Money Madness is About Emotion

After all, money is nothing more nor less than a medium of exchange—without any intrinsic value itself. Or so the economists tell us. We carry money in our pockets and transact with it passively, automatically: Buy the muffin, pay the toll, slide the debit or credit card across the counter.

Money is neutral—a facilitator. So why is there an epidemic of money madness—and how does the contagion work?

The simple answer is that money madness isn't really about money at all. It's about emotion. It's about intensely subjective feelings that come out of a place very deep within us and go right past the conscious mind as they drive us to act in certain ways. As I learned through years of analyzing and working through my own and my clients’ money madness, it starts in childhood, yet it has the power to affect us all our adult lives.

- Spencer Sherman, The Cure for Money Madness

Before Cities, There Was Faith

In a place called Göbekli Tepe, archaeologists uncovered a temple that apparently dates to about 10,000 BC, which is about the time it is believed human civilization began. What has impressed archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians is that there is no evidence that this temple sprang up as a by-product of civilization.

 

In fact, the evidence suggests the reverse. That is, it was the building of the temple that drew people together and in effect sparked civilization. In other words, belief in God or gods preceded the building of the temple, which in turn preceded the emergence of cities and civilization. Belief in God or gods generated a felt need to build the temple as a way to connect with the divine. To build the temple required socialization and cooperation well beyond the demands of farming, herding livestock, and hunting. The building of the temple took human society to a new level and created what today we define as civilization. Religion is not a by-product of primitive society. Rather, religion gave birth to civilization and brought people together.

 

Archaeological work everywhere, in every corner of the world, finds temples in every ancient city. In fact, one can safely say that there was no city or civilization in human history that did not have at least one temple or building whose primary purpose was a religious one.

 

--- Jeremiah J. Johnston, Unimaginable: What Our World Would Be Like Without Christianity. 2017.