A) Why is it self-centered to want to put money into the economy? Some people seem to think that if a person chooses to spend money on themselves beyond some level that the "thinker" believes to be acceptable, that they are essentially lighting the money on fire and destroying it. In fact, they are choosing to use that money to pay the salaries of many people: the master frame builder who has spent a lifetime learning to weld titanium and perfecting his art; the assembly line workers in Italy or Japan who manage to get out of bed everyday and go turn on the DuraAce Derailleur machine, or whatever they do; the freight driver who delivers the bike on a truck, the LBS employee who fit him to his new bike, the janitor who cleans the bike shop as long as it stays in business, and through the business and personal taxes all these entities must pay he even supports the crack hos and welfare moms, the new bike lanes in his community, the colleges, the military, and all the other gazillion things our wise and judicious government uses tax money to buy. Sure, he could just take the 10 grand and give it to people who haven't "earned it", and there is certainly cause for that and I personally do that in a very intentional and targeted way; but never would I say it was self-centered to buy a nice bike ipso facto.

B) Personal values are not synonymous with religion; the latter is man's attempts to find/discuss/classify God, and while personal values may derive from such a search, they are not limited to that arena.

Other than that you were spot on.

Matt