Inversion

[Wootah]

As a Christian I have always believed in inversion. This is the idea of the weak made strong, the first shall be last. And I believe it not as wishful thinking but as reality and I look for it.

For instance:

Markets are a great example. Each person pursues their own greed and yet to do so the winner is the one that serves people the best.

Medicine in many cases is taking something that will hurt you in order to prevent something worse from hurting you.

I know many Christians get frustrated because we often don't understand why our opponents don't see reality but isn't inversion the problem. The world testifies to strength and power and corruption so they think that is God.

How could Jesus be God the saviour if you don't see the process of inversion in everything?

[Wootah]

Minimum wage kills jobs and opportunities rather than providing.

That is what the very rich want you to believe.

Honestly, it's the very rich that probably have the most time to think. Second, would you listen to a poor persons advice or a rich persons?

If Serena Williams or I offered you tennis coaching who would you listen to?

Should you believe someone who wants to sell you a bridge?

Well a rich person would more likely own a bridge....

[Wootah]

Harsh love is better than soft love.

Forgiving yourself is useless, you need to be forgiven.

Thine rod and thine staff comfort me.

[Tcg]

[Replying to post 12 by Wootah]

Fried Ice-cream

Rational Theology

Little Big Man

[Wootah]

[Replying to Tcg]

Maybe. I think you are thinking of oxymoron.

Rational theology is a good one. No one starts out thinking Christianity is rational and then you realise Jesus is the logos. So ill give you that one.

[Furrowed Brow]

Markets are a great example. Each person pursues their own greed and yet to do so the winner is the one that serves people the best.

Define "best".

Let's take just a few of examples that might challenge the idea of the greediest is best. The Walton family and Walmart. I think we can agree they are rich and that they own a business that serves people. Judged by their wealth and the size of their company they must be "best". Yet their wealth is made from importing cheap from China. They have made a huge contribution to America's trade deficit with China. Employees are automatically enrolled on food stamps. Their buying power has successfully crowded out the smaller local business who lack the economies of scale of Walmart. Is what is best for Walmart really best for everyone else? I sincerely doubt it.

Let's take Erik Prince founder of Blackwater. A very rich fellah who trades in conflict and war. He recently gave an interview lobbying for the war in Afghanistan to be privatised and paid for by extracting Afghan mineral resources.

Let's take Jeff Bezos whose Amazon warehouse workers are tagged and refrain from drinking water because of limited rest breaks.

Let's take George Washington who made a fortune from the slave trade.

Let's take Foxconn who had to put safety nets around its factories to prevent suicides from the regular number of employees throwing themselves off the roof.

Let's take the various parts of the world where Western corporations have made huge profits where dictators have suppressed a population. Suharto who ran Indonesia for 31 years with Western support until 1998. Hundred of thousand killed. He quite deliberately suppressed his population and offered them up to the West as a cheap source of labour.

Billionaire retailer Sir Philip Green who bought his wife a £100m yacht whilst collapsing the BHS retail business and raiding their pension fund - is still a billionaire.

Tony Blair - helped start an illegal war that lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousand, and whilst not from a poor family (he was privately educated) he certainly did not issue from the ultra rich where he finds himself these days. He is now worth tens if not hundreds of millions all made from going around the world advising dictators and all the worst kinds of autocrats for very large fees.

Now let's look at some counter examples.

Tim Berner-Lee. invented the world wide webbed gave it away for no charge.

Volvo gave away their invention of the three-point seat belt. As they felt it too important to keep for themselves.

Mondragon - the largest cooperative business in the world. Total assets 24 billion. Employees around 100,000. Business model: socialistic.

José Alberto "Pepe" Mujica Coreano the 40th President of Uruguay who gave 90% of his salary away and always lived humbly.

Linux, FireFox, Gimp and many other open softwares.

As far as I can see their is little correlation between greed and best.

[Tcg]

[Replying to Tcg]

Rational theology is a good one. No one starts out thinking Christianity is rational...

And their first instinct is correct.

...and then you realise Jesus is the logos.

A long dead man is the living word? So much for rationality.

[Wootah]

Unions seek to protect jobs and wages and then the business is forced to move town, state or country and there are no jobs and wages to protect.

[Wootah]

First shall be last, last shall be first

I was thinking about how a king or leader is obviously first but then must hide themselves behind everyone else and are actually last.

Or like a celebrity who must then hide away.

[2ndRateMind]

Welfare creates poverty.

Hmmm.

Seems to me the thing that creates poverty is the rich hogging more than their fair share of the world's resources, rather than distributing them more equitably.

The 'inversion' is that the financially poor, who have to suffer the inequities of social injustice, are often richer in spirit than the complacent wealthy, who have never known hunger.

But, as you say, the last shall be first, and the first last*, come judgment day.

Best wishes, 2RM.

*Matthew 20:16 KJV

[Wootah]

[Replying to post 15 by Furrowed Brow]

Let's take just a few of examples that might challenge the idea of the greediest is best.

At no point did I say greedy was best. I am saying that in a free market economy one must serve in order to gain. No one is forced to walk into Waltons etc. It is the inversion of the greedy nature in all driving greedy self centred people to serve others.