Materialism is comforting to minds that cling naturally to concrete objects. Every mind is impressed with the concrete, but it is the materialist who is so taken by the nakedness of brute matter and its mechanics in the world that he refuses to contemplate the world in any other way.
The materialist has not gone beyond the charms of idealism or theism, he simply does not feel them. The materialist desires the world to be rid of all mystery, to reduce everything to simple formulas. This is why he so slavishly holds onto his belief. He is most impressed by the concrete because it is easily grasped.
>>8198856
Not biting sorry. Sounds like you're trying to convince yourself more than anything. Good luck with that, whatever makes you feel better about your beliefs. Btw, the fedora meme? It's to poke fun at atheist elitism, your post makes it clear though it's not limited to one side of the argument however.
>tips fedora
>We've reached a truly remarkable situation: a grotesque mismatch between the American intelligencia and the American electorate. A philosophical opinion about the nature of the universe which is held by the vast majority of top American scientists, and probably the majority of the intelligencia generally, is so abhorrent to the American electorate that no candidate for popular election dare affirm it in public. If I'm right, this means that high office in the greatest country in the world is barred to the very people best qualified to hold it: the intelligencia, unless they are prepared to lie about their beliefs. To put it bluntly American political opportunities are heavily loaded against those who are simultaneously intelligent and honest.
>I'm not one of those who wants to stop Christian traditions. This is historically a Christian country. I'm a cultural Christian the same way as many of my friends call themselves cultural Jews or cultural Muslims. So, yes, I love singing carols along with everybody else. I'm not one of those who wants to purge our society of our Christian history.
*tips*
>>8198865
>>tips fedora
All that resentment
>>8198865
A psychoanalytic response to a psychoanalytic post. Fair enough.
Atheist elitism would be justified without an explanation explanation for why someone would want to believe in such a worldview.
>>8198856
> *tips*
>>8198881
>I'm a cultural Christian
You're a charlatan.
Real Christians will hate you for being a fraud, whereas honest atheists will have no time for anyone who ingratiates themselves with the religious.
>>8199027
>tfw I went to an evangelical creationist christian school in Australia and got along just fine.
>>8199035
>Frauds abide frauds
Well colour me shocked.
>>8199041
>Aspect of how you live your life are mutually exclusive due to its source, because I say so.
>>8199027
>cultural christianity is charlatanism because these ideologies disagree with it
You don't have to be assured in the existence of God to see the ethical virtues in the teachings of Christ. No matter how much secular thought is increasingly severed from Christianity, it cannot be denied that contemporary Western values have evolved out of traditional christian memes.
>>8200396
This. The problem is when people assume the bible to be all true and all just so whenever they read something that confirms what they think they just dig in deeper.
>>8200396
Also cultural Christianity is nice because everyone hangs out and talks about how to be a better person once a week. Great sense of community.
>>8200396
>the ethical virtues in the teachings of Christ
get a load of this cuck
literally the entire basis of everything great in Western civilizations is in direct conflict with "the ethical virtues in the teachings of Christ"
>>8200425
Most atheists will jump at the chance to renounce cultural christians, simply because they can't wrap their heads around what 'the holy spirit' actually entails, and likely have very little awareness of the post-modern theological turn. Their criticisms of christianity are rarely anything other than strawman arguments attacking outdated dogmas which most sensible christians, cultural or no, have enough sense not to take without a pinch of salt.
>>8200440
>implying the roots of capitalism aren't wholly entangled with the protestant reformation and its self-affirming ideology
>implying christianity was not a key factor in the civil rights movement
>implying christ was not a radically modern figure for his backward-ass times
>implying every christian is somehow completely at odds with the society they participate in everyday whilst expressing nothing but peace, kindness and love for their community
>>8200471
>>implying the roots of capitalism aren't wholly entangled with the protestant reformation and its self-affirming ideology
Bullshit, read Werner Sombart's The Jews and Modern Capitalism. He documented the Jewish, not protestant, roots of modern capitalism:
https://archive.org/details/jewsandmodernca00sombgoog
>Jewish traders and manufacturers, excluded from the guilds, developed a distinctive antipathy to the fundamentals of medieval commerce, which they saw as primitive and unprogressive: the desire for 'just' (and fixed) wages and prices; for an equitable system in which shares of the market were agreed and unchanging; profits and livelihoods modest but guaranteed; and limits placed on production. Excluded from the system, Sombart argued, the Jews broke it up and replaced it with modern capitalism, in which competition was unlimited and the only law was pleasing the customer.
also if anything you could argue Thomas Aquinas and the late medieval Christian ethics was more significant than Calvinism in terms of the greed for gain independent of any aspiration to a meta-worldly salvation for inspiring capitalism
>>8200511
>Aquinas more responsible for capitalism than a religion which literally tells you money is the way to haven
Dudeeee
