#123: God and Mammon

"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon (money).” Attributed to Jesus Christ - Matthew 6:24

Another quote, attributed to Mark Twain was, “it is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have already been fooled.”

Whether either of these quotes are properly attributed or not, as far as I am concerned, they are both true. If you aren't interested in truth, but would rather be content with the confused lies of your sworn enemies, who would rather that you did THEM a favor and went off somewhere and died quietly, then you can stop reading right now.

This is going to be a “take no prisoners” article. It probably should have been among the first published here. The reason it wasn't is that E. C. Riegel and we as Americans, familiar with the genuinely democratic and liberal American social fabric (understanding that our enemies have appropriated BOTH of these attributes to themselves to fool us, for THEY are neither liberal nor democratic), understand that not everyone who would adopt the Valun and the proposed exchange network, would necessarily have to belong to any particular church, sect or even believe in God. Participation is left open to all who can fulfill the minimum requirements of membership: age, domicile and dues.

Nevertheless, like it or not, we're going to address service to God and service to money head on. We expect that many who read what we have to say here may be annoyed or even made downright angry. Emotional reactions are natural without proper foundations. For those who aren't Christians, perhaps you can or would skip this post. That's up to you.

I am going to address head on a few attitudes peculiar to Christians in particular about money, because it is time to kick Mammon into the ditch where he belonged a few hundred, nay a few thousand years ago, and make sure that nobody ever thinks anything more of money than one thinks of a common garden shovel when this post is done.

Readers are also admonished that I intend on brooking no accusations, criticisms or attempts to blunt what has always seemed to me perfectly obvious. You can have it your way, and continue to serve Mammon, or see it my way and begin serving God. Again, the choice is yours.

The quote attributed to Mark Twain, whether he said it or not, remains valid. One of the things this blog has consistently attempted to do is WAKE PEOPLE UP to the very subtle ways THEY have deliberately used words, ideas, concepts to put into your mind to fool you. THEY HAVE SUCCEEDED IN FOIOLING YOU and have been at it for thousands of years and yet people put up with it and even defend their own brainwashing against any attempts to convince them otherwise. Why? Because Mark Twain or whomever said it was correct.  Those who have already been successfully fooled are not as easily convinced that they are already brainwashed.  So, up to this point in history THEY have won; the better to steal from you. Simple as that.

Do you know what repentance is? It's to turn away from error, stupidity, the breaking of God's laws, etc. Repentance includes turning away from THEIR definitions of things and begin to see things as they really are, including the words that come out of your mouth. When I hear an ordinary person living from paycheck to paycheck extol capitalism without any comprehension of free PRIVATE enterprise, and they are NOT the same at all, I know I'm dealing with a fool. Regurgitating the common LIES in school might have won you high marks from your teachers, but never guaranteed that you could think straight on your own or even grasp the underlying meanings in the words you use. Part of the waking up process is to turn away from THEM, THEIR word usages, meanings, ideas, ideologies, etc. in order to see better (that eye salve mentioned in Revelation required to see where you truly are in this world).

In the last few days, I have for example tried to explain what capitalism is in its essence, to bring to the fore free PRIVATE enterprise as everyone's divinely appointed right, whereas capitalism is just a rich man's itch with his excess money, to make more of it without his having to produce any tangible good or service. We need and want champions who recognize what genuine free PRIVATE enterprise is as opposed to mere capitalism. Yet the usual responses have been to bend back the popular definition of capitalism to include all the self employed entrepreneurial businesses out there, whether these have any capital associated with them or not.

There is also the completely expected by THEM automatic knee jerk reaction – if you don't support capitalism, you must be a socialist. Sure, fall right into THEIR dialectic; either capitalism or socialism. THEY want you to think there's nothing else. THEY are laughing at you from behind the curtains of society when THEY deserve to be called out as LIARS and worse and shown where THEY truly belong and where a great many of THEM are going; straight into the lake of fire! Where will Mystery Babylon go when it is finished? Perdition, Hell, the lake of fire! Destruction!  Understood?

The idea expressed by the famous quote attributed to Jesus Christ of course deserves thoughtful attention. First of all, we consider this statement authoritative; we wouldn't even consider questioning it. You either serve God or you go your own way and may serve Mammon or any other false god of your choice. That's always been up to you. It's what freedom is all about; you can choose what to think, do, be or how to act. We will attempt to expose how perception, action and reality affect this situation in basic terms between service to God and service to Mammon. It's not very difficult.

Let's begin with Mammon, a false god, often identified with money. Mammon, commonly thought to mean money, material wealth, an entity that promises wealth or associated with the greedy pursuit of gain, may be identified with an ancient Syrian deity; a god of riches or perhaps in the Punic language with gain, profit, increase or that in which one trusts, in this particular instance, instead of trusting in Almighty God.

We want to examine this whole business very closely. We can only do so by laying bare the obvious concerning THEIR money, all of it, from precious metals to cryptocurrencies and all the rest of THEIR STOLEN fiat national and supranational currencies, because right now, that is all the money that exists. We have none of our own that clearly belongs to us, because we didn't issue it. We will compare THEIRS, all of which we regard as illegitimate to begin with, though it certainly is money, because it performs the tasks required of money, to split barter, with ours as proposed in this blog.

So, to begin with, what do all of THEIR brands of money have in common? Scarcity! All of THEIR money is a scarce commodity. THEIR economics, a mixture of obvious reality and equally obvious lies, would have you believe that the scarcity of anything at any instant in time is what determines the value of anything and the relative value of everything; determination of prices. Carried to the ultimate extremity, there is only so much and there are too many people that want that stuff, so we need wars, killer diseases and other means to reduce the excess population; the obvious message is that after all you aren't worth anything in and of yourself, you have no will to decide for yourself either, so why don't you just do your betters a favor and go off somewhere and die quietly, so you would help restore the “balance of Nature” to planet Earth. THAT is what THEY have taught all of us since forever. It's time to stop it! The first thing you do is admit that you have been fooled. Stop believing that you know anything because THEY told you so, etc. THEY deliberately fooled you so THEY could continue to rob you of what is rightfully yours.

What would happen in a world of abundance? What about THEIR conception of wealth vs. our conception of wealth? What about value? What if the innate value of each individual natural person were much more than THEY ever consider? How would our relations with money change were there never any further need to worship something instead of merely using it as another tool at our disposal? We will want to examine greed too, exactly what it is, how it can be spotted, understood and ultimately defeated. How about gluttony, excessive materialism, and unjust worldly gain? What in our proposal defeats much of this?

What E. C. Riegel and the efforts to continue this proposal intend is to free mankind from the worship of money, so that more important pursuits could get our full attention, like serving Almighty God, taking care of each other and like developing our own abilities and discovering and building our own wealth.

In a previous post we examined something about the intended mechanism for each one of you to monetize yourself using your own money and make it in the form of a contract that you have with the Valun trading community. We suggested that a standard high school diploma would be worth a thousand Valuns. We will consider what other diplomas, degrees or armed service experience would be worth as well. I know of no other alternative to THEIR system that ever considers any of this. Yet when I was once a technical recruiter, among the highest rated individuals were those with a good armed service record (veterans) and those with degrees from second or even third rate technical schools. Some employers told me to eliminate from consideration anyone who graduated from an ivy league school. Apparently, it was known the kinds of attitudes and ideas these places propagated and employers were not interested in having them among their employees.

Was that discrimination? Let me slap a few of you right upside the head; we are all entitled to free association with anyone we choose and can decide not to associate with whomever we choose for any reason whatsoever. THAT is what the 1^st Amendment is all about and is the bedrock of American social understanding. Any so called law that infringes on those rights is automatically unconstitutional, whether said law has ever been tried or tested before a court of law or not. Period!

Let's go back and take a look at that famous painting of Mammon. He has a bag of coins in his right hand, held aloft and yet away from the woman who pleads with him for them. She is willing to give him whatever he wants for those coins. He wants her worship and whatever else he can get from her for the few coins he bestows upon her. You can bet that he intends on lending them to her at interest to be taken from money that isn't in that bag too. So where does she get that money that never existed? From some other equally poor struggling person. THAT is the essence of all THEIR money. If you thought that maybe this blog and its proposal were just another way to become rich without contributing anything to the rest of society, you've come to the wrong place. Might as well go be a speculator on the FOREX exchange that cheats all the local people to ensure that some “world leaders” have stable prices. THEIR economics tells you that speculators and usury are both economic necessities. So are taxes. Some politicians expect you to vote for them even though they promise to raise your taxes. These are people who live off the productivity of others and consider it their right to do so; literal satanists, those who believe they have a right to live off of or feed from others, who don't even have to believe in a personified Satan.

THEIR economics will tell you that all you need to have inflation – rising prices – is to print more of THEIR money; too much money chasing whatever store of goods and services exists. But not every unit of THEIR money is chasing all of those goods and services at the same time, so the issue with inflation also concerns whatever measures some government might be doing that frustrates and even destroys productivity causing fewer goods and services to be offered for sale. We are living under such a reality right now. What was done in every country experiencing hyperinflation? Too much money was issued and less and less was produced at the same time. That leads to a Weimar meltdown every time it's tried; Zimbabwe and Venezuela being among the latest countries to experience this.

How about deflation? That's where money is taken out of circulation or more of it dies in depreciation of assets than can be stored up or saved, so prices fall. Deflation also affects labor, because there isn't enough money to pay for higher valued labor, so fewer people have work. What would THEIR economists have to say about it? There's an excess population that should just go away somewhere and die quietly.

Our response is simple; PEOPLE (natural persons), not things, ideas or machines, have value. In fact we are the ONLY basis for value at all, since WE decide what to buy and when to buy it or what to sell and when to sell it. A hundred years or so ago when horseless carriages began to make their appearance, the era of horses and buggies came to an end and with it a whole lot of related industries and activities. Overnight in some instances, these things lost their value almost entirely. Nobody wanted them anymore except for a few Amish families scattered here and there.

Therefore, if any machine, activity, system or idea does not serve us, it has no value! Is THAT understood? We can and will relegate any robotics or AI or anything like crony capitalism, as if there is any other kind at the moment, to the dustbin of history. Likewise any Marxism, collectivism, socialism, communism, etc. only serves THEM not us and therefore belongs in the same trashcan. Is that absolutely clear? These complementary ideas, capitalism and socialism, were all developed by the same people who regard you and me as “the masses,” not people and have the ruthless temerity to regard a lot of us as “useless eaters” when THEY in fact would have nothing without us. While we're at it we can jolly well dump Keynesianism and the so called “Austrians” as frauds too, just two sides of the same coin. We can and will develop our own economics based on simple applications of the production function and the limitations of scale for any enterprise and begin to have things our own way, not THEIRS. If not, we will be THEIR slaves and things will pretty soon get much worse for most people. I remind you all, THEIR stated objective is to have most of you dead.

Yet finance, the ability to buy things we can't afford, does have its uses and must be considered within the framework of any proposed alternative to THEIR monetary bondage. This proposal includes means to set up HONEST finance businesses that must rent the money they have to lend and charge for it, but must do so from money that already exists, not from non existent money, as usury demands. Only then will capitalism be rescued from THEIR pernicious and evil grip.

Money with intrinsic value? Says who? Speculators no doubt. These are generally shifless people in far away places that you don't even know who would rather gamble than pursue any honest work. Precious metals? If you buy a silver eagle, make sure it's clean and put it in a pitcher of water and drink from that pitcher. Leave your coin there. The silver will disinfect that water. Of course you will use filtered water only, as you do not want to drink “packaged” water; water straight out of the tap. That's a reasonable use for a chunk of silver. We're not sure a chunk of gold even has that much usefulness. Then why base the exchange rate for our money on gold? Because we intend on defeating the lure of gold and thereby killing Mammon! Understood?

Now we're going after all the 501(c)(3) organizations, especially churches. A 501(c)(3) organization is a corporation, trust, unincorporated association, or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 501(c) nonprofit organizations in the US. Let's consider what this means. It means that your organization isn't supposed to make any money or produce or build any wealth. Recall what we have consistently said on this blog concerning wealth. If it doesn't produce income, it isn't wealth, it's just stuff. What does an organization that organizes itself this way give up besides income taxes? That's right, someone outside the organization has power over it to tell it what it can and cannot do, can and cannot teach, can and cannot acquire, etc. etc.

What were churches in the beginning? They were assemblies of ordinary people (natural persons) who came together to worship God, to read and study scriptures and to help each other find work and even lodging and further their businesses, whatever they might be. In various parts of the Greek and Roman world, churches were more like motels, where traveling believers could find food and shelter, usually for a price too. The apostles were all skilled in whatever they did to earn a living; Peter and Andrew were fisherman, Paul a tent maker and Matthew was a lawyer. Luke was a physician. Remember, we are not adverse to the proper practice of law on this blog and believe strongly that like it or not, society is far better served with lawyers than without them. Matthew might have been a tax collector too, so he was no doubt an accountant and accountants and various others who must keep numerical records do actual work. The same for physicians, nurses, etc.

Another matter that needs to be faced head on is literacy. In ancient times, few people could read and write. Those who could were called SCRIBES and every great ancient empire had special schools and training for scribes. These days, more people can read and write and so we have taken these literacy skills for granted. Yet in the past and even in some instances today, people who know how to read and write are employed in various ways to inform and help those who can not read, can not write and may never be able to do so. There are quite a few out there who cannot do simple arithmetic, cannot count, cannot deal with numbers. Various claims that up to 90% of any population is literate are bogus by the way, just another common lie told to make politicians and their often inhuman ideas seem more popular and reasonable.

So let's really get into it. When you go to church, they pass the plate and ask for tithes and offerings. An offering is whatever you want to give to the assembly and that's fine, but there are those who claim that one must pledge ten percent of one's income to a church or one is cheating God! This is claimed FALSELY as tithing. Tithes go back into ancient times and have their origins in the idea of a family trust; a fund of money that an extended family puts aside to benefit family members in need, or to raise money for a family related project. Tithing could and did also involve the idea of a dowry given to a husband who married a women to take care of her. The dowry didn't belong to him, but he was responsible for taking care of her therefore the dowry was entrusted to him. A tithe was ALWAYS taken out of an increase rather than out of a steady income. If a business had a particularly good season above the usual income for that enterprise, the excess was tithed to the extended family's trust. Contracts involving tithes go back at least 4,000 years in practice. Whenever I hear any clergy make such claims, that someone refusing to give 10% of their regular income is cheating God, I stand up and walk right out. I will not stand for being lied to or extorted in this way by anyone. How dare you!

So we have two counts against this widespread erroneous teaching; tithes were always within an extended family, NOT a wider assembly and therefore had nothing whatsoever to do with any pledge system set up to maintain a church and secondly they were NEVER extorted from a regular income but ONLY given from an increase ABOVE the level of regular income. So is it any wonder that churches have become lukewarm toward God and ineffectual toward many of their congregations? The first issue is control by some unaffiliated government official or bureaucrat in what any 501(c)(3) can do, including what they teach and the second is that churches are thus driven to extortion schemes claiming that to do otherwise cheats God. Honestly, God does not want or care about any of Mammon's money. When someone needed tax money, Christ had a fish retrieve it for them. Why isn't this more obvious? Because THEY have hoodwinked us once again. What's the solution? Churches had better consider themselves operating members of the local business community or give it up. Serve God rather than THEM or in this instance serving Mammon.

Let's deal with greed now. Supposedly greed is the intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food. But this definition hides the obvious. We have a precise definition on this blog for selfishness. To us a selfish person deliberately takes advantage of someone else for their own benefit, including the satanist who may even resort to devouring someone else. The definition of greed presented here ignores the most obvious observation; a greedy person is never satisfied.

A recent drive viewing various for sale signs on houses included some larger places, even estates and mansions that had been for sale for a longer period of time. Many are attracted to the idea of having some large place, but can't imagine what it takes to actually keep such a place up. They usually require that the owner have access to servants who may live on the property along with the owners. The most common kinds of servants were housekeepers and gardeners.

How much is enough? Why aren't the owners satisfied to live more modestly? What happens when the cost to keep up such a place exceeds their income, means or other real wealth? How many abandoned properties have you seen on various videos that circulate out there where people break into them and find these places loaded with an abundance of things, but nobody lives there anymore because these places were subject to many actual laws which have FORCE behind them? One is the diminishing returns to scale law. Remember that one? Every greedy person in the world eventually becomes subject to that one. Hoarders may acquire mountains of stuff that due to the sheer magnitude become useless and worthless. Greed is the apparent symptom of something worse, the greedy individual, or group, cannot or will not be satisfied.

There's also Stein's law. Remember that one? If an activity cannot continue, it will stop. If the process of acquisition becomes unsupportable, it will stop. This applies to corporations, nations, families, groups, individuals. Again, back in ancient times, one could employ a servant, but there was a limit of seven years. After that, if a servant wanted to remain for life, there was some kind of brand put on them and they were slaves for life. People also became slaves if they were captured in war or if they were sold into slavery for some other good or service. This is where literally a body of a natural person became money. This accounts for what was done to many who came from Africa. Serfdom is where slaves actually came with the property, so when the property changed owners, the people went along with it and had to serve and obey the new owner, like it or not. No serf could ever leave the property or travel about.

All of this applies directly and indirectly to the appearances of greed as the result of the inability to be satisfied. In any crisis, panic buying usually occurs whether the buyer is aware that they may never need as much as they have bought. Nevertheless there are natural laws. You can pile up as much as you can without dealing with the obvious, that something is wrong with you that you can never be satisfied. Is greed a spiritual issue? You bet it is. Still want to be serving Mammon?

This is a serious proposal, not like anything THEY have in mind because after all THEY already replaced THEIR precious metals with THEIR STOLEN fiat credit instruments and have nothing more in THEIR minds than another brand of the same thing. What did Catherine Austin Fitts just tell us? That cryptocurrencies were not currencies, but control mechanisms. What have we said about ALL of THEIR money? That it's STOLEN fiat; THEY have stolen your will to contract which includes issuing your own money to satisfy your barter requirements. Barter has never gone away and no transaction using money is ever completed until goods are traded for goods, services for services or some combination of the same.

All STOLEN fiat currencies are based on nothing except the authority of the issuer, a bank, to have their chief debtors, governments, FORCE repayment; they are borrowed into existence and become valuable only due to some government, acting as the enslaved best credit risk of the issuing bank, to FORCE people to use them. Eventually they revert to their true value which is nothing. What is the value of a proposed Valun? It is a piece of purchasing power at a particular point in time that cannot be purchased for anything less than that initial value. [Right now, 17 April, 2020, that's $2.20 because a two new inception points for the Valun have been reached.]  No proposed international standard value unit or Valun will ever trade for under that amount in dollars. If the price of gold eclipses the inception price, a new inception price is reached and the Valun trades for more dollars. Ultimately those dollars are used to buy gold. We'll only take gold for them too, so eventually most of the circulating gold will fall into possession of the Valun exchanges where it belongs, with the people, so that no Mammon can ever arise again!

So during these weird times, be as safe and secure as you can out there. You know what to do. Remember that the original basis for society was LIFE, LIBERTY and PROPERTY not LIBERTY, EQUALITY and FRATERNITY which are the three evil frogs spoken of in Revelation. Protect and love each other. Those who believe can pray for God's deliverance and help spread the news and views of this proposal widely. Nothing comes from nothing, therefore everyone must consider what they need to do to make this proposal a working reality. We do this in service to God and in order to defeat Mammon once and for all.

David Burton
dpbmss@mail.com