i am in my 28th year of gardening...and after you get a bigger garden you need to learn how to preserve and can all the produce that comes from your garden......i have a pantry full of good food that i know where it came from and how it was grown...be blessed in your gardening.

Gardening is an act of subversion, a symbolic victory in an empire composed in part of transnational corporations.”

I thought that was the humorous note!  Then you started talking about your mother and the eeevil machine and I realized that you were serious.

And I realized that here is some poor kid who's had his mind destroyed by modern philosophy.  He is stuck in a particular moment in time unable to look back and unable to connect his life to all the other dots in time that led to the one he is in.  If he were able to connect to the past he would see the glory of creation.

But the mind and soul thus unhinged and isolated from reality create these mythic mechanical beasts (the heinous and soul sucking vending maching) like the creators of The Terminator doing Looney Tunes, and the unseen, superpowerful demi-gods called, multinational corporation.  These are actually metaphors for the fear that the unhinged mind creates because it is so far out into the territory called "Nowhere".

Mix in a little biblical hellfire, jeeeesus!, a brain stutter spelled "G-d" and you have one hell a mad, superstitious mess.

And the creepiest part of all is that the brain stutter "G-d" spelled backwards results in another brain stutter "d-G".  Such arcane and utterly profound knowledge should throw all those "G-d" stuttering heathens on their collective ears!!

The Great Me has spoken and proclaimed gardening g--d!!    Just because it's fun.  Just because home grown veggies taste great!!  And finally, just because.

@TheGreatBout@xanga - First you call me a commie (or a terrible steward) and now a heathen.

It's called hyperbole.

Gardening as a victory against multinational corporations is communist thinking and has nothing to do with Christianity.  Communism is an abomination, an affront to the decency and dignity of man.  On the other hand, corporations are organizations that effectively and efficiently deliver goods and services to a free, law abiding society.  They enrich society. 

Before the capitalism and the invention of the corporation, plumbing and running water were not available to most people.  Same goes for good roads, plenty of food, great medicine.  That is because society in general was too poor to afford them.  Capitalism lifted the life of the common man and freed it from poverty's mericiless yoke.  

If you believe what a communist believes then you are a communist.  Assigning the appropriate adjective to your beliefs is not name calling.  And yes, there are no worse stewards than communists. 

Read the Parable of the Talents.  You'll see Jesus use a capitalist principle to explain what good stewardship is.

@TheGreatBout@xanga - Do you think Jesus was a capitalist (or would be today?)

Jesus is the Son of God.  That is what he would be today. 

@LoBornlite@xanga - "Jesus is the Son of God.  That is what he would be today."

I fully agree.

@TheGreatBout@xanga - Would you say I'm mixed up in fallacy, heresy, or a different opinion?

Yes. 

It is doctrine and history that apply the shoe.

@TheGreatBout@xanga - I don't think G-D supports any economic system that oppresses people. Communism does this. So does capitalism.

How does capitalism oppress people?  That is nonsense.  In a capitalist system everyone is free to become independently wealthy at a young age!  Being a good steward of money and buying assets instead of material goods will free a person from ever having to work again.

That means it is possible for a capitalist system to produce a huge population of people who can dedicate their entire lives to full time ministry.  Just think of the possibilities!

Also, capitalism creates wealth.  God creates.  It is very easy to see that creativity is Godly not oppressive.

@LoBornlite@xanga - Capitalism oppresses people by encouraging entities to gather unrestrained power, and then tying the wealth of others not to their own work but to the success of those powerful entities.  What makes those entities successful in a marketplace full of competing entities?  Cutting labor costs and overhead.  What is one good way to cut labor costs and overhead?  Paying workers as little as you can get away with.  How can you continue paying workers so little?  Create structures in which they cannot escape.  Hence you end up with Chinese workers creating our Nike shoes to the tune of 12 cents an hour under armed guard.

Surely you have to realize that capitalism cannot free every person from ever having to work again, and as those who do not have to work consume proportionally more and more than those who have to work, those who work are working more to fill the need. 

Also, capitalism cannot create wealth.  Capitalism redistributes wealth in ridiculous ways.  How else can you account for the fact that in America, the top 1 percent of the population owns more than the bottom seventy percent does?  Either way, creativity can be either godly or oppressive.  There are some creative torture techniques. 

Should a Christian be a communist?  Absolutely not.  Should American Christians participate in the free market system.  Absolutely.  But we can't equate the free-market system with the Kingdom of God.  "Blessed are the poor" just turns that on its head.

@LoBornlite@xanga -

How does capitalism oppress people?  That
is nonsense.  In a capitalist system everyone is free to become
independently wealthy at a young age!  Being a good steward of money
and buying assets instead of material goods will free a person from
ever having to work again.

That means it is possible for a
capitalist system to produce a huge population of people who can
dedicate their entire lives to full time ministry.  Just think of the
possibilities!

Also, capitalism creates wealth.  God creates.  It is very easy to see that creativity is Godly not oppressive.

 Name one capitalistic country where all of this happens.

@subSacred@xanga - Name one capitalistic country where all of this happens.

The United States.  Europe, China, Japan, Austrialia, Malasia, Singapore, Taiwan, Switzerland, Germany, France, Ireland, etc.  The compounding of money is a well known law.  The principles of investing are also well known.  And with today's global market a person can invest money anywhere it grows the fastests. 

One of the things that disgusts me about public education is that we are taught to be consumers instead of investors.  I teach my students that whenever they spend their money on a doodad they are making someone else rich.  And that the trick is to get people to buy YOUR doodads so YOU become rich.

@SirNickDon@xanga -  Capitalism oppresses people by encouraging entities to gather unrestrained power, and then tying the wealth of others not to their own work but to the success of those powerful entities. 

That is simply not true.  It is one of those communist urban legends.  Entities need people, free and educated to work.  If these entities abuse their power they are sued into oblivion.  Also, there is a mutually beneficial relationship between capital and labor.  And tell the world how you are oppressed by Archer Daniels Midland or any of the huge multinationals that provide goods and services at incredible prices.

Anyone can become a success in a capitalistic economy.  IBM and Xerox did not and could not stop Bill Gates.  Two garage hacks created the best PC in the world:  Jobs and Wozniac.

The list goes on and on of little guys making it big.  And what about the countless multitudes that have become rich simply by saving their money and spending wisely?  That can only happen where capital can be put to work in a free market.

In the communist-facist world, let's see a list of little guys who made it big.  Hmm, there's Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein.

Gosh, not very many compared to capitalism and gee, every last one of them just happens to be a mass murderer.  The multitudes slaughtered by the communists:  100,000,000.

In capitalism the multitudes get rich.  In communism the multitudes get slaughtered.

THAT is reality.

@soy_esteban@xanga - As Christians should we strive to be rich?

No.  We should strive to be the best we can be.  We live in an insanely rich country where getting rich is as natural as bird flight.  Who better than Christians to take stewardship of such immense wealth?

If being rich is full of woe, than it is our Cross to bear.  Wealthy capitalists are the greatest philanthropists.  Capitalist America is always at hand for massive giving in times of disaster.