There really is no other appropriate section for this

[benjamindees]

All of Western faith and good faith was engaged in this wager on representation: that a sign could refer to the depth of meaning, that a sign could exchange for meaning and that something could guarantee this exchange - God, of course.

But what if God himself can be simulated, that is to say, reduced to the signs which attest his existence? Then the whole system becomes weightless, it is no longer anything but a gigantic simulacrum - not unreal, but a simulacrum, never again exchanging for what is real, but exchanging in itself, in an uninterrupted circuit without reference or circumference.

-Jean Beaudrillard, The Precession of Simulacra
http://kareneliot.de/downloads/JeanBaudrillard_Simulations_and_Simulacra.pdf

[hilariousandco]

This isn't the appropriate one that's for sure - although I don't know which... Maybe off topic or politics .

[r34tr783tr78]

A sign can indeed represent the most important meaning, signs can be symbols. Letters, words and objects are symbols of something that transcend them.
God will only be reduced to its symbols the day all people cease to believe on him.
It isn't a surprise that societies tried to base on God their money. In traditional societies, the most important social goods, like power, rules and legitimacy were also based on God.