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Atheist Forums › Community › Philosophy v
Greed is Underrated

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Greed is Underrated
AFTT47 Offline
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#1
Greed is Underrated
January 23, 2019 at 12:55 am
I'm a liberal but I feel the need to comment on the perceptive evil of greed.

I'm a huge fan of what I call The Human Spirit. That spirit is a drive to improve both one's self and the human race as a whole.

Why should anyone have a problem with that?
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Albert Einstein
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Anomalocaris Offline
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#2
RE: Greed is Underrated
January 23, 2019 at 1:37 am
(January 23, 2019 at 12:55 am)AFTT47 Wrote: I'm a liberal but I feel the need to comment on the perceptive evil of greed.

I'm a huge fan of what I call The Human Spirit. That spirit is a drive to improve both one's self and the human race as a whole.

Why should anyone have a problem with that?

Greed is the spirit to improve self at the expense of human race other than self, not to improve self and the human race as a whole.

I have a problem with that so long as I am the human race other than self rather than the self.
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Mr.Obvious Offline
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#3
RE: Greed is Underrated
January 23, 2019 at 2:00 am (This post was last modified: January 23, 2019 at 2:00 am by Mr.Obvious.)
Individual greed isn't too bad.
But its societal acceptance and deployment make it the worst and most dangerous of the. Seven sins. Imho.
"If we go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, suggesting 69.
[Image: 41bebac06973488da2b0740b6ac37538.jpg]-
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onlinebiker Offline
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#4
RE: Greed is Underrated
January 23, 2019 at 3:12 am
But Greedo is a worse shot than a stormtrooper...


[Image: greedo-and-han-solo1.jpg?quality=98&strip=all&w=1024]
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Belacqua Offline
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#5
RE: Greed is Underrated
January 23, 2019 at 3:41 am (This post was last modified: January 23, 2019 at 3:42 am by Belacqua.)
(January 23, 2019 at 12:55 am)AFTT47 Wrote: I'm a liberal but I feel the need to comment on the perceptive evil of greed.

I'm a huge fan of what I call The Human Spirit. That spirit is a drive to improve both one's self and the human race as a whole.

Why should anyone have a problem with that?

I think the word "greed" contains a bad nuance. To me, it indicates bad wanting. Just as murder is always wrong, because it means "wrong killing." If the killing is OK, we call it something else. 

Since Plato, desire has been seen as the driving force in all improvement. Plato's Symposium makes it very clear that while desire for a cute lover is the entrance level desire, wise people will learn to aim that same desiring force to better aims. 

Dante's Divine Comedy is all about desire. We are correct to want passionately and unremittingly the things that lift us toward what is good. Dante would call such desire the love of God, while he would call greed, or gluttony, etc., a misdirected desire toward something we think is good at the moment, but, in the long run, isn't. 

While Buddhists may see desire as something to be eliminated, Christian tradition sees it as essential. The trick is to desire the right things.
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The Valkyrie Online
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#6
RE: Greed is Underrated
January 23, 2019 at 4:31 am
Greed is Eternal!

Bloody ferengi!
Dying to live, living to die.
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onlinebiker Offline
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#7
RE: Greed is Underrated
January 23, 2019 at 8:03 am
(January 23, 2019 at 4:31 am)The Valkyrie Wrote: Greed is Eternal!

Bloody ferengi!

Rules of acquisition #10

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Jackalope Offline
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#8
RE: Greed is Underrated
January 23, 2019 at 12:17 pm
(January 23, 2019 at 12:55 am)AFTT47 Wrote: I'm a liberal but I feel the need to comment on the perceptive evil of greed.

I'm a huge fan of what I call The Human Spirit. That spirit is a drive to improve both one's self and the human race as a whole.

Why should anyone have a problem with that?

Greed is not a drive to improve both ones self and the human race. It's a desire to enrich one's self, full stop.
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Yonadav Offline
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#9
RE: Greed is Underrated
January 23, 2019 at 1:25 pm
Pretty much everything is both good and bad. Greed is good when it is mixed in the correct proportion with other things. It is bad when it is a disproportionately large part of the mix.
We do not inherit the world from our parents. We borrow it from our children.
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Greed is Underrated



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