Materliasm and the cult of self

Originally posted by sonship
The ironic thing is that you may not see how materialism has so fixed itself in Jehovah's Witness theology.

The Gospel speaks of the indwelling of Christ as the life giving Spirit. But you scoff and don't want to hear anything about it.

You want to hear about a garden of Eden like earthly kingdom with nice animals and nice trees and a lot of beautif ...[text shortened]... e no ear for it. Instead you want to know all about the blessed physical earth in the kingdom.

'indwelling',' life giving spirit', are extremely ambiguous terms which the unscrupulous like to utilise to perpetuate their religious bias. God has promised an earthly paradise, are you now saying that he will not fulfil his promise, can you state where he has reneged on a single promise, no, neither can I, but look, the righteous themselves are to possess the earth and find their exquisite delight in the abundance of peace (psalm 37) what has your extra biblical paganism to offer, vague assertions about trinities and mysteries, I dont think so, we know the voice of the shepherd and we will not follow another. The earth WILL BE a paradise, not you nor anyone else can prevent the Father of the celestial lights from fulfilling his promises.

I dunno if I can respect what you say jaywill dude when all you do is offer personal salvation, it seems to me, to be a kind of self obsession, a narcissistic faith, its not about putting other people first as the Christ did in a self sacrificing way, its all about me, my salvation, me, my faith, me! Jesus in me! me! me! me!

thanks for the thumbs down, its always good to get a reaction!

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
science and its relationship with metaphysics is interesting, but it is not essentially the remit of this thread, to say however that science has not influenced morality is delusional, of course it has, for as soon as Darwin proposed his theory, the dye was cast, for a material explanation for the diversity for life was now proffered, a theory without the necessity for morality.

would you agree that science has effected morality in both good and bad ways?

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
you do weight training, do you not, why not do cardio instead, it has the same result ?

Yes I lift weights, I'm not a bodybuilder though.

I do cardio, I lift weights and I also have a push bike.

I fail to see what any of this has to do with materialism?

Originally posted by Proper Knob
Yes I lift weights, I'm not a bodybuilder though.

I do cardio, I lift weights and I also have a push bike.

I fail to see what any of this has to do with materialism?

I am attempting to see if your weightlifting is narcissistic, after all, body builders appear to me to be be excellent examples of those who are self consumed, but you say you do not life weights to build muscle or at least not to body build, so I believe in you.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
would you agree that science has effected morality in both good and bad ways?

I certainly think that it has eroded and in some instances even supplanted values, whether this is good or bad remains to be seen.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
you don't believe in me any more, how sad. I cannot respect your claims, not after you admitted speed reading your way through it and then proffering an opinion based upon that fleeting glimpse with the most outlandish claims.

I'm sorry I thought you were inviting reasoned debate, which I think my post is. If I had realised you were just waving another half-assed self-certified opinon about in order to attract attention to yourself I would have kept quiet.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
thanks for the thumbs down, its always good to get a reaction!

Ha - just read this after my previous post!

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
I certainly think that it has eroded and in some instances even supplanted values, whether this is good or bad remains to be seen.

would you therefore agree that the overall positives and negative of believing in a material universe also remains unseen?

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
I am attempting to see if your weightlifting is narcissistic, after all, body builders appear to me to be be excellent examples of those who are self consumed, but you say you do not life weights to build muscle or at least not to body build, so I believe in you.

There is no one size fits all reason as to why bodybuilders do what they do. I remember watching a documentary about a competing bodybuilder a few years ago, he almost seemed to be suffering from reverse anorexia. He was massive, yet he thought he was tiny.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
There is no one size fits all reason as to why bodybuilders do what they do. I remember watching a documentary about a competing bodybuilder a few years ago, he almost seemed to be suffering from reverse anorexia. He was massive, yet he thought he was tiny.

bdd - body dysmorphic disorder. very common within body-building and caused by anxiety and depression. but its much easier to just say its because of materialism, it saves having to think about complex things like neuroscience.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
bdd - body dysmorphic disorder. very common within body-building and caused by anxiety and depression. but its much easier to just say its because of materialism, it saves having to think about complex things like neuroscience.

it could have been prevented by a proper view of self by cultivating spirituality, but nooooo, you think that by presenting the ailment as being part of something complex it necessitates that the solution must also be complicated, an epic failure, anxiety and depression are spiritual problems and can be treated spiritually, the folly of the materialist is that in reducing everything to a material level they fail to treat the whole person, meh, we'll just give them drugs, that will sort of the electro chemical impulses going through the synapses, meh we'll simply hand out mood altering drugs, that will deal with anxiety and look, you are simply taking care of the symptoms and never finding the root cause of the problem.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
There is no one size fits all reason as to why bodybuilders do what they do. I remember watching a documentary about a competing bodybuilder a few years ago, he almost seemed to be suffering from reverse anorexia. He was massive, yet he thought he was tiny.

he has spiritual problems.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
it could have been prevented by a proper view of self by cultivating spirituality, but nooooo, you think that by presenting the ailment as being part of something complex it necessitates that the solution must also be complicated, an epic failure, anxiety and depression are spiritual problems and can be treated spiritually, the folly of the materiali ...[text shortened]... st give them drugs, that will sort of the electro chemical impulses going through the synapses.

depression is a spiritual problem is it? what are the spiritual causes of depression in your opinion?


the folly of the materialist is that in reducing everything to a material level they fail to treat the whole person, meh, we'll just give them drugs, that will sort of the electro chemical impulses going through the synapses.

the medical world prefers to take an holistic approach to depression.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
depression is a spiritual problem is it? what are the spiritual causes of depression in your opinion?


[b]the folly of the materialist is that in reducing everything to a material level they fail to treat the whole person, meh, we'll just give them drugs, that will sort of the electro chemical impulses going through the synapses.

the medical world prefers to take an holistic approach to depression.[/b]

depression takes many forms and may be attributed to many causes, homoeopathic doctors are successful primarily because they treat the whole person rather than merely addressing the symptoms. I cannot respect your assertion of a holistic approach in the medical profession, 'just take this and you will be better', is the general approach. Depressed? here, take this.