A buddhist thinker likens the passage of spirit from one form to the next like the transmission of fire between two pieces of wood… All things being equal, would you rather trust the ethic of someone whose actions are premised around the belief that, when you're dead you're gone. Or someone who believes in the idea of an ongoing responsibility for deeds? — Pantagruel
China has the largest buddhist population in the world, but this doesn’t seem to have prevented them from also being the world’s highest emitter of carbon, surpassing the U.S. So much for ongoing responsibility for deeds. — Joshs
I can imagine a Transcendentalist who doesn't care about the future because we reap our benefits in heaven, and a materialist who does because they realize that those are their family members and they are committed to family. — Moliere
China has the largest buddhist population in the world, but this doesn’t seem to have prevented them from also being the world’s highest emitter of carbon, surpassing the U.S. So much for ongoing responsibility for deeds. — Joshs
China has the largest buddhist population in the world, but this doesn’t seem to have prevented them from also being the world’s highest emitter of carbon, surpassing the U.S. — Joshs
All things being equal, would you rather trust the ethic of someone whose actions are premised around the belief that, when you're dead you're gone. Or someone who believes in the idea of an ongoing responsibility for deeds? — Pantagruel
I can imagine a Transcendentalist who doesn't care about the future because we reap our benefits in heaven, and a materialist who does because they realize that those are their family members and they are committed to family.
But the important part is whether or not they believe they are responsible for the future or not. The metaphysics is just a dressing to that. — Moliere
Most likely I’d trust the person who makes no appeals to unknown worlds or powers and takes seriously the status of an ongoing physical world. Perhaps this comes from hours spent arguing with Christians who say climate change either isn’t real or doesn’t matter because God has it all under control. Generally the people who you have described as ‘when you’re dead, you’re gone’ hold a concomitant belief - ‘this is the only world there is so we must take care of it.’ But no doubt there are outliers in all camps. — Tom Storm
I see a lot of materialism consuming, polluting, and destroying. I don't see a lot of "materialist conservation." I do see a lot of spiritually motivated conservation efforts, people who are aware of the significance of the health of natural systems in a cosmic sense. — Pantagruel
I see a lot of materialism consuming, polluting, and destroying. — Pantagruel
I see a lot of materialism consuming, polluting, and destroying. I don't see a lot of "materialist conservation." I do see a lot of spiritually motivated conservation efforts, people who are aware of the significance of the health of natural systems in a cosmic sense. — Pantagruel
but about not having an absolute conviction that corporeal death is an end to all conceivable suffering — javra
I think you may need to separate the word 'materialism' as in consumer capitalism from 'materialism' as in non-transcendence. They are not necessarily connected. — Tom Storm
It's curious to me that there are people who think nothing matters if there is no transcendental realm. I don't think I have ever met a materialist/physicalist/naturalist holding that position. — Tom Storm
Hopefully an newly enlightened social consciousness is awakening, in the collective-ecological spirit championed by many indigenous groups. — Pantagruel
The world needs some kind of fundamental change, because every indication is that we have been on a collision course with disaster since industrialization. — Pantagruel
I see a lot of materialism consuming, polluting, and destroying.
— Pantagruel
Can you provide an example that connects directly the lack of belief in superphysicalism and this? — Tom Storm
Anyone who believes that personal responsibility transcends the limits of material life perhaps is not fundamentally a materialist then. :wink: — Pantagruel
I'd say physicalists tend to hold utopian visions of a better future for their descendants. — Tom Storm
I'm not sure if utopianism is synonymous with laissez-faire materialism though — Pantagruel
The belief in "progress" that says things are always getting better. When that is getting less true every day. — Pantagruel
I see a lot of materialism consuming, polluting, and destroying. — Pantagruel
All things being equal, would you rather trust the ethic of someone whose actions are premised around the belief that, when you're dead you're gone. Or someone who believes in the idea of an ongoing responsibility for deeds? — Pantagruel
What is laissez-fair materialism? I was saying that many secular humanists are progressives and believe in helping to make a better world for future generations. — Tom Storm
All things being equal, would you rather trust the ethic of someone whose actions are premised around the belief that, when you're dead you're gone. Or someone who believes in the idea of an ongoing responsibility for deeds? — Pantagruel
A buddhist thinker likens the passage of spirit from one form to the next like the transmission of fire between two pieces of wood. — Pantagruel
The belief in "progress" that says things are always getting better. When that is getting less true every day. — Pantagruel
I think there is a cult of individuality — Pantagruel
The world needs some kind of fundamental change, because every indication is that we have been on a collision course with disaster since industrialization. Technologies which should have bolstered equality have increased the gap between the rich and the poor. Something is fundamentally wrong. — Pantagruel
It's like you argue that nihilism is the only realm of thought for materialists? — Christoffer
The latter, obviously. Most of the replies haven't managed to hold "all things equal," and are evading the question. — Leontiskos
Yes, I'm kind of leaning that way. My sense is that embracing the larger (than self) reality is tantamount to the recognition of (self) transcendent values. As I mentioned, material calculations are all well and good, except where they are plainly insufficient. We think just because we have assigned a dollar value to everything via economics, everything hence becomes computable. When, in fact, our valuations are arbitrary and often misguided. — Pantagruel
Outside of those semantics, what you are arguing is rather that the materialistic society we live in is lacking meaning and means for morality to form on the grounds of people's actual value as human beings and instead has been replaced by a dollar value. — Christoffer
What I'm suggesting is that there is an inherent mystery to life which science hasn't come close to excavating. If anything, the light of science is illuminating depths and expanses far beyond our wildest dreams. But at some point the institution started to exist for its own sake (as institutions will do) and for some reason decided to react against this mystery, instead of embracing it. — Pantagruel
Adding to that, a belief system that replaces religion, such as the belief in material and materialistic values to bring meaning is also producing mob mentalities and deindividuation. — Christoffer
To think that a person cannot feel awe and mystery about life and the universe just because they don't accept religious views and other collective belief systems, is just not true. — Christoffer
Can you be sure you're not just referencing inter-generational awareness? — AmadeusD
In that sense, how would you define it in practice? — AmadeusD
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