Did I touch a nerve? Sorry, I didn't mean to upset you! You said you where intrigued with why people lend without interest, and I answered, why are you being so offensive, or shall I say defensive, when I'm literately delivering what you asked for?

>> Do you do that?

I also happen to believe that if you do good deeds it's better to keep it to yourself. As to not promote inflated egos.

My point isn't that me personally would be a fantastic person who is a saint, which I'm not but rather that usury has negative effects, which doesn't really have anything to do with whether I'm a person that reaches your standards or not.

>> How much money do you give consistently, on a regular basis, to someone in need? I'd wager zero, but of course, it's easy to preach.

Are you misrepresenting my argument on purpose? I was talking about the drawbacks of usury here, not about the benefits of giving gifts. Isn't that obvious?

Regardless, wouldn't it be better to teach a man how to fish, so to speak? My aim with helping people wouldn't be to put them into perpetual dependency upon, me to give others the impression, that I'm a very generous man, but rather to _actually_ help them out of their situation, does that make sense to you?

>> For your information I do give regularly quite a consistent amount by myself ..

Good on you, I'm happy to hear that!

>> on top of the =~ 50% the state rips of from me in taxes, most of which go to social security. There's never enough supply of free give as there's demand for it.

As far as your views on taxes, we're probably more or less in agreement on that subject!

I mentioned something tangential to that here "...but encourage a solution to the root cause of the poverty...". If I lend money to someone, w/o benefiting or being able to take something in return, it would be in my interest, to steer him away from bad decisions, thus making life better for him or her, given that he or she wants to do that.

If you let me elaborate, I see one of the benefit of donations from individuals and organisations as being that it would encourage a solution to the root cause of the poverty, (through the individual being grateful to an individual instead of seeing themselves entitled to income), rather than having a socialist government opening up an infinite poverty hole, that'll only grow the more you feed it.

>> Again, I urge YOU, not "the rich" or "others" to practice what you preach.

What I was "preaching" in this instance was not to commit usury, not giving to the poor, which you seem to be a bit confused about, and I do not do that, so you don't have to worry about that.

A lot of muslim countries have 0% APR by law, so the statement that that was before capitalism isn't really true?

"Lends at interest, and takes profit; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself.."
-- Ezekiel 18:13

“If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him.

-- Exodus 22:25

"You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest."__

-- Deuteronomy 23:19

Did they change the bible when capitalism was introduced?

I'm not a theologian, perhaps you have studied the bible more carefully than me, and can tell me if there is a broader context that would give a different view that I'm missing here, if that's the case please enlighten me, but this seems quite clearly against usury to me.

many more here: https://www.openbible.info/topics/usury

Can I go out on a limb here and assume that you see yourself as a christian?

) If this habit was generally frowned upon, we wouldn't have as many self-appointed saviors who'll for instance rip you off in the form of taxes