Maybe bankers and other high finance types need to stop talking about God being on their side.

As commentator Jonathan Weil writes today at Bloomberg.com, those who argue that too-big-to-fail banks and other institutions need to be broken up must be cheering now that there's been a series of "we do God's work" type of quotes linked to executives from Barclays and Goldman Sachs. It's more fuel for their cause.

The juxtaposition of well-heeled Wall Street sorts — some of whom are at firms that benefited from government bailouts — making the case that huge profits and big bonuses are good for everyone and therefore must be pleasing to the Lord, are drawing some sharp barbs.

"I think the bankers who took government money and then gave out obscene bonuses are the same self-interested sorts Jesus threw out of the temple," writes Maureen Dowd of The New York Times.

"Wow, we knew Jesus was all about the meek inheriting the earth, but we never realized he meant for it to happen through trickle-down," says New York's Daily Intel blog.

Weil rounds up three of the recent quotes that have set tongues wagging and bloggers blogging:

 

— Barclays Group Chief Executive John Varley declaring that "profit is not satanic."

— Goldman Sachs' Brian Griffiths telling a congregation in London that "we have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all."

— Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, during an interview with The Times of London, saying he is a banker "doing God's work" and that he doesn't want people at his firm to feel it is "possible to be too successful." (It should be noted, as Weil does, that Goldman Sachs says Blankfein was being "ironic" when he spoke of "doing God's work."