The thing about materialism
One problem I see with materialism is that it means there isn’t a reason for anything. If you’re sad take a pill, since the causes are immaterial. No need to query the reason, just fix the effect.
Can we not grow now?
Bummer,
LWIII
Matter matters because it holds everything together and makes us all somehow related.
Hey Ron, good to see you, and thanks for the comment. Matter matters, that’s for sure. You know, if spiritualists were like materialists, they would deny the existence of matter!
The material develops the ‘immaterial’ as a reflection of itself, so that from there it can independently confirm (or reject) what is true (or not) and make that self spiritual.
Well, it’s a theory, anyway! My theory is that consciousness created matter and is therefore primary. Maybe we’ll find out for sure someday.
For a materialist like me it is nonetheless the power of belief that makes me constructively recollect the independently confirmed.
You’re a materialist? I’ll be darned. Could have sworn you were a staunch Catholic.
I just don’t see the joy in materialism. It’s nothing but bad news from where I sit, and to take the leap of faith or belief to believe in it…well, I don’t see the advantage. There’s sure no guarantee it’s any more pure ‘reality’ than other belief systems. And to say there is no spirit or soul takes a lot of the magic and mystery and grandeur out of life, for me.
But if it works for you, Ron, there must be sommething good about it that I’m not seeing. Plus I think different brain configurations enjoy different world views, so world views are not independently confirmable, because they are engineered by such vastly different sensing and experiencing systems. Left brainers prefer a material world and righties a spiritual world. Who knows what it really is? Not me.
Thanks!
That sommething is less unlike spirituality or pantheism than you suspect, I suspect. It is the innerest inside of us, the innermost soul if you wish, where we ‘are not’, but where we constantly make room for others, or for reality. Such as in a church where silence is deepest. Such as in our dreams, half us and half reality (ask your great grandpa). That reality in the middle of middlest of us, is independent confirmation. The only thing we can put our faith in, call the truth and trust. If you want that to be what everybody’s fantasies are, that is alright with me.
Thanks Ron. Disagree about the fantasy thing, and find it kind of mean spirited, since you’re living a fantasy too, but otherwise very cool.
Unaware of any mean spiritedness Tom, sorry if it feels that way. Just trying to turn a negative into a positive.
Well, any belief system that says everybody but you (and your co-religionists) is living in a fantasy is just another ego-aggrandizing project in my opinion – exactly like other religions or Marxism or isms in general. “Us good, them bad.” Just another way to be in the right, having little to do with reality, whatever the hell that is.
“I know The Truth.” Oh yay. People don’t seem to be comfortable with the thought that life is a mystery. Expecially other people’s lives!!!! To say that other people are living a fantasy because they disagree with one’s favorite bizzrro theories is a joke and a darn shame.
Unless you realize that logic itself is a fantasy. Neurological studies have shown that the brain decides on emotion then cobbles together the rationales later. You can look it up. Science disproving rationality, sweet.
Don’t share your faith in independent confirmation myself, since I never noticed agreement as any guarantee of truth, not in the least. Thinking that agreement is the only thing to put our faith in is a major fantasy, I think. You didn’t notice that one has to pick the people who agree with you?
Materialism: man’s last best chance to play God.
Your fantastical pal,
LWIII
Oh Dear,
I do like to think, but this much…..sheeeesh!
I kind of fight with this one in my mind as when I look at things it’s the feelings and *vibe* of the thing that pulls me towards or pushes me away. The Matter of the thing is kind of second in importance at times….
I need to look up at the sky a bit more I guess, and be thankfulI have a soul…where does a soul fit in?
I need to look this up very thoroughly now. So thanks again. Short but in this case…Less is so much more….
Truly just a Matter of Pammy x
Well, I can’t tell you for sure if you have a soul or not, but it sure seems like it to me. You have more soul that practically anybody!
Thanks Pammy!