Is man inherently good or inherently evil?

That the path to heaven is not faith, but works.Seriously, though, the reason that the employer is wrong is because he's a liar:

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He told them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.'

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But then:

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'I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?'

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He didn't pay them what was right, he paid them what he wanted to pay them, and tried to claim that that was right.Nobody gets to decide for others what is right and wrong. I see this as a powerful parable of how the employer will try to screw his workforce.

Yes. That's not right. Let me tell you what actually happened. I was the senior desk clerk at a midscale hotel, making 8.25 an hour. I was promised a raise after 3 months. I worked there for a year with no raise whatsoever. As I prepared to leave to move here to MO, they had me train my replacement. This was a substantial increase in my duties, but I recieved no additional pay. I found out later that they hired the trainee at $11 an hour.Does that sound fair to you?

Suppose you and your black friend go to the store. You see a sign that says "bananas, $1 a bunch for white people, $10 a bunch for black people."Do you think that's fair? To make your black friend pay ten times more? Even though that's plainly advertised? In America, we call that "racism".The first workers were made to work 4 times as long for the same wage. That's discriminatory and unfair. It doesn't matter that the unfairness was presented up front. No, they weren't. The last group was paid .5 per hour. The first group was paid .125 per hour. That's not the same wage at all.This message has been edited by crashfrog, 10-01-2004 05:18 PM

No, we weren't. We were paid in exchange for services rendered.You don't get paid because your employer is a nice person. You get paid because employment is an exchange of time for payment. This principle, for instance, is how we're able to compel a minimum wage from employers, or why employers have to pay overtime. Yes, because the terms were laid out in advance. It was made clear by the ad that, if I decided not to show up until the end of January, I'd get paid the same.(What I can't figure out is why you showed up early. Sucker!)That wasn't the case in the Bible example. The employer says "one dinar (or whatever) for a day's work"; but that only applies to the first group. The last group gets an entirely different pay scheme. If the employer was willing to pay a whole dinar for only two hours work, he should have said so, so that the first employees didn't wind up volunteering 6 hours of their time for nothing.

In fact, it's a perfect comparison. We're talking about different wages and prices for different people, which is unfair. We're not talking about a survey, Phatboy. We're talking about hours of backbreaking labor. Yes. That's how we know what is fair, and what is not - comparing. Yes, I do know. But you need ot think the parable through, because then, you'll see why its such a bad parable.Back to our asshole employer. What do you think happened the next day, when he went back to the square to hire workers for the day? Do you think he found a single person willing to work any more than the last two hours of the day? Since he's demonstrated that he won't pay for any more than two hours' work, no matter how long you work, why would he? Works for me. But then, I don't insist that the afterlife be all about revenge. Each of those people lived the life they wanted to live. Now, on the other hand, the ascetic monk who winds up in the same heaven as my debaucherous ass might have some reason to complain, but then, it's not like God actually told him to live that way.

Has it occured to you that life is just as fair as we decide it should be?

Yes. Hence the purpose of the NIV "translation."