Are Cash And Religion More Comparable Than We Notice?

Have money and religion turn out to be so intertwined that we see them as practically one and the same? Lumina Imaging/Getty Photographs

There are hundreds (by some estimates, hundreds) of religions internationally. The Oxford Dictionaries defines religion as "the idea in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, particularly a private God or gods." Based mostly on this definition, we can draw some interesting comparisons between the worship of a god and the worship of the almighty greenback. What is cash if not a "superhuman controlling energy"? That is what Matt Frederick, Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown discuss on this episode of Stuff They Don't desire You To Know: Is cash a religion?

It isn't that (all) people outwardly worship cash - or the economy or monetary establishments. However most of the trappings of organized religion are based around them. In his e-book "The Theology of money," philosopher Philip Goodchild factors out that our total monetary system is constructed on religion. Our cash has value as a result of we agree it has value. Especially as cash goes more and more digital - like debit cards and Bitcoin - that idea of trusting the financial values is important to the financial construction in place. Foreign money primarily represents a promise to pay a debt that's backed up by a financial establishment like a bank or the Federal Reserve. With out confidence in that promise, our cash is not worth the paper it is printed on.

And it hasn't at all times been printed. In the past, invaluable objects like chocolate, salt, peppercorns and other valuable goods were used to trade for different services or products. This is named commodity money because the worth is in the precise materials from which it is made.

So besides principally having a religion-based financial system, there are other features of finance that mirror religion. Many religions, for instance, have temples or holy locations the place one can go worship, or communicate to a priest or excessive holy member to assist interpret the desire and the methods of their god or gods. Some would possibly interpret Wall Road, or the stock market, as just such a spot: a buzzing center of economic system, with traders calling out to buy or promote stocks primarily based on nothing more than investor confidence - or essentially, perception in one thing's worth.

The mysterious energy of the free market or the economy also has to be translated into layman's terms for many of us, especially since the modern creation of cash is so difficult. It encompasses credit, lending, fractional reserve banking and so on. We rely on monetary advisers to interpret the need of the market for us. And mismanagement or misinterpretation can lead to a "smiting" from that highly effective pressure within the type of financial recessions and depressions as we noticed in lots of countries throughout the global financial disaster of 2008.

Religion has been used to handle human behaviors via the menace of hell or the promise of eternal life in heaven. But philosopher Goodchild argues that money, and debt, are now the principle motivators for human cooperation - a lot so it is begun to intertwine with religion. There's a huge sect of Christianity generally known as prosperity gospel that equates private wealth as a sign of being blessed by god, tying cash and religion ever nearer. Does this mean an official sect will ever be established? Or that  ソフト闇金ドッグの申し込み  of religion will peter out in favor of a theology of cash? You will have to tune in to see what Matt, Ben and Noel should say in this pious podcast.