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by llamataboot 3710 days ago
Dressed up Calvinism IMHO. You're poor? You just aren't tapping into the abundance of the universe.
2 comments

It's actually much closer to the polar opposite theologically: Arminianism.
That's not a tenet of Calvinism.
sure, but ascribing some sort of otherwordly virtue to people by virtue of their material success is. inverted Calvinism perhaps. Regardless, still taps into the weird part of the US psyche that has a Protestant work ethic that believes that everything is possible for everyone if they just work hard enough filtered through a sort of divine blessing (only this case it is dressed up in a New Age "tapping into the power of positive thinking schtick") -- in any case, it has the same outcome of blaming individuals for the structural circumstances they find themselves living in -- in one case, it is that you obviously weren't one of the chosen, in the mainstream meritocratic case, it's a more easy to digest "you just didn't work hard enough", in this case it is dressed back up with psuedo-religious trappingsabout how the universe wants you to succeed and you get back the energy you put out.
Inverted Calvinism isn't really Calvinism though, is it?
all goes back to the divine right of kings for me...
I guess you could call me a Calvinist, but I find Calvin's treatment of Severetus (burning him at the stake) appalling. I just think that he got a lot of what I believe about Scripture correct - the whole TULIP summarization of his theology I largely agree with.

I just don't think that properity was ever part of his beliefs - if anything Calvin has been accused of being a gruel eating killjoy...

so basically you believe God chose some people to go to hell, some people to go to heaven, there's nothing you can do to change that, and there's nothing you can do to lose that, without the part that the Elect are showered in riches here on earth.