Quote of the day 4th October 2013

"What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul"

(The Gospel according to Mark, Chapter 8, Verse 36)

If I were to lose my own faith and become an atheist I would still regard this line from the bible as encapsulating one of the most important moral ideas of all time. It is today's quote of the day as it is particularly relevant to a post which will be going up later.

Comments

Jim said…
There are many good and very inspirational quotes from the bible, no one could realistically argue against that, there are also many less than inspirational quotes too. Its not however from where the quote comes so much as the quote itself.

Yes it is truly an amazing inspiration.

I would argue that a man who takes at gun point money from another man in order to fund his drug addiction is not in profit, in fact the drug addict has indeed lost his "soul" or if you don't like that word perhaps the "essence of his humanity" would replace it. - I doubt you Chris would argue with me thus far. I would say he is illegally taking from the first man under direct threat to pay for something the first man neither wants, needs or is willing to support without the threat of violence.

(can you see where this is going yet?)

So why is it that a state can hold the entire population at "gunpoint" (well ok not at gunpoint, but under threat of loss of liberty) and force them to pay any amount it so desires, in order to fund something the victim does not want, does not need, and is not voluntarily willing to support.

I would argue that Mark in his gospel has hit the nail on the head if he is speaking about our current political system. No one has lost his soul more than a taxman working for a corrupt unworkable system (ask Saul who walked from Damascus)
12:09 pm
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