Religion began when the 1st shaman brainwashed women into tolerating rape and brainwashed boys into violence against neighbors. .... the war lords and their miracle violence came much later.... the alleged gawds were invented one after another to trump the religious threats from all sides

I think that money trail would lead directly to wall street.

That is a good way to interpret it.

@LovinLarge Yeah, I probably should have given chapter and verse, huh? I remember that it was in one of Paul's letters.

@AmyTheBruce No, Bible quotes are a huge turnoff, I just appreciated your clarification.

Well, the church does love money. They love getting that 10%, passing around the collection plate and telling gullible people that donating will assure them a good time in the afterlife.

@RoboGraham True. And they enjoy holding onto that money by being tax exempt.

Money is a means to an end, yes. So I think the quote would be more accurate if it was something like- greed is the source of all evil.

Credit to @Willow_Wisp

@Zoltans_Queen

Absolutely. They may claim to be humble but some of them fly around on private jets. And sometimes, tax money actually is given to religious institutions. It's incredibly backward.

The distinction between money vs the love of money is rather large. Especially in this context. True that money is merely a tool with zero moral value (we would not sanely claim hammers create nobility). But in that distinction I'll give it to The Bible. Church's who pass the plate to pay the rent, maintenance, etc on their property (even those who have honest tuition or food or housing assistance programs) are not collecting money inappropriately. Those who are doing it for big ol' jet airplanes and yachts, or even just to amass as much wealth as humanly possible, have lost their soul. Literally. Funny to me that everyone doesn't see that but then there would be no successful cons if there were.