#Money and Faith

[tmarshconnors]

The Rich Rule Over the Poor!

In today’s culture, debt is often viewed as a normal part of life. Whether it’s taking out student loans, financing a car, or relying on credit cards to cover expenses, many people are accustomed to borrowing money. But financial expert Dave Ramsey warns against this mindset, drawing from a biblical principle found in Proverbs 22:7: “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.” For Ramsey, this verse serves as a profound warning about the dangers of debt and a call to pursue financial freedom.

Debt as Modern-Day Slavery

When discussing debt, Ramsey doesn’t mince words. He often refers to debt as a form of modern-day slavery. Just as a servant is bound to their master, someone in debt is bound to their lender. Each month, a portion of their hard-earned income is already spoken for—sent off to pay for past purchases, often with interest. This, according to Ramsey, is a form of bondage.

People in debt often lose their ability to make decisions based on what’s best for their future because their past borrowing controls their present and future income. As Ramsey puts it, being in debt means you’ve sold your freedom to the lender. The greater the debt, the less freedom you have to make choices that align with your goals and dreams. Instead, you’re working to satisfy the demands of the creditor.

The Stress and Anxiety of Borrowed Money

Debt isn’t just a financial burden; it’s also an emotional one. Ramsey frequently highlights the stress that debt can cause. The fear of missing a payment, the anxiety of mounting interest, and the constant juggling of bills can take a heavy toll on a person’s mental and emotional well-being. This stress doesn’t just stay confined to finances; it often spills over into relationships, health, and overall life satisfaction.

In fact, studies show that financial stress is one of the leading causes of marital conflict. When debt becomes overwhelming, it can lead to arguments, resentment, and even divorce. Ramsey is quick to point out that eliminating debt can significantly reduce stress and create a more peaceful home life.

Achieving Financial Independence

One of Ramsey’s core messages is that avoiding debt is key to achieving financial independence. When you live debt-free, your income is yours to control, rather than being obligated to a creditor. This financial freedom allows you to save, invest, and plan for the future in ways that aren’t possible when you’re tied down by debt.

Ramsey advocates for a lifestyle of living within your means, which is the opposite of the “buy now, pay later” mentality that’s so prevalent today. He encourages people to delay gratification, save for major purchases, and build an emergency fund to avoid going into debt when life’s unexpected expenses arise. By doing so, individuals can protect themselves from falling into the debt trap and remain in control of their financial future.

Biblical Wisdom for Modern Money Management

Dave Ramsey’s teachings are deeply rooted in biblical principles, and Proverbs 22:7 is one of the cornerstones of his philosophy. Ramsey believes that the Bible offers timeless wisdom on money management, and that following these teachings can lead to a more peaceful and prosperous life.

In addition to avoiding debt, Ramsey emphasizes other biblical principles like generosity, wise stewardship, and contentment. He believes that by applying these principles, individuals can achieve both financial peace and spiritual fulfillment. For Ramsey, financial success isn’t just about accumulating wealth—it’s about using money in a way that honors God and benefits others.

From Borrowing to Building Wealth

One of the most powerful shifts that can occur when you move from borrowing to building wealth is the change in mindset. Ramsey teaches that wealth-building begins once you stop borrowing money. When you’re not sending payments to creditors every month, you have the freedom to invest in your future.

This is where Ramsey’s famous Baby Steps come into play. He encourages people to start by building a small emergency fund, then aggressively paying off all their debt (except for their mortgage), and finally moving on to saving for the future and giving generously. These steps are designed to help people break free from debt and begin building lasting wealth.

Conclusion: Choosing Freedom Over Bondage

Proverbs 22:7 serves as a powerful reminder of the dangers of debt. Dave Ramsey’s teachings on this verse challenge the cultural norm that debt is inevitable or even desirable. Instead, Ramsey encourages us to choose financial freedom over financial bondage.

By avoiding debt, living within our means, and applying biblical principles to our finances, we can break free from the slavery of debt and achieve true financial independence. It’s not an easy journey, but as Ramsey often says, “If you live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.”

[montanabohemian]

if i see a single one of you pissed that your faves canceled an event or a con appearance because they're striking for fair wages then imma come for you in your sleep 🔪🔪🔪

(direct that fury where it belongs: AMPTP and the execs)

[queensparklekitten]

anyways after that minecraft movie trailer i'm tempted to change my skin back to that one based on crimson/warped duality out of spite

they called the nether "a place with no joy or creativity at all" like just tell me you're too scared to go there and thus haven't experienced

-joining in on a group of piglins hunting a hoglin, letting them keep the loot, trading with them afterwards, i find that this temporarily cures the loneliness of singleplayer

-the dance they do afterwards sometimes literally just the piglin dance, hitting shift repeatedly with them

-literally just the nether music at all

-that CRESCENDO in rubedo

-that brief minor key reprise of sweden in dead voxel hhhhhhhhhhhh

-occasional crimson roots in a soul sand valley like oh there's still some life here

-wither skull hunting and recruiting piglins to help you by luring them to the fortress with gold (+ giving them gold helmets so they don't put on the skulls) i love the ways this game lets me fight alongside piglins if i want to

-the subtle animated texture of crimson and warped stems like they feel so ALIVE with that one small detail

-seeing a nether tree growing through another one

-and an extremely tall nether tree amidst the normal height ones

-and weeping vines hanging from the ceiling

-passing by a piglin that's wearing enchanted iron boots and immediately knowing you've met and traded with this one before

-parkour challenge basalt delta

-also the particles in that biome look like snow if you turn down your render distance

-STRIDERS. Literally just striders. They're like bonded creatures to me, honorary tameable mobs, you put a saddle on the one mob in the nether that would never hurt you and then go on a journey together across the deadly lava ocean avoiding ghasts together and you can't remove the saddle now unless you kill it which you can't do because it's your ride back to the portal, once that strider is saddled it is Your strider and even if you release it into the wild you will immediately recognize it by the saddle if you see it again and in such a dangerous world you have found a companion you can always trust and idk bout you but i always bond so hard with them

-and also they're kind of cute, esp with the little waddle walk

-seeing a baby strider on top of an adult one

-literally just the fact that nether biomes have all this constant looping ambience and particles in the air that makes them feel so immersive and so alive, each biome has its own unique soundscape and ambience, can you imagine soul sand valleys without the wind and the whispers and wails

-aside note the particle effects are like the animated stems in that they're such a subtle detail but they add so much, i never really noticed them until i was netherite mining and started using them to tell which biome i'm under

-the nether was doing ambience and immersion 5 years before the Spring Drop allowed the overworld to finally catch up to it

-the adorableness of baby piglins

-esp when they ride on top of baby hoglins

-PIGSTEP. FUCKING PIGSTEP. the piglins have music and it's SUCH A BANGER i've thrown ingame parties with this music disc

-seeing warped fungus in a crimson forest or crimson fungus in a warped forest

-biome borders between the two that have all this warped foliage in the crimson forest and vice versa as they blend into each other

-nyooming across a soul sand valley with soul speed 3 boots, laughing at the skeletons and ghasts who can't land a hit on you, bonus if you add a speed potion to the mix

-doing this and realizing the subtitle says "soul escapes" and you're surrounded by blue particles and realizing you're freeing them from their imprisonment (and presumably the piglins who made this enchantment are doing the same when they use it)

-the rib and snout armor trims

-gilded blackstone it's so pretty and nice and a great building block (and you can't craft it only the piglins know how to do that)

-bastions have chiseled blackstone

-and their own exclusive banner pattern

-some of them have that gold-and-quartz decorative thing that looks like some kinda statue

-apparently part of the Bridge type of bastion is designed to resemble a piglin head with the mouth as the entrance

-getting lost in the lore implications, noticing the huge fossils and the implications of the name "warped forest" as well as the names of some of its ambience sounds and the fact that basalt comes from rapidly cooling lava irl and next thing you know you've got a whole red string theory going that edges closer and closer to cosmic horror

-ik the fossils look like ribs but one time i wondered if they might be the fingers of something unfathomably huge

-the time i encountered a baby piglin running from a zombified one so i pushed the zombified piglin off the fortress and then gave the baby piglin a gold nugget

but hey what do i know i'm just a nether enthusiast on the "romanticizing and finding beauty in the horrifying and the forsaken" website huh

[loopnoid]

faith/drusilla commission for @lesbianmarrow >:)

there is possible toxic yuri everywhere for those with the eyes to see...

[jets076]

I have Idea and I can't draw

Good news: found post idea

Bad news: its a shitpost

[bunnithechubs]

just a few short hours... surely angela can hold it together....right?

[rainbow-sunshine-unicorn]

Thinking about Simone Ashley saying that she’s lost out on roles due to colourism, because producers don’t believe that a woman who looks like her can pull audiences and bring in money, only for Picture This to go #1 on Prime for an entire week

[faragonreblogs]

"I hate that they are doing a live action remake of (x)... but I'm going to go see it anyways cause I'm faithful to the media-"

No. You are beholden to absolutely nothing. Stop giving the corporations a reason to keep doing live action remakes.

[woman-respecter]

"ok it was somewhat hyperbolic maybe, but just barely. but the point of the post was more that i have never seen the works of neil gaiman, or any other rapist for that matter, blacklisted in the way that harry potter is. there are no posts saying “burn your good omens merch or i’ll burn you with it” with thousands of notes. there are STILL people basing their whole-ass personality on good omens, who get minimal pushback, when i know that if someone did that with hp, even if they didn’t support jkr, they would be getting graphic threats of violence every day. i can see merits of completely wanting to blacklist a work bc of a problematic behavor, and i can see merits of still enjoying the art while criticizing the artist. but pick a fucking lane. it’s the moral inconsistency that gets to me." ok so i saw this post and i had a genuine question: a lot of the backlash i see against JKR is specifically about giving her money which she uses to fund anti-trans (and other horrible) groups, as well as lobbying/bribing, and pushes for laws and bills that will hurt trans people. With Niel i could be misremembering what happened with him (never really knew about him before or after the drama, only that he existed and that it happened) but my understanding was that he had some form of rape/SA/abuse allegations against women, and isnt actively trying to fund/ support laws oppressing more people. With that in mind, what would you think of the idea that seperating art from an artist is something that can happen, unless supporting the artwork in any way would cause more widespread damage and or harm? I dont think this is something that every person threatening people who like harry potter agrees with, im just curious your thoughts on the idea that JKR is a special case because she is actively hurting people when you support the work, and this isnt a moral inconsistency and just a different situation

neil gaiman is using his good omens money to pay lawyers to financially ruin his victims. so i’m not sure i buy that argument.

[hipsternumbertwo]

OH NO. Why are these so cute???

[faburin]

barely able to make rent these last few months, the Chaotix need to find ways to make some extra money.

So pose, Espio! You're the only one who fits that dress

[bunabi]

I tuned into the earnings call and they didn't mention DAV much at all ? except to say this reaffirms their commitment to choose multiplayer projects over single-player ones 😭

[its0you]

[cowardlycowboys]

is that day again

[uniiiquehecrt]

Voice actors are NOT the same as actors.

It takes a specific kind of skill-set and training to be able to warp and meld the voice. It takes a certain kind of talent and dedication to hone that talent into the ability to meld the voice and invoke emotion with one's voice alone. Actors are used to using their voice secondarily to their body language and their facial expressions. It's all mirrored back on camera. They do have nuance. But it's a different kind of nuance and a different kind of training to produce that nuance.

Voice actors might get their likeness transposed on their character's design, and maybe their mannerisms might seep into the character's animation. But when it's all said and done: their presence is in their voice. They are bringing a character to life, showing that emotion in their voice, trying to keep a specific accent, drawl, pitch, tone in that voice and keep it consistent for their recording sessions.

The voice actor is like a classically trained musician who can play first chair in a competitive, world-renown orchestra. The actor (who fills the voice actor's role) is like a moot who played violin in beginner and intermediate high school orchestra and thinks they can get into Juilliard with that 2-4 years of experience.

This doesn't mean that the HS orchestra moot can't play. They can even be really good at it. Maybe they won competitions and sat first chair. But they are not in the same league as the person who's been training their whole lives and lives and breathes to hone their craft using the instrument and all of the training they've ever acquired to perfect it. They are not meant for the same roles. They are not in the same caliber. You do not hire the HS equivalent when you want to play complex music in a competitive orchestra.

Actors are not the same as voice actors.

And furthermore, actors - especially big name actors - taking the roles of animated characters for big budget films or TV pilots makes no sense anyways when - at least in the case of TV pilots - there's not a point to hiring a big budget actors anyways. That money could be used elsewhere (like paying your animators), and the talent that is brought onto the screen for X character could then be hired on to voice said character no recasting required.

I wouldn't say voice acting as a profession is in danger exactly, but it's certainly being disrespected and overlooked for celebrity clout, and this has ALWAYS been an issue. Shoot, even Robin Williams knew that much - which is why he tried so hard not to be used as a marketing chess piece for Aladdin and got royally pissed off when it happened anyways. People shouldn't go to any movie (but especially not animated films) because "oh famous actor is in it". People should go because it's a good movie and the voice acting is good.

People who honest to god think that voice actors are replaceable because "oh well anyone can voice act" or "I like xyz celebrity so naturally it'll be good" ... Honestly I just wish you'd reassess your priorities because you're missing the point and are part of the problem.

Voice Actors ≠ Actors.

[canisalbus]

forgive me if this has been answered previously, but what were the circumstances around vasco finding out about machete's death? i'm heartbroken but fascinated to think about what his immediate reaction could have been

They don't live together, Vasco was at home in Florence at the time. Either someone who knew of their relationship managed to alert him of the murder, or he showed up in Rome to visit him just like countless of times before, and one time he was just gone. He would've missed the funeral for sure, and since Machete doesn't have family, his belongings would most likely end up escheated and subsequently liguidated by the church. He certainly wasn't remembed fondly, for the most part it was like he had never been there in the first place.

I don't want to get into the details but of course he was devastated. The threat of death was a constant presence in Machete's later years, he survived at least a couple of assassination attempts and his health kept getting worse. I think he tried to keep Vasco in the dark about how bad things were exactly, but Vasco didn't miss how his fear of death ramped up in intensity towards the end. So it wasn't a complete surprise when he found out they had finally gotten him. For a long time he had hard time not blaming himself for it, thinking whether he could've done something to prevent the outcome, whether his presence would've changed how things played out. Over the years he learned to live with the sudden and violent end of their relationship, but the first few years were extremely rough, the whole ordeal broke him in unprecedented ways and he never fully recovered to his previous state.