Providentliving.org is a website from the LDS Church that provides self-reliance and welfare resources. Among theses resources is a list of quotes dealing with materialism.
Just one of the many quotes:
"Of course, none of us ever has enough. At least that is what we think. No matter our circumstances, we want to improve them. This, too, is good if it is not carried to an extreme. I am satisfied that the Father of us all does not wish His children to walk in poverty. He wants the best for them. He wants them to have comforts and some of the good things of the earth. . . . It is when greed takes over, when we covet that which others have, that our affliction begins. And it can be a very sore and painful affliction."
(Gordon B. Hinckley, Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley [1997], 252).
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4 comments:
I am so glad there are others like me!
Troy,
Since starting my blog I have discovered that there are tons of us! Check out LDS earth stewardship on the side bar.
I find that this quote is misused a lot. A lot of people at church will say, "It's okay to have nice things," read: it's okay to be materialistic/frivolous/vain, "it's just not okay for poor people to be jealous of rich people."
I don't feel that poor people should be jealous of rich people. May I live all my days in what is, by local standards, poverty, because even that would be wealthy by global standards. I do think, however, that people use this quote as a loophole a lot. People make a lot of rationalisations. It's okay to be a workoholic and ignore your family because you want nice things. It's okay to spend nauseating sums of money on the latest craze because it's important to look good by the world's standards. It's okay to look down on poor people because, after all, we're not supposed to live in poverty, so they're obviously doing something wrong.
Not that it's a bad quote, it just irks me how people abuse it.
H.K.B.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. From my position I only saw this quote as criticism of "more-more-more", validation that God dislikes humanity living in poverty, and a stern warning against greed.
I see now that this quote can certainly be twisted -as you pointed out. Thanks for helping me consider this quote in a new light.
Funny how we take what we want from quotes.
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