[FoRK] materialism

[Dr. Ernie Prabhakar]

Hi Lucas,

On Dec 29, 2007, at 9:13 AM, Lucas Gonze wrote:

> Lately I have stopped saying that I am an atheist.  Instead I am
> saying that I am a materialist.

Cool!

> I like this because it rejects all kinds of mysticism, not just the
> mega religions.  This is good because private beliefs in informal
> magic are more common among my peers than active belief in
> Christianity, Judaism, or Islam.

I appreciate the attempt to frame things in a positive light.  Could  
you perhaps elaborate a bit more?  For example, do you also consider  
belief in things like "love" and "beauty" aspects of mysticism? Or do  
you have a way to define so-called "transcendent" values in material  
terms?

-- Ernie P.

>
>
> It's a positive statement of what I believe, as opposed to a void of
> what I don't believe, and it's easy to explain: I believe in the real
> world.  I believe that the world in front of us is really there.  I
> don't believe in anything which contradicts the real world.  I believe
> in things which can be investigated.
>
> It takes control of the terms of the conversation.  "Atheism" is like
> satanism in that it accepts religion as the baseline.  But satanism
> has no meaning outside of Christianity, while atheism is a rejection
> of all mysticism and is the same thing in any context.  Not-Islamic
> atheism is the same thing as not-Judaic atheism.
>
> Sorry to continue the endless conversation on religion and atheism,
> which I think most people here want to leave behind.  I didn't
> participate much at the time, and this is the result of thinking about
> it for a while.
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