round the clock in order to “earn” every penny. That shit is so real and exemplifies one of the biggest myths about making money that I want to bust up RIGHT NOW: MAKING MONEY DOES NOT HAVE TO BE HARD. IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE PAINFUL. IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE BRUTAL, EXHAUST YOU, OR TEAR OR WEAR YOU DOWN. And FYI, Hillary's business DOES NOT fall apart because she decides to travel, or take a few days off, or chill for an afternoon, etc. Remember, her parting words: Be mindful of the way you work and what's NOT working for you NOW. Don't wait until you're in the hospital because you burned yourself out. Some other things we mentioned on the show: The lovely and amazing Alexandra Franzen, who helped Hillary get her start in copywriting. Different ways of selling service-based work: by hour, by package, by day, by week, or by retainer. The concept of selling VALUE and not TIME. If your $2,000 sales page makes someone $1.5 Million -- then it's probably high time you raise your rates for a sales page. KPI = Key Performance Indicator. A metric or measurable way of evaluating your progress or performance in any particular area. How our parents impact our attitude towards money, for better or worse. Why being a millennial can make us work harder to prove we're not “entitled” and also because there are a lot of things that are systematically harder for us than our parents. Finally, here is a marching band Hillary can hire when she receives that $5 million. ;) #bestanswerever IF YOU'RE NOT IN LOVE WITH HILLARY AND ALL OF HER SAGE WISDOM, ARE YOU EVEN HUMAN? Go follow, like, and check her out here: http://www.hillaryweiss.com Twitter: hcweiss Instagram: hcweiss Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theweissness
Today’s episode took some surprising turns and I’m proud of our guest Hillary for going there with me. Hillary and I went even deeper than I expected -- we talked about money stories, trusting yourself with money, working HARD for the money (*so hard for it, honey…), and so many other incredible and highly valuable topics for any working creative professional. For one thing, Hillary said it took 4 years for her to graduate from imposter syndrome. 4 YEARS. She was slightly kidding, but she also wasn’t -- and this is something I totally identify with too. I still have fleeting moments of feeling like a fraud when I talk about money because I’m not some kind of billionaire (yet). But her experiences are so relatable. Like when Hillary shared what she called her “Protestant Work Ethic” believing that she had to exhaust herself and work ‘round the clock in order to “earn” every penny. That shit is so real and exemplifies one of the biggest myths about making money that I want to bust up RIGHT NOW: MAKING MONEY DOES NOT HAVE TO BE HARD. IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE PAINFUL. IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE BRUTAL, EXHAUST YOU, OR TEAR OR WEAR YOU DOWN. And FYI, Hillary’s business DOES NOT fall apart because she decides to travel, or take a few days off, or chill for an afternoon, etc. Remember, her parting words: Be mindful of the way you work and what’s NOT working for you NOW. Don’t wait until you’re in the hospital because you burned yourself out. Some other things we mentioned on the show: The lovely and amazing Alexandra Franzen, who helped Hillary get her start in copywriting. Different ways of selling service-based work: by hour, by package, by day, by week, or by retainer. The concept of selling VALUE and not TIME. If your $2,000 sales page makes someone $1.5 Million -- then it’s probably high time you raise your rates for a sales page. KPI = Key Performance Indicator. A metric or measurable way of evaluating your progress or performance in any particular area. How our parents impact our attitude towards money, for better or worse. Why being a millennial can make us work harder to prove we’re not “entitled” and also because there are a lot of things that are systematically harder for us than our parents. Finally, here is a marching band Hillary can hire when she receives that $5 million. ;) #bestanswerever IF YOU’RE NOT IN LOVE WITH HILLARY AND ALL OF HER SAGE WISDOM, ARE YOU EVEN HUMAN? Go follow, like, and check her out here: http://www.hillaryweiss.com Twitter: hcweiss Instagram: hcweiss Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theweissness
Today's episode took some surprising turns and I'm proud of our guest Hillary for going there with me. Hillary and I went even deeper than I expected -- we talked about money stories, trusting yourself with money, working HARD for the money (*so hard for it, honey…), and so many other incredible and highly valuable topics for any working creative professional. For one thing, Hillary said it took 4 years for her to graduate from imposter syndrome. 4 YEARS. She was slightly kidding, but she also wasn't -- and this is something I totally identify with too. I still have fleeting moments of feeling like a fraud when I talk about money because I'm not some kind of billionaire (yet). But her experiences are so relatable. Like when Hillary shared what she called her “Protestant Work Ethic” believing that she had to exhaust herself and work ‘round the clock in order to “earn” every penny. That shit is so real and exemplifies one of the biggest myths about making money that I want to bust up RIGHT NOW: MAKING MONEY DOES NOT HAVE TO BE HARD. IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE PAINFUL. IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE BRUTAL, EXHAUST YOU, OR TEAR OR WEAR YOU DOWN. And FYI, Hillary's business DOES NOT fall apart because she decides to travel, or take a few days off, or chill for an afternoon, etc. Remember, her parting words: Be mindful of the way you work and what's NOT working for you NOW. Don't wait until you're in the hospital because you burned yourself out. Some other things we mentioned on the show: The lovely and amazing Alexandra Franzen, who helped Hillary get her start in copywriting. Different ways of selling service-based work: by hour, by package, by day, by week, or by retainer. The concept of selling VALUE and not TIME. If your $2,000 sales page makes someone $1.5 Million -- then it's probably high time you raise your rates for a sales page. KPI = Key Performance Indicator. A metric or measurable way of evaluating your progress or performance in any particular area. How our parents impact our attitude towards money, for better or worse. Why being a millennial can make us work harder to prove we're not “entitled” and also because there are a lot of things that are systematically harder for us than our parents. Finally, here is a marching band Hillary can hire when she receives that $5 million. ;) #bestanswerever IF YOU'RE NOT IN LOVE WITH HILLARY AND ALL OF HER SAGE WISDOM, ARE YOU EVEN HUMAN? Go follow, like, and check her out here: http://www.hillaryweiss.com Twitter: hcweiss Instagram: hcweiss Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theweissness
Today we celebrate the contributions of the American worker and the Protestant Work Ethic. This sermon is a little long because we gave people the opportunity to share stories of work that made them proud. (Ecclesiastes 3:1-14)
I've been revisting one of the set texts from my degree (I read it nearly 30 years ago!) - Max Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism - recently. I do this for you, by the way! I'm becoming increasingly aware of the deeply hardwired beliefs we have about work - work is what makes us valuable human beings, work is Godly, hard, mundane work has the greatest virtue. If skill comes too easily or if you enjoy your work too much it must not have as much value as work which is painful and hard fought for. In this week's podcast I explore the routes of these beliefs and question whether they have as much relevance today as they did in the Industrial Age. I'd love to know what you think too! Stay in touch with us on Instagram and Twitter (@brilliantgamble) and check out the new website www.abrilliantgamble.com!
Propaganda: The Formation of Mens Attitudes Book by Jacques Ellul, Atomic Weapons, Alvin Toffler, The Matrix, Cyberspace, Escape from Freedom Book by Erich Fromm, Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture Book by Michael Kammen. Post WW2 America, Frankfurt School, Memorial Day, Duality of Human Nature, Civil Religion, Holidays, Architecture, Monoculture, Chain Stores, Worldwide Consumerism, Ronald Reagan, Generation X, HyperNormalisation, Leisure, The Protestant Work Ethic, Transhumanism, A.T.M.s, Self Checkout, Passage from Tragedy and Hope Book by Carroll Quigley,Muslim Culture, Islamic Evangelicals, Midnight Express Theme Song. Commute Music: 100 years from now/Gram Parsons & The Byrds Intro: Chase by Giorgio Moroder hoaxbusterscall.com
Guest host Jake Thomsen explains the real meaning of great operations / processes. John tries (and fails) to apply economic ideas to his personal life. Daniel blows everyone's mind with some mysticism. And then Jake settles a long-standing debate about the Protestant Work Ethic! Hit us up on Twitter! Fits and Starts - @fits_and_starts Daniel - @dcoulbourne John - @johnrudolphdrex Special Guest: Jake Thomsen. Links: - [Jake Thomsen | LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakethomsen/ "Jake Thomsen | LinkedIn") - [Overcast](https://overcast.fm/ "Overcast") - [Fits and Starts: 5: Closing the Gap](http://fitsandstarts.fm/closing-the-gap "Fits and Starts: 5: Closing the Gap") - [Music | Twice Adapted](https://twiceadapted.bandcamp.com/ "Music | Twice Adapted") - [Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action | TED Talk Subtitles and Transcript | TED.com](https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action/transcript?language=en "Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action | TED Talk Subtitles and Transcript | TED.com") - [and that's why you always leave a note - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNZsWIzEhP4 "and that's why you always leave a note - YouTube") - [Marginal Benefit and Marginal Cost](http://www.investopedia.com/exam-guide/cfa-level-1/microeconomics/marginal-benefit-cost.asp "Marginal Benefit and Marginal Cost") - [Opportunity cost - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost "Opportunity cost - Wikipedia") - [The Denial of Death - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death "The Denial of Death - Wikipedia") - [Phallic architecture - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallic_architecture "Phallic architecture - Wikipedia") - [Donald Trump’s Math Takes His Towers to Greater Heights - The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/02/nyregion/donald-trump-tower-heights.html "Donald Trump’s Math Takes His Towers to Greater Heights - The New York Times") - [Pascal on Our Addiction to Distraction | TGC](https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/justintaylor/2010/07/08/pascal-on-our-addiction-to-distraction/ "Pascal on Our Addiction to Distraction | TGC") - [Telos (philosophy) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telos_(philosophy) "Telos (philosophy) - Wikipedia") - [Blaise Pascal - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal "Blaise Pascal - Wikipedia") - [James K. A. Smith - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_K._A._Smith "James K. A. Smith - Wikipedia") - [Martin Luther - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther "Martin Luther - Wikipedia") - [Protestant work ethic - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic "Protestant work ethic - Wikipedia") - [Fits and Starts: 0: Episode Zero](http://fitsandstarts.fm/episode-zero "Fits and Starts: 0: Episode Zero") - [Stakeholder theory - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakeholder_theory "Stakeholder theory - Wikipedia") - [Work–life balance - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work%E2%80%93life_balance "Work–life balance - Wikipedia") - [Sabbath - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath "Sabbath - Wikipedia") - [John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination_conspiracy_theories "John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories - Wikipedia") - [Revealed preference - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference "Revealed preference - Wikipedia") - [Open-source software - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software "Open-source software - Wikipedia") - [Simulation hypothesis - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis "Simulation hypothesis - Wikipedia") - [Why Elon Musk says we're living in a simulation - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0KHiiTtt4w "Why Elon Musk says we're living in a simulation - YouTube")
We figure out what the show is about. Daniel takes John to task on the Protestant Work Ethic. We reminisce about a DIY shelf, and we have two very different takes on how it was built. Hit us up on Twitter! Fits and Starts - @fits_and_starts Daniel - @dcoulbourne John - @johnrudolphdrex Links: - [Business Insider](http://www.businessinsider.com/ "Business Insider") - [Protestant work ethic - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic "Protestant work ethic - Wikipedia")
Picking up where we left off last week, we continue discussing the Christian work ethic and, in particular, delve into Max Weber’s “Protestant work ethic” hypothesis. Next Rose shares about her own career path, including graduating with a 4.0 in graphic design and her two year struggle to find a career job. After that, we Read more about Off Script 10: Honorable Work, Millennials, and Unemployment[…]
Picking up where we left off last week, we continue discussing the Christian work ethic and, in particular, delve into Max Weber’s “Protestant work ethic” hypothesis. Next Rose shares about her own career path, including graduating with a 4.0 in graphic design and her two year struggle to find a career job. After that, we Read more about Off Script 10: Honorable Work, Millennials, and Unemployment[…]
InStep 2016 Witnessing To Your World
Join Priscilla McKinney, Momma Bird here at Little Bird Marketing as she talks with Dan Leadbetter about creativity. From Emily Dickinson's poem, "There is no frigate like a book..." she takes inspiration to read and write as one lump event and explores the interconnectivity of multiple creative endeavors. Fighting the Protestant Work Ethic's notion of doodling as lazy, she encourages everyone to dive into their creative side and listen to one's own life for creative threads which can lead to amazing discoveries. Also, if you have an extra autoharp lying around, please send it to her immediately! Original theme music by Chris Stewart. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We talk about the history of the Reformation as it affected the idea of vocation, the Max Weber thesis, the puritans, Theodore Beza, the practical syllogism, Slim Cessna's Auto Club, providence, Roger Williams, and Labor Day.
The Protestant Work Ethic has the power to change your life and change our world.
Today's crisis in the global financial markets has produced much soul searching about the culture of greed which seems to permeate our society. At the beginning of the last century the German sociologist, Max Weber, proposed that there was a direct link between the Protestant Reformation and the rise in capitalism. And specifically, that hard work, combined with a moral attitude towards wealth, was directly linked to salvation. So is the loss of religious faith across the West linked to the current crisis in capitalism? Joining Ernie Rea to discuss the Protestant Work Ethic are Lord Andrew Mawson, social entrepreneur, cross bench peer & minister in the United Reformed Church; Professor Sam Whimster, Fellow in the Centre for Advanced Study at the University of Bonn, and Jonathan Wittenberg, Rabbi of New North London Synagogue.
Today's crisis in the global financial markets has produced much soul searching about the culture of greed which seems to permeate our society. At the beginning of the last century the German sociologist, Max Weber, proposed that there was a direct link between the Protestant Reformation and the rise in capitalism. And specifically, that hard work, combined with a moral attitude towards wealth, was directly linked to salvation. So is the loss of religious faith across the West linked to the current crisis in capitalism? Joining Ernie Rea to discuss the Protestant Work Ethic are Lord Andrew Mawson, social entrepreneur, cross bench peer & minister in the United Reformed Church; Professor Sam Whimster, Fellow in the Centre for Advanced Study at the University of Bonn, and Jonathan Wittenberg, Rabbi of New North London Synagogue.
Professor Felipe Fernandez-Armesto explodes what he sees as the newly revived myth of the Protestant work ethic and debunks cultural explanations for economic progress or decline in different parts of the world. Four Thought is a series of talks which combine thought provoking ideas and engaging storytelling. Recorded live in front of an audience at the RSA in London, speakers take to the stage to air their latest thinking on the trends, ideas, interests and passions that affect our culture and society. Producer: Sheila Cook.
Is money the root of all evil? That's the question we explore in this, the forty-first episode of the Master Key Coaching Teleseminars. That question refers to what was written in the Bible in 1 Timothy 6:10. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. That's not why we're exploring it, though. I've been interested in personal development for about twenty-five years. I've been publishing personal development books for a little over ten years. Through all that time, it seems that every few years the self-help "gurus" jump on that quotation and use it as the scapegoat for why people -- people like you -- aren't yet wealthy. Their reasoning is that since you were raised in a culture that more than likely was Judeo-Christian, that one line from the Bible has affected your thinking about money and wealth. They posit that since you "believe" that "money is the root of all evil," you tend to shun money, either consciously or subconsciously. So, before we go any further, lets see if that's true. Has Your Brain Been Affected By That One Line from the Bible? At this point, I think it would help to tell you a little bit about myself. I was raised Roman Catholic. I went to a parochial school for grades one through six. I was an altar boy in church as well as a church lector. I also received all of the sacraments. Above and beyond that, I am one of the few people I know that has read the Bible cover to cover. In other words, I've been through it. Through it all, I don't recall ever being hammered with the notion of money being the root of all evil. (Or even the love of money, for that matter!) I'm not stating that I never heard it, just that there was never any emphasis placed on it. In the very few times that line from Timothy was discussed, it was correctly quoted and correctly interpreted: that if one were to covet money so greatly that he would lie, cheat, or steal, then that would lead to his demise. That's how I learned it -- and that's how most people with whom I've discussed this interpret it. That's the first thing that lead me to think that the notion that people everywhere are not wealthy because of their "flawed relationship" with money based on that line was incorrect. The next thing that made me pause was the fact that I have never met anyone -- and I mean anyone! -- who, when asked if they would like more money, refused the offer, be that offer come in the form of a pay raise, a gift, or simply someone's generosity. Think about it. Have you or anyone you've ever known ever run away from money? Of course not. It's silly. More often than not, we have to actively protect our money from being stolen from us! The last straw, so to speak, is the fact that the United States was founded on the notion of what is referred to as the "Protestant Work Ethic," which was coined by the sociologist Max Weber. In a nutshell, it means that if you work hard and get rich, then God loves you. I think we can see the veracity in that. Think of someone in our society who is rich, be it Trump or Gates or Buffet. What's the first thing we think about them? We usually say that they're smart, right? We respect their opinions on things -- even things not remotely related to business or money. Right? True, not the same thing as "salvation," but the parallel is there. If someone is rich, we admire them and respect their views. After all, they're rich and we're not. All of those reasons lead me to the conclusion that the notion of anyone being adversely affected in their money-making prowess because of that quote from the Bible is bunk. Plain and simple. It's just another way for some folks to sell yet another book or course so that you can "heal yourself" of the bad attitude you have toward money. I've seen it before. Many times. As I noted, this idea comes around every few years.
Andrew takes a fresh look at the “Protestant Work Ethic” and urges Christians to adopt the highest ethical standards in private and public life
This is the 8th episode in our series examining the impact Christianity has had on history & culture. Today we take a look at the influence the Faith has had on labor and work.Historians of the traditional school laud Greco-Roman civilization for what it bequeathed the modern world in politics & philosophy. But in the classical world poly-phi was done by the elite; the wealthy & powerful 1% who had the leisure time to engage exclusively in intellectual pursuits. What gets glossed over in this era is the low regard paid manual labor & those classes of society that did it. You could make a good case that it was the tension between the tiny elite, patrician class & the lower masses of plebeians that was the deciding factor in shaping Roman history.Both Greeks & Romans thought manual labor fit only for slaves & the lower classes who had to work because they couldn't afford slaves. The wealthy shunned work or any kind. Plutarch reported that Plato was infuriated at 2 fellow philosophers because they constructed a machine to help solve problems of geometry. Such a device ought to have been made by a slave or artisan—not by thinkers & freemen. But that wasn't the end or extent of Plato's outrage. He was also incensed that a machine had been constructed to make geometry practical; it corrupted the excellence of geometry as a thought-experiment! In Plato, at least, and his thinking here likely expresses the rest of the Athenian elite – there was utter disdain with & for the everyday world of the common man.The ancient mathematician Archimedes was embarrassed by having constructed devices that aided his studies in geometry. The 1st C BC Roman philosopher Cicero said no gentleman ought to lower himself to engage in daily labor to provide for his needs. He said, “Vulgar are the means of livelihood of all hired workmen whom we pay for mere manual labor…and all mechanics are engaged in vulgar trades.” Seneca, who lists the honorable activities for freemen, never mentions manual labor.In Athens in the 1st C AD, 1/3rd of the freemen did nothing more than sit in the city's political assembly hall and discuss issues of State while slaves performed the work that made the State run. There were 5 times as many slaves in Athens as citizens.So, if the elite 1% weren't working, what were they doing? They were seeking pleasure purchased by the wealth earned by the lower classes they despised. It was into this anti-work cultural environment the early Christians entered the Greco-Roman world.The value assigned simple work by Christians stemmed from 3 sources.First – they had Jesus as their example.He grew up in the home of a craftsman. Tradition says Joseph was a carpenter but the NT word tecknon refers to a skilled construction worker. Remember that though Joseph & Mary were from Bethlehem in the S just a few miles from Jerusalem, they lived up N in Nazareth when Jesus was born. That's where He was raised. Joseph lived in Nazareth because in that day, that's where the work was. Herod was building a new capital for Galilee in the city of Sepphoris, a short hike from Nazareth, which in that day was little more than a work camp for Jewish laborers working on Herod's project. Tour the ruins of Sepphoris today and you come to the conclusion, Joseph probably did more work as a mason than as a carpenter. And following custom, Jesus would have learned his father's trade & spent many hours in the quarries & on-site shaping stones. He plied this trade till he was 30.Second – The early Christians had another excellent role model in the Apostle Paul who from his Hebrew heritage had learned a trade, even though his real career was as a rabbi. Paul repeatedly used his tent-making as the means of supporting his ministry. So much so, that phrase has come over into our vernacular.Third – Early Christians were well aware of Paul's admonition in 2 Thess. 3:10 that “If a man won't work, he shall not eat.”This embrace of work as noble not only set Christians apart from the Greco-Roman culture, it enabled them to prosper. Their strong work ethic bore fruit. But their increasing prosperity brought them under the eye of Roman officials wary of the power wealth inevitably secured. Though Christians used their wealth to better the lives of others, the Romans couldn't help but assume they were constructing a secret society that would eventually challenge their control. This became one more reason to be suspicious & to persecute Christians – because of their success in business.Another effect the Christian view of work had on Greco-Roman culture was the way it undermined slavery. If work is noble & industry is a virtue, then slaves possess dignity because they do nearly ALL the work. It was easy for freemen to overlook the suffering of slaves when they were regarded as nothing more than living tools, as Greeks called them. Assigning them dignity was dangerous, because ate away at the conscience of freemen. If a salve is a man or woman, not just a tool—it's not right for them to be subjected to such treatment. A man can own a thing; but can he own another man? // It was the introduction of Christianity that began the long, slow road toward abolition.In AD 375, church leaders compiled a list of policies regarding what constituted Christian practice. Called The Apostolic Constitutions, they were 8 treatises on discipline, worship, & doctrine, intended to serve as a manual of guidance for clergy & to a lesser extent, for the laity. In no uncertain terms, based on what Paul wrote the Thess., the Constitutions stated – “The Lord our God hates the slothful.”The monasteries of the early Middle Ages were organized around Christianity's high regard for work. Benedictine monks of the 6th C. considered labor an integral & spiritual part of their discipline that did much to increase the prestige of labor and the self-respect of the laborer. All the monastic orders honored work as they tilled the soil, tended herds, milked cows, & crafted artifacts.Work was also considered an antidote to the sin of laziness. Basil of Caesarea in the 4th C said, “Idleness is a great evil; work preserves us from evil thoughts.” This is where the phrase, “Idle hands are the devil's workshop” originated. In the 12th C St. Bernard taught; “The handmaid of Christ ought always to pray, read, & work, lest the spirit of uncleanness should lead astray the slothful mind. The [willful] delights of the flesh are overcome by labor.” So strong was the Christian concern in the Middle Ages regarding the willful avoidance of work, the Church counted sloth as one of the 7 Deadly Sins.The high value Christianity assigned manual labor was further bolstered during the Reformation. Martin Luther saw work not only as pleasing to the Lord but as a means by which His glory could be expanded. Work was a calling to serve God. The Latin word was vocatio comes over into English as vocation; a divine call to the service of God, in whatever form that took. Up to that time, it was believed the only calling God gave was into the clergy. The idea that He also called farmers & merchants and the rest of the occupations of society was new & novel & revolutionized people's view of a career. There was no low-status or high-status work, good work or bad work. It made no difference what kind work the Christian did so long as he/she performed it to the glory of God. Work was not an end in itself but something someone did in everyday life to the glory of God and to the service of mankind. It was thru work, especially the work of Christians, that God maintained and preserved the world and the people in it. Thus, all legitimate work was noble and God-pleasing. Work became a Christian duty.And while the curse of the Fall had turned work into toil, the work itself was still noble because even BEFORE the Fall, God had commanded Adam to tend the Garden. He had work to do before sin made that work hard.All of this conspired to produce the Protestant Work Ethic which found a society wide application in the Puritan settlements of Massachusetts & helped launch American prosperity.When in Luke 10:7 Jesus said "the worker deserves his wages”, He paraphrased Deut 25:4, an OT norm first spoken by Moses when he commanded the Israelites: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain." Just as the ox treading out the grain needs to be rewarded for his work, so too, laborers are worthy of the reward of their wages. These biblical references made it mandatory workers be paid for their efforts. It also underscored once more in the eyes of Christians that work was honorable.It's simply assumed by workers today that they deserve a wage or salary for services performed. This hasn't always been so. In pagan societies of the ancient world right up thru the era of the early church, the norm was for societies to have the majority of their residents work as slaves. These slaves, who performed all manual labor, received little other than a meager subsistence allowance. And that was only given so that they'd be able to keep working, not as a reward for their toil. People today ought to appreciate that the current practice of compensating workers & the belief it's unjust to deprive them of fair compensation, would not be in place were it not for Christianity establishing the norm that "a worker deserves his wages.”If employers who identified themselves as Christian, had faithfully heeded the biblical admonition to pay their workers as they deserved, labor unions might never have needed to come into existence. And unions, some of them being so rabidly anti-Christian in their policies, ought to consider this: The influence of the biblical admonition that the laborer is worthy of his hire lies behind today's institutionalized practice of unions negotiating contracts for their members. If it didn't come from this biblical norm, from where did it come? It certainly wasn't present in the Greco-Roman era, where slaves performed nearly all manual labor.Christianity's 2000 year influence is more deeply ingrained and pervasive in Western economic values and practices than is realized.Before Christians brought dignity to work and labor, there wasn't much of a middle class in the Greek or Roman society. People were either rich or poor, & the poor were commonly slaves. The Christian emphasis on everyone being required to work and work being honorable had the effect of producing a class between the wealthy & the poor. People like the Christians, who didn't just live for “bread & games” to use Cicero's expression. Christians couldn't fail to prosper. So the economic phenomenon of a middle class arose, now present in Western societies but unknown before the advent of Christianity.The presence of a middle class in Western societies has rightly been credited w/greatly reducing the extent of poverty & its inevitable by-product, disease. It's also been a potent factor in fostering and maintaining political and economic freedom.
This episode is another in our series considering the impact Christianity has had on history & culture. Today we take a look at the influence the Faith had on Education.The roots of the Christian posture toward education lies in Jesus' command to His disciples just before He ascended to heaven. He told them as they went, to make disciples of all nations, teaching them to keep all that He had commanded.The modern Evangelical church has taken the word & idea of discipleship & turned it into something rather different from what those original disciples understood it to mean. A 1st C disciple from the region of Galilee where the original disciples were from & where Jesus spent most of His life & did most of His ministry, was someone who'd been selected by a rabbi to follow him and become a devoted learner. A disciple was, in the most intense sense of the word – a scholar whose field of study was the life & teaching of his rabbi. His goal was to be just like that rabbi, and he spent 15 years of his life following his rabbi, 24/7/365¼ so that he could be just like his rabbi.He began following at 15 and ended at 30. If he proved himself a worthy student & his rabbi sensed he too was called, he became a rabbi at the age of 30. The Gospels tell us Jesus was about 30 when He began his public ministry. He was following in this pattern for rabbis & disciples in place in 1st C Galilee.If a disciple wasn't quite cut out to be a rabbi, which required a demonstrated divine authority from God, then a disciple returned to his village to become the Torah-teacher in the local synagogue school where all Jewish boys & girls went from the age of 6-10. There they trained these youngsters to memorize the Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible. Check it out: They didn't just memorize the names of the 5 books of Moses; they memorized all that was written in them. Genesis thru Deuteronomy, word for word.Those boys who excelled at memorization in this 1st phase of education went on to phase 2 in which the Torah teacher taught them the rest of the Tanach, as well as the commentary on it by Israel's most famous rabbis. It was the cream of the crop from this phase that became candidates to train under a rabbi as a disciple.The point is this: When Jesus told His disciples they were to go & do with others what He'd done with them – make disciples, they understood what “teaching them to keep all Jesus had commanded” meant = a rigorous course of education that aimed not just at knowledge but at life-change.The disciples took Jesus' command seriously. Acts 5 tells us after the Feast of Pentecost, the disciple snow turned Apostles never stopped teaching. As Acts chronicles the Apostle Paul's ministry, we see his emphasis on teaching. Paul was a teaching machine! He used every opportunity to inform people of the truth then call them to the implications of that truth.In giving the qualifications for the church leaders called “elders,” which in the NT is synonymous with the words “bishop” & “pastor,” Paul says they must be able to teach. Immediately following the time of the Apostles, the 2nd generation of Christian leaders took up the mantle of leadership & set out to cull the essence of what Christians believe. They devised what's known as the Didache, meaning – the Teaching / Instruction. This was written sometime between 80-110 AD.In the early 2nd C, Bishop/Pastor Ignatius of Antioch urged all churches to instruct children in the Scriptures and to teach them a trade. This was a direct carry-over from Judaism which placed tremendous emphasis on literacy, on God's Word & on knowing a skilled trade.As we saw in a long-ago episode of CS, while baptism in the NT was something believers were urged to do as soon as they came to faith as a public profession of faith, as the decades passed, baptism was delayed until after new believers could be catechized – that is, taught the catechism, which was a question & answer format in which they were taught the doctrines of the faith. These were no lightweight questions. It was some pretty deep theology. They weren't baptized till they'd taken all the lessons & that meant 2 to 3 yrs before they were dunked.These catechumen, as they were called, were at first taught in the homes of other church members. But eventually there were to many so special schools were built. In these schools, the emphasis was on literacy, where people could learn to read & write so that they could read the Scriptures & other classical works. Justin Martyr built one of these schools in Rome & another in Ephesus. They began popping up all over and earned a reputation as a home of great scholarship. The School in Alexandria, Egypt was regarded around the Empire as a great center of learning & scholarship. Another school in Caesarea on the coast of Israel was another. It was out of these schools that the towering intellects of men like Origen, Clement, & Athanasius arose.While the main course of study in these schools was Theology & the Bible, they included other disciplines as well. Mathematics, medicine, philosophy, grammar, and what passed for science. These centers of learning went far to remove the stigma critics of the Faith had attached to it in its early days – that is was a despicable religion fit only for the poor, uneducated & slaves. The Church was led by some of the brightest minds of the day who were more than capable at not only defending the Faith but dismantling the majority paganism. Many of the early apologists used the best of Greek philosophy to argue for the superiority of the Christian worldview. It infuriated pagan apologists that their own heroes from the past seemed to lend their weight to the Christian Gospel.To be sure, Christians weren't the first to set up schools. In Corinth, the Book of Acts tells us, there were pagan schools when Paul arrived. They were doing a brisk business. Where the Christian schools defied convention was in their willingness to educate both sexes in the same setting. Romans taught only boys, and only from wealthy families at that. Christians taught men, women, & children, regardless of how many coppers they could pass the teacher.In the 5th C, Augustine said that most Christian women were better educated than pagan philosophers.As education became more and more of a mark of being a Christian, their schools expanded and the course of study grew more comprehensive. Students were taught the Trivium of grammar, rhetoric, and logic as core subjects, & the Quadrivium of arithmetic, music, geometry & astronomy as support studies.The Church's goal in this education was to make sure it's members were well-educated, especially it's clergy. They needed to be educated so they could love God with all their mind and serve Him with all their strength.. In the 8th C, Charlemagne made sure his children were educated well & brought the famous English scholar Alcuin to tutor them as well as other children of the nobility. Hundreds of years later, King Alfred of England made sure his sons & daughters were taught to read & write in their native tongue & Latin, the scholarly language of the day. In the 1330's a Florentine writer reported there were about 10 thousand children in Florence's schoolsWhile the Church educated both sexes equally for the first several Centuries, as the Middle Ages approached and the cathedral schools grew, the emphasis on education shifted to men being trained for the clergy. Women were moved to convents & nunneries where they learned basic literacy & the arts.But the passage of time saw the emphasis on women's education wane in favor of men & boys. There wasn't so much an official position taken by the Church that opposed the education of women & girls. It was more the result of social apathy. In the 15th C 2 church leaders, Leonardo Bruni & Battista Guarinao, called attention to the appalling lack of emphasis on education for women & urged reform.Those reforms were at least partially successful as the number of women scholars that appeared in Europe over the next decades and Cs was remarkable. Women such as . . .Lioba // Hrotsvitha // Hildegard // Brigitta // Catherine of Siena & Christine de Pizan.Students of Medieval history often have the mental image of the cloistered halls of monasteries where monks sit hunched over slanted tables laboriously copying ancient texts on parchment with quill & ink. What they ought to add to that is the cloistered halls of convents where nuns sit doing precisely the same thing. It was in these scriptoriums that Scripture & the ancient classics were copied; their treasure saved & passed on to posterity.This emphasis on teaching both sexes dates back to Jesus' own willingness to teach women. While there were no women numbered among the 12 Apostles, they certainly were counted among the larger number of unofficial disciples who followed Jesus. And that was something that was simply UNHEARD of among 1st C Jews! Rabbis did not allow women to come into contact with them. They did not accept them as disciples. Girls from age 6 to 10 were taught alongside boys in the Torah schools attached to the synagogue, but at 10 they went home to learn at their mother's side how to be a wife & mother. Part of the scandal that simmered around Jesus was His acceptance of women as part of the small crowd that accompanied Him where-ever He went. He taught them alongside the men in the Sermon on the Mount. He taught them in Lazarus' home in Bethany. The famous story of Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan women in John 4 is stunning in its description of how utterly unexpected it was. She even said, “How is it that you talk to me – a Samaritan & A WOMAN?!?!?”The famous historian Will Durant comments on the uniqueness of Christianity in the Greco-Roman environment it grew up it – that it broke with convention by being a religion for everyone –ethnicity, sex & social standing had nothing to do with its appeal or outreach. All were welcome & welcome equally.The movement toward universal education came during the Reformation in the 16th C. Martin Luther's appeal for reform, embodied in the 95 theses he tacked to the church door at Wittenberg, were necessitated by the appalling decline in education that had taken place over the previous centuries in Europe. The Church had become corrupted so that many of its leaders were lazy & shirked the call to scholarship. Instead of the clergy being the best educated, many couldn't even read or write. As Marin Luther visited the churches of Saxony, he was dismayed by the number of nearly illiterate priests & monks. So he embarked on a campaign of education. In 1529 he wrote the Small Catechism which taught the basics of the Faith. Things began to turn around.Luther said that people needed to understand both “the Word of Scripture and the nature of the world in which the Word took root.” He urged for a state school system in which elementary students would be taught the basics of grammar, reading, writing, then for secondary education would learn Latin so they could read the classics to broaden their worldview. He criticized parents who failed to make sure their children were schooled.One of Luther's most significant breaks with the religious schools of previous generations was his belief that not only were schools needed to train clergy, just as important a function was to train those doing non-religious or what we call, secular work. Luther believed clergy ought to be called by God, not just educated by man. Those not called to church work were called, just as much by God into secular work – so they needed just as strong an education. It was this sense of divine calling or vocation that framed what came to be known as the Protestant Work Ethic.John Calvin, the reformer whose ideas shaped the City of Geneva, established a school system there.As the Reformation spread across Europe, the idea of universal education met with some resistance from the lower classes; for 2 reasons.1) What little education that had remained until that time was done by the Church which they considered corrupt. So, book-learning was suspected as being something that would corrupt the young; turning them into agents for the Pope.2) The educated tended to be people in the upper social classes, so seen as lazy by the working class.For that reason, in many rural settings, the movement toward universal education was slow to catch on. Luther & other Reformers knew that a healthy church was built by literacy & so urged civil magistrates to make the education of the young compulsory. In Many places in Germany they complied. And soon, public schools supported by taxes were growing across the land.So it's sad to see how the modern public school system has become so hostile toward Christianity. It owes its very existence to the Faith.
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