I agree with many things you said. I think I didn't say them to not risk offending anyone. I will reply sentence by sentence.
Quote from NeoRio1:
Would you consider yourself very religious oriented or at least very religious back when you went to school?
My mother was a catechist (what do you call it, "sunday school teacher"?), imagine that. She was my catechist, too. Listen to this anecdote. In my family they value culture, morality, technology, saving, but not money. Let me tell you this little story. We moved out of our rented apartment into a house we bought. But in the new house there wasn't enough room for my father's books (a few thousands). They didn't know where to put the books, but they didn't want to sell them, nor did they know who to give them to. I immediately urged them to give them all to a library. Nope, while already living in the new house, they kept renting the previous house, just to keep the books in it, and paid 2000 dollars a month for three years. Then finally the secretary, after I kept telling her about this, convinced my dad to give them to a library, sent a truck, and took care of it herself. My parents wasted all this money for some books they ended up still giving away. But guess what, when my mom goes shopping for clothes or food she always buys the cheapest products, because wasting money is a sin, and saving is a virtue. Also, if I throw away some yogurt cup and leave spoonful in it... she always used to check, pick it up from the trash can, and showed me that i had left a spoonful of yogurt in the cup. Giving books away is a sin, but if your bank account goes from 70k to zero for no reason it is ok. This is the madness that I was educated with. What matters is sacrifice and saving. After all this, if you got extra money, you can give it to charity. Anything you want. You are allowed to save all you want, but you can never spend it unless absolutely necessary. I told them about my trading - obviously they are totally against it because they say I won't produce anything for society. Also, I told them "when would it be safe to quit my job?" "1 million dollars set aside is enough?". "Not safe". "10 million dollars?". "Not safe". For my mom it would be safe that I worked until I am 65 no matter how much money I made with trading, and then I could retire safely.
I went to a Catholic school for 12 years and probably stopped taking religion seriously around fourth grade.
I became atheist at 14.
To me there are two types of Catholics. There are Routine catholics that make sure they show up for church and than don't think about it at all for the rest of the week. Then there are the passionate Catholics. You may not be passionate but you definitely sound like a person who takes his religion seriously.
As I said I am atheist, but before becoming atheist I took it seriously, because the way I was brought up, I almost felt I had to be Jesus or the Pope at least, to be a good person. Now of course I am left with a few problems, in my subconscious. Not as far as feeling guilty if I have sex without being married. But for example if someone in the street asks me for money I feel I cannot refuse to give him at least 2 dollars (only because it happens at most once a week, otherwise I would feel less guilty). But it's not my choice, it's the way I was brought up.
I think there is nothing wrong with passionate and serious believers and I feel there are many great people in this world that are filled with religious passion.
There is however a problem. The problem is that no serious Catholic could ever only focus on making money all day every day. The reason is because your whole life you have been taught to give, to be generous, to seek moderation and to live a moral life. Look at all the martyrs. Catholics in a way woriship people who sacrifice their lives for others and for God. Giving your entire effort and intellect only for the growth of your own money goes against everything that you believe in.
Travis just imagine the preists and religious teachers staring at charts and news all day in the hopes of cashing in. They would feel like they were sinning because to serious Catholics thinking about money all day long is sinning.
I am not saying there aren't any successful Christian traders I am just saying that there aren't any successful serious Christian traders because the the combination of the two isn't possible.
These last few paragraphs I agree the most with. I see great incompatibilities between what the Catholics say and the profession of trading the financial markets. But the conflicts are not just between being Catholic and trading. The conflicts are between being Catholic and living, because that religion tells you the best thing you can do is give your life for others, which can also mean to die for the benefit of the world, like you said - be a martyr. Of course some will say that I am exaggerating but you get my point.
To make it short, my opinion is that it's ok to trade, whereas it's not reasonable to try and be Catholic. It's ok to be generous, and help your neighbour and some other things that the Catholic say, but I don't agree with most other things (the same applies to all religions), and most important of all, I can't believe in god, because I don't see him.
Also, one more thing. I could see these few categories:
1) person who is atheist and helps (ALL) others a lot
2) person who is Catholic and helps (ALL) others a lot
3) person who is Catholic and doesn't help (ALL) others very much
I think there's a majority of 3) here in Italy, where everyone is Catholic, but there are still homeless, poor, and people begging in the street (strange, right?). My favorite people are the category 1). Category 2) exists, too, but it's rare and it leads to frustration, because according to the Catholic doctrine you never do enough for others, unless you die (then you are ok).
By "(ALL)" I mean that you are not that generous if you just help your family and those you know. The real good person is the one that helps people he doesn't know, that can't return anything to him, and doesn't even let anyone else know about it. I am certainly not one of these people, but I am not frustrated anymore about it, because I am an atheist, and I don't feel anymore that the purpose of my life must be to sacrifice my life for the happiness of the world.
