re: #37 Justanotherhuman

Interesting intersection with Calvinism:

Max Weber (1864-1920) appropriated the concept of predestination to explain the rise of capitalism as an economic system. Because no one knows exactly who will be saved, one can look only to temporal conditions as evidence of God’s favor. Thus the most faithful response to the life one is given is to care prudently for one’s resources and work diligently to show further evidence of humility and sobriety. If one accumulates wealth and property in the process of careful management of earthly resources, one can live more hopefully—and thus more faithfully. Randall Collins (1996) writes:

If one does this, turning one’s life into a calling, restricting any impulse to frivolous pleasure, one comes to experience a feeling of assurance that one is a member of the Elect. The puritan, ascetic lifestyle thus emerges as a response to the doctrine of predestination. Its effects, in turn, are to bring worldly economic activity under religious control and to harness religious motivation to a new spirit of capitalism.
http://hirr.hartsem.edu/ency/calvinism.htm