Banker Versus God

Following is a fictitious dialogue between a banker and a naysayer – both of whom share a fire pit in hell…

 

Naysayer: So you work in a bank, right? You must be fighting God and His Message?

Banker: What? Why?

Naysayer: Don’t you even know that the usury is the mother of all evils? The Message says usury dealers and bookkeepers are destined for hell?

Banker: Oh, I get it. You’re clearly misguided. Forgive me, but usury is not what the present day bankers deal with. Period.

Naysayer: The message calls it Riba, you guys call it interest? Sorry profit. Why don’t call it charity.

Banker: Look man, I am in no mood to debate. Your ignorance won’t allow you to understand even the sligtest difference between usury, interest, profit and the so called prohibited Riba.

Naysayer: Convince me. Or get convinced!

Banker: Okay. Let me try. Usury is functionally damaging as against interest or profit. Usury can lead to forceful confiscation of a personal property secured for loan. Jewish lenders of the past have been known to seize rights to personal property of a loan defaulter. In some cases, they would even enslave people failing to make inter..I mean usury payments. Usury takers used to bear inhumane characters, like one of Shylock depicted in Shakespeare Merchants of Venice.

But with the invention of money and evolution of banking, the so called usury has lost its damage potential.

Naysayer: Woah, this is so lame.. The modern banking owes its bulk to cruel bankers. Modern money comes courtesy of goldsmiths, the ones who you’re referring to as usury traders. And the whole system of banking and finance takes the spirit of draconian principles of wealth compounding doing nothing. Your banking practice reflects the concepts fathered by usury traders. There could have been a few, unintelligent usury mongers who’d suffered losses in their money-making business. You guys simply rock that with calculators and computing tables. I have heard of banks collapsing, but I’ve never heard a story of banks making a plain loss. Can there be any business like that? You people are simply pharaohs of our era.

Banker: Enough. You’re getting personal. I won’t allow anyone talk me like that.

Naysayer: Alright alright. Just tell me a single noble job that bankers do.

Banker: We transmit your salaries. Pensioners receive their monthly payments from us. Banks mobilize unused savings and lend them to businesses, companies and individuals in need. Isn’t that very, very noble??

Naysayer: It is shit. You transfer, receive, store, lend and borrow our money and call it a noble job?

Banker: I told you you’re ignorant.

Naysayer; And I am telling you that your’e a motherfucker.