Certainly, to a materialist, materialism is all we have.
And, likewise, to a philosopher, mind is all we have: to a spiritualist, spirit is all we have.
Sorry, but you cannot prove your assertions about what exists after death, only your inability to know these things.
I never said anything about proving my assertion that materialism is all that we have. But all those years I lived as a Christian and as an ascetic, I never saw evidence of anything besides the material world. No matter how much I fasted, prayed, recited the Psalms, or any of the other spiritual disciplines -- I saw no evidence of a deity, of angels, demons, or anything else besides this material world. Of course, that is nothing but my own experience, and therefore is no evidence or proof of anything -- but then, all anyone has is his or her own experience, or, as Emerson and Whitman noted, the experiences of dead prophets and dead poets who lived and died before us. But why trust the experiences, the so-called "evidences" of these long-dead prophets and poets?
We live in a material world, we need material to exist. There is nothing wrong with materialism. Human advancement came when people stopped obsessing with the next world and started to pay more attention to this world.
What is affecting our culture is 'mindless consumerism'. We have become such devourers of goods and services that we have become obese, intoxicated, sex crazed, and jealous. The sicko LW and Liberal Hollywood mentality has captured the minds of the people. Endless sports and hip hop artists fill our airwaves. The culture is in peril.
It is like the last days of Rome, or any empire infected with greed and lust. We have brought ourselves to this point because of our avarice and gluttony, and we are trying to find the easy way out so we follow pied pipers. Good looking and charismatic charlatans who tickle the ears of the uninformed and ignorant and promise them a new day of easy wealth.
Wake up kiddles, before it is too late.
Why do you single out hip-hop artists rather than the entirety of the popular music scenes (including rock, country, jazz, etc.?).
I see lots of references of late to Rome, but I'm guessing that most Christians would not opt to do what many wonderful and holy Christians did during the fall of Rome, like Benedict of Nursia -- abandon the city and civilization, sell everything as Jesus commanded, move out into the deserts and the wilderness, and live a contemplative, ascetical life as a monastic, thinking not on the delusion and the ephemeralness of the material world, but on the reality of the Kingdom of God -- the real world without end. Like Benedict says in his rule (4.7): "Keep the reality of death always before your eyes."
We live in a material world, we need material to exist. There is nothing wrong with materialism. Human advancement came when people stopped obsessing with the next world and started to pay more attention to this world.
What is affecting our culture is 'mindless consumerism'. We have become such devourers of goods and services that we have become obese, intoxicated, sex crazed, and jealous. The sicko LW and Liberal Hollywood mentality has captured the minds of the people. Endless sports and hip hop artists fill our airwaves. The culture is in peril.
It is like the last days of Rome, or any empire infected with greed and lust. We have brought ourselves to this point because of our avarice and gluttony, and we are trying to find the easy way out so we follow pied pipers. Good looking and charismatic charlatans who tickle the ears of the uninformed and ignorant and promise them a new day of easy wealth.
Wake up kiddles, before it is too late.
"We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom" --Stephen Vincent Benet
Yes, VG, all are affected in some way by the excesses of materialism and the toppling of its house of cards. That is why I attempted to counsel some balance, some other ways of viewing what is happening. It is interesting to note the resistance to the thought that there is any other way of viewing human existence than through the lens of "rational determinism" which has now manifested as crass materialism. This is called the stage of "denial".
Whether one believes that materialism is a delusion or not, the reality is that people buy into what you believe is a delusion and it effects us all when the majority are driven to excess.
CZ, 59, They are all false Ego-gods/goddesses of the past. RIP! Let US hope the 21st century begins sometype of " higher Consciousnes".. Materialism is like " Castles made of sand" Bob
Youza Bob! A "higher consciousness" certainly is in order for the survival of mankind. It's either that or it will all "melt into the sea, eventually!"
To "choose" dogma and faith over doubt and experiment is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid."
Christopher Hitchens
The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself. - Sir Richard Francis Burton
costrel, Certainly, to a materialist, materialism is all we have.
And, likewise, to a philosopher, mind is all we have: to a spiritualist, spirit is all we have.
Sorry, but you cannot prove your assertions about what exists after death, only your inability to know these things.
Where can I get the magic stone, crystal, or whatever it is? In my Philosophy, Religion or Humanities classes I never learned that a Philosopher thought the mind was all there is, Or that for the spiritualist all was spirit. All this time I thought that Philosophy gave me a frame work for living in my material body, and that a spiritual life gave an higher meaning to the physical, i.e., material life .
John David may make the list with Socrates, Plato, Virgil, Aristotle or maybe with Joseph Smith, William Miller, Charles Taze Russell. The latter three made prophetic utterances that did not come to pass as prophesied
“I[seldom]make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.” Edward Gibbon
Indeed, materialism, the delusion that all is matter and that that is all that is important in life, is a false perception, an attachment which we are better off cleansed of.
That life is presenting us with this opportunity is fine, and it can happen in a humane manner.
It is time that we realized that we are energy, we are consciousness that reveals and forms the energy, we are life.
No, materialism is not a delusion. Materialism is all we have -- and materialism also includes our minds and our imaginations, which let us create gods, goddesses, heavenly realms, religions, and spiritualities. There is nothing wrong with materialism. We may have consciousness and we may have life, but those are only the results of a living body and a living brain. Once the brain and the body are dead and decayed, there is no more consciousness or life. Materialism is not a delusion -- and for us, we are quite happy accepting that materialism is the only reality of existence; we do not need some spiritual realm, which we consider to be imaginary, the creations of imagination and our wonderful brains.
