So you just proved your own argument false. By the way, it is not money, but the love of money that is root cause.
No, the churches accumulate vast amounts of wealth because of the tax exemption. That wealth builds a nice wall around the church.
It is not money, it is the love of money that is the problem. It is materialism. Materialism, Greed, Avarice Quotes "The terrible, cold, cruel part is Wall Street. Rivers of gold flow there from all over the earth, and death comes with it. There, as nowhere else, you feel a total absence of the spirit: herds of men who cannot count past three, herds more who cannot get past six, scorn for pure science and demoniacal respect for the present. And the terrible thing is that the crowd that fills the street believes that the world will always be the same and that it is their duty to keep that huge machine running, day and night, forever." - Federico Garcia Lorca - Spanish Poet and Playwright It is useless to shout to the drowning moneylender â Give me your hand !â He does not know how to give. Instead, shout: â Take my hand !â and he will clutch at it. It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly. --Thoreau Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol: you want it not for itself, but because it will content your spirit for the moment. --Mark Twain An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit. âPliny the Younger Much of our activity these days is nothing more than a cheap anesthetic to deaden the pain of an empty life.--Unknown Purposeless activity may be a phase of death. --Pearl S. Buck Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it. âKierkegaard Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.â Thoreau There is something perverse about more than enough. When we have more, it is never enough. It is always somewhere out there, just out of reach. The more we acquire, the more elusive enough becomes. âUnknown Possessions are usually diminished by possession. âNietzsche What a miserable thing life is: you're living in clover, only the clover isn't good enough. --Bertolt Brecht The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury. --Charlie Chaplin You cry over spilled champagne! Your complaints are not over the lack of necessities, but the abundance of benefits. You bellyache over the frills, not the basics. Over benefits not essentials. The source of your problem is your blessing. âUnknown Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. --Thoreau It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have everything one wants.-- Blaise Pascal The man who pets a lion may tame it, but the man who coddles the body makes it ravenous.-- John Climacus The most terrible thing about materialism, even more terrible than its proneness to violence, is its boredom, from which sex, alcohol, drugs, all devices for putting out the accusing light of reason and suppressing the unrealizable aspirations of love, offer a prospect of deliverance. --Malcolm Muggeridge Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed. --Albert Einstein The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. --Jesus Nothing makes us more vulnerable than loneliness, except greed. --Thomas Harris Lust is all GETâLove is all GIVE. âUnknown All earthly joy begins pleasantly, but at the end it gnaws and kills. --Thomas aâKempis Let us treasure up in our soul some of those things which are permanent..., not of those which will forsake us and be destroyed, and which only tickle our senses for a little while... --Gregory of Nazianzus Materialism is the only form of distraction from true bliss. --Doug Horton Money doesn't talk, it swears. --Bob Dylan The tighter you squeeze, the less you have. --Thomas Merton You say, 'If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.' You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled. --Charles Haddon Spurgeon Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed.--Mahatma Gandhi Thousands upon thousands are yearly brought into a state of real poverty by their great anxiety not to be thought of as poor.âRobert Mallett Itâs a cultural disability in America that we worship pleasure, leisure, and affluence. I think the church is doubly damned when they use Jesus as a vehicle for achieving all of that. Like, if you give a tithe, He'll make you rich. Why? Are you hacking Him off or something? If you give a tithe, you get rid of ten percent of the root of all evil. You should be giving ninety percent. Cause God can handle money better than we can.âRich Mullins The future of civilization depends on our overcoming the meaninglessness and hopelessness that characterizes the thoughts of men today. --Albert Schweitzer So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning. --Morrie Schwartz Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life, and the labors of life reduce themselves. --Edwin Way Teale He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. --Jim Elliot Do not think me mad. It is not to make money that I believe a Christian should live. The noblest thing a man can do is, just humbly to receive, and then go amongst others and give. --David Livingstone The be-all and end-all of life should not be to get rich, but to enrich the world. -- B. C. Forbes A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.--D. Elton Trueblood Learn to live a life of honest poverty, if you must, and turn to more important matters than transporting gold to your grave. â Credenda That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest. -- Thoreau "Greed is good! Greed is right! Greed works! Greed will save the USA!" - From movie Wall Street - 1987 "Hell has three gates: lust, anger, and greed" - Bhagavad Gita