Materialism

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Is the view of the athiest that there is nothing else than chemical and electical reactions in the brain and all on offer is the aquisition of wealth and children leading to much happiness.Consumerism has led to a increadibly unjust world there is no golden age to invoke but why cant we return closer to the land the current economic crisis has proved greed and self interest dont benefit anyone so its in all our interests to become more equitable and sustainable.Religion is not the cause of our troubles it is a convienient flag for many motivations as long as the guy with the most things wins we are doomed.Higher angels should be appealed to.

The world might be a better place if everybody were kind and considerate and well informed and used their information wisely. It has never happened. Any close sensible examination of religious beliefs indicates that the basis of a good deal of them is not available for validation. And there is no question that many believers organize to do a great amount of good in the world. But religions also have done and are performing great horrors for no rational reason. I imagine that if all mice or all cockroaches or all scorpions behaved in a somewhat different manner the world would be a better place. Humans do not seem to be amenable to much change in their behavior any more than mice or cockroaches. Religion is mostly a farce.

I'm not so sure if that is a concept most atheists "believe" in.

I do know that most faith based christians believe that land is god given and served for man's purposes. Plus there is still that concept in many ominpotent beliefs to go forth and be plentiful....as if it served a real purpose these days /:

I am all that for some mutation in our earthly animals that would allow them to replace us (not too effectively but still) so MAYBE then, we'd get our butts off and work together in somewhat of an intelligent fashion in order to save whatever we'd have left. <.< Because right now i can safely say that it's "divide and conquer" that awaits us if any major threat comes up.

Honestly i never believed that material possessions can make you happy (i read somewhere that in general it's quite the contrary), i guess in the end it all comes down to wether or not you can live with yourself. =/

True and?

Perhaps spiritualism opposes both to quote someone man can not live on bread alone.

I'm not a materialist in the sense of a pursuit of material wealth by any measure. I just try to be honest with myself and ask if I really need a lot of crap, and if it makes me happy.

EDIT: And could you please use some commas, philosopher?

Materialism, consumerism & "hands off" capitalism may have degraded our society, but this doesn't mean we can't recover.

It will take time. We have a genuine chance to retain spirituality while rinsing our culture clean of shallow posturing & purchasing for mental health's sake.

Not to say that we need to rid ourselves of all of these, but we just need a general adaptation towards something more fulfilling and worthwhile that lasts longer than a new purchase.

I'm a hippie (ie non materialist, pacifistic-leaning socialist) atheist...so...I guess that makes me the worst of the worst, eh? Not to mention the fact that consumerism/materialism are very much Western concepts birthed into the world by hardcore JudeoChristian types. Atheistic hippies like me just roll our eyes, throw our hands up in the air at the hopelessness of "fixing" it all, and drop out of society altogether!

Not to mention...I think the original question is loaded with so many nonsequiturs and "wife beating" questions that it is impossible to answer without consenting to some ridiculous notion or another.

Hey...lookit! I just killed another five minutes of my Antarctica tour by answering this post! Woo-hoo

Ya know Karmic, if everyone just dropped out of society, we'd have fixed the problem