Anti-Materialism

[Spirit_Warrior]

I have noticed there are quite a few people who self-identify as anti-theists, expressing a strong hatred for theists and religion in general. So, I thought why not self-identify as an anti-materialist, expressing my strong hatred for the view that all is just matter. That mind and consciousness is just the product of the brain, or for those materialists who like to play semantic games, "dependent on and arising from material processes" They do not generally believe in the survival of mind and consciousness after the death of the body, life after death, souls, gods, heaven and hell, moral law or that there is real purpose to life.

I reject this worldview on several grounds

1. It is illogical. How does matter having no mental properties originate mental properties i.e. hard problem of consciousness. How can and why would any arrangement of matter suddenly become self-aware? If this is not a fairy tale like Pinocchio coming alive, then I don't know what is​

2. It is narrow minded and self-contradictory: Materialists only accept as a valid epistemology sense perception or extensions to the senses like telescopes as their way of knowing reality, ignoring that we have other ways of knowing reality, through inference(those things which cannot be sensed or cannot currently be sensed, we can know through inferring from their effects.) And those materialists who accept inferences, like for atoms and gravity etc, then are selective about which inferences they select so that it does not breach their materialist paradigm e.g inferences to establish God, soul, reincarnation, other realms and PSI they reject.​

They also deny other means of knowledge like intuition, revelation, psychic perception. Hence, they are myopic.​

3. It is amoral. Materialists do not believe in a moral law and/or an enforcer of moral law. Hence, they are free to do whatever they want. They can do good things, but they can do equally bad thing i.e., they are forced to moral relativism or morality as a purely subjective interpretation. Sure, the majority of them have some sense of "conscience" but there is nothing stopping a materialist from being selfish, hedonistic and cruel. They are not morally accountable to anything outside of them. They are themselves the police, the judge, the jury and the accused. As such, they can constantly justify everything they do.​

4. It is nihilistic. There is no real purpose in life, life is just an accident of material processes, of atoms colliding with one another. Hence, they make up whatever purpose they want, with only subjective meaning and no objective meaning. If one decides their purpose is to help as many people as they can, another purpose can be to hurt as many people as they can. If one wants to dress up as a cow and graze in the field, another can be to do scientific research. They are both equally valid interpretations. They are after all are accident of matter and what purpose does an accident have? Their individuals lives have as much meaning as a cow grazing a field i.e., no meaning.

5. It is dark depressing. In the end they all believe in the same outcome: they will die and cease to exist. How they get to that final outcome each carries equal justification by natural causes, by an accident, by suicide or by murder. Some die before conception, some a few years after, some in their childhood, some in teens, some early adult years, some midlife, some elderly. They behave like death is not going to come anc go about pursuing all sort of things as if they have any real importance at all, and then either they are in the wrong place and time and they get gunned down or stabbed to death, get hit a bus or have a sudden heart attack. In fact they are already dead, just a bunch of skeletons walking about covered with flesh. If you had x-ray vision all you would see are skeletons walking about.

Disease is another depressing fact of life. Some are born with diseases, like paralysis, and are severely limited in what they can do in life. Diseases can strike at point in life, but by the age of 30-40 the body goes into accelerated decay and a host of diseases attack the body increasing discomfort and pain in life and limiting ones ability to enjoy it.

Inequality is another depressing fact of life. Life sucks, it is unfair. It is unfair from the very start some are born weak, some strong; some stupid, some intelligent; some with rich parents and some with poor parents; some in developed countries and some in developing countries. Then it is unfair through life as we see from school itself, how certain fortunate kids get popular and other unfortunate kids are bullied, some to the point of suicide. Then we see unfairness in society at every level at the work place, in government and in law. We see criminals get away with crimes and innocent people punished. We read in history of the horrible things humans do to each other(slavery, genocide) and are still doing to each other(Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria etc)

If this is the only world that exists, then it is depressing.​

Overall: The materialist worldview is illogical, narrow minded, self contradictory, amoral/cold and dark and depressing. It disenchants life.

Who else here would consider themselves an anti-materialist and those who consider themselves materialists how do you plead to the above allegations?

 

[loverofhumanity]

My understanding of what you're saying is that materialism is responsible for the mess the world is in and I fully agree.

When one believes there is no after life and this is all there is then all that matters to them is getting the most materially out of this life. That means one doesn't waste their time on humanitarian projects or trying to establish world peace because life is much too short to be wasted on anything but getting what one can for oneself whether that may be material or sensual pleasures.

This leaves our world short of those who would work for its betterment.

It is the 'let us eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die' syndrome that affects many.

What if we learned there was an afterlife and we would be judged according to our deeds? I think then everyone would be competing here not for money but for doing good.

So it's a matter of faith if one believes in another existence or not but what if there is? Then a lot of people are going to wish they could come back and do things differently.

To give it the benefit of the doubt, let's have a balanced life where we enjoy life but also try to do what we can for humanity to improve the lot of the poor, to create world peace and leave the world in a better place than when we found it.

Can we go wrong with having such a balanced outlook like this?

 

[Spirit_Warrior]

My understanding of what you're saying is that materialism is responsible for the mess the world is in and I fully agree.

When one believes there is no after life and this is all there is then all that matters to them is getting the most materially out of this life. That means one doesn't waste their time on humanitarian projects or trying to establish world peace because life is much too short to be wasted on anything but getting what one can for oneself whether that may be material or sensual pleasures.

This is also my understanding too. Selfish hedonism is implied by the materialist worldview, for several reasons

1) If you believe you are only material bodies, then the material body has only material needs and no other needs. Psychological needs like the need for love, the need for compassion, the need to serve the world, the need for beauty and meaning etc are all imaginary needs.

However, materialists counter this by giving examples of materialists who are not selfish hedonists, but this does not actually refute the argument "If you are only only material bodies, then.." those examples of materialists are not true and sincere materialists. They might be confused theists.

2) Life is short. Life is not only just short, with an average life expectancy today of 70 years. You don't know when it will end. It could end any at point. Furthermore, the older you grow the less your body is able to enjoy material things -- it loses eye sight, hearing, sense of touch, taste and smell. It loses libido, energy, brain cells. You only have that youthful period of up to 30 years, before it starts going downhill very fast.

3) It unfair. It's a dog eat dog world.

What if we learned there was an afterlife and we would be judged according to our deeds? I think then everyone would be competing here not for money but for doing good.

So it's a matter of faith if one believes in another existence or not bu

t what if there is? Then a lot of people are going to wish they could come back and do things differently.

This exactly why it is a dangerous worldview and is responsible for the mess the world is in. It is taken by many as the default worldview. If, as you say it true that there is an after life, then all those people who have been deluded into believing in materialism and living a materialist life have wasted their life on Earth, done wrong things and are now going to have to face consequences. Another reason, why we should actively condemn this worldview.

 

[loverofhumanity]

This is also my understanding too. Selfish hedonism is implied by the materialist worldview, for several reasons

1) If you believe you are only material bodies, then the material body has only material needs and no other needs. Psychological needs like the need for love, the need for compassion, to need serve the world, need for beauty and meaning etc are all imaginary needs.

However, materialists counter this by giving examples of materialists who are not selfish hedonists, but this does not actually refute the argument "If you are only only material bodies, then.." those examples of materialists are not true and sincere materialists. They might be confused theists.

2) Life is short. Life is not only just short, with an average life expectancy today is 70 years. You don't know when it will end. It could any any point. Furthermore, the older you grow the less your body is able to enjoy material things -- it loses eye sight, hearing, sense of touch, taste and smell. It loses libido, energy, brain cells. You only have that youthful period of up to 30 years, before it starts going downhill very fast.

3) It unfair. It's a dog eat dog world.



This exactly why it is a dangerous worldview and is responsible for the mess the world is in. It is taken by many as the default worldview. If, as you say it true that there is an after life, then all those people who have been deluded into believing in materialism and living a materialist life have wasted their life on Earth, done wrong things and are now going to have to face consequences. Another reason, why we should actively condemn this worldview.

If only more had your views. We are a small community about 8 million who want to create a better world but always the obstacle is materialism because materialists just see no point in wasting their life on building a better world when they can be enjoying their time partying.

So humanity, urgently in need of people who have its best interests at heart, is deprived of those who would help fix the multiple problems we face.

Materialists seem to think the politicians will fix the problems. It's the politicians who got us into this mess in the first place!!!

To do something is better than doing nothing so we are at least trying. We are involved in community building. The building up of spiritual communities not solely based on materialism and it doesn't matter which belief you have.

A spiritual outlook on these problems can fix most of them. For instance if we reconcile our differences and have no more wars or huge military budgets then the $trillions left over from war budgets can set up programs to establish full world employment, universal free healthcare and education so that poverty will cease to exist.

Economic systems based on morality and justice are required not the one we have now just to benefit the rich. The first priority of any economic system should be that all people have work, health care and education. But the monies go to unnecessary things like weapons to kill people.

There is plenty of money to solve poverty but not enough spirituality to do it.

 

[Glaurung]

I mostly agree with you, but I'd like to expand on this particular one.

3. It is amoral. Materialists do not believe in a moral law and/or an enforcer of moral law. Hence, they are free to do whatever they want. They can do good things, but they can do equally bad thing i.e., they are forced to moral relativism or morality as a purely subjective interpretation. Sure, the majority of them have some sense of "conscience" but there is nothing stopping a materialist from being selfish, hedonistic and cruel. They are not morally accountable to anything outside of them. They are themselves the the police, the judge, the jury and the accused. As such, they can constantly justify everything they do.

Relativism seems conditional on what the moral topic is. In regards to sexual matters for example, we're almost at the point of complete subjectivism. But I see very few relativists who are consistent enough to state that there is nothing inherently wrong with what the Nazis did. (And truly believe it). So it seems to me that relativists are only really relativists insofar as it is philosophically convenient. In my view you'd have to be a sociopath to be a truly consistent moral relativist. (Or rather moral subjectivist).

That's not to say that those of us who do derive morality as external to ourselves are necessarily better than those who deny such morality. There is a difference between recognising the moral law (to the extent we understand it) and actually applying it to our lives.

Who else here would consider themselves an anti-materialist and those who consider themselves materialists how do you plead to the above allegations?

I'm on your side here. That said, I understand the appeal of materialism. Not only are you your own moral arbiter, but (at least on the surface) it's also such a parsimonious move. It is liberating initially.

However ultimately, the logical conclusion is the meaninglessness of it all. I was headed towards a very dark place before the pull of my own conscience became too strong. Some may call me irrational but all throughout my time as an atheist I always had nagging thoughts that this just wasn't right. That there is something beyond me and my own petty desires and I owe it obedience. I eventually found that thing beyond me in Christ.

 

[siti]

According to adherents.com the religious beliefs of the world divide up the population pie like this:

I reckon that allowing for materialist Buddhists and Hindus, non-materialists and noting that about half of the 'non-religious' espouse theistic beliefs but without religious affiliation, non-materialists outnumber materialists by about 10 to 1. Struggling to see how they can be to blame for all the worlds ills.

 

[loverofhumanity]

I mostly agree with you, but I'd like to expand on this particular one.

Relativism seems conditional on what the moral topic is. In regards to sexual matters for example, we're almost at the point of complete subjectivism. But I see very few relativists who are consistent enough to state that there is nothing inherently wrong with what the Nazis did. (And truly believe it). So it seems to me that relativists are only really relativists insofar as it is philosophically convenient. In my view you'd have to be a sociopath to be a truly consistent moral relativist. (Or rather moral subjectivist).

That's not to say that those of us who do derive morality as external to ourselves are necessarily better than those who deny such morality. There is a difference between recognising the moral law (to the extent we understand it) and actually applying it to our lives.


I'm on your side here. That said, I understand the appeal of materialism. Not only are you your own moral arbiter, but (at least on the surface) it's also such a parsimonious move. It is liberating initially.

However ultimately, the logical conclusion is the meaninglessness of it all. I was headed towards a very dark place before the pull of my own conscience became too strong. Some may call me irrational but all throughout my time as an atheist I always had nagging thoughts that this just wasn't right. That there is something beyond me and my own petty desires and I owe it obedience. I eventually found that thing beyond me in Christ.

I'm very glad you found Christ. I think the emptiness of the current materialistic view is reflected in obsessions like drug addiction, binge drinking and the suicide rate. Not to mention violence.

There is simply no meaningful purpose to life if one does not include things like serving humanity, helping the poor and promoting brotherhood between all people.

We can have the good things of this world but as long as we can keep our objectivity and not allow our lives to be possessed by materialistic pursuits.

God Bless.

 

[loverofhumanity]

According to adherents.com the religious beliefs of the world divide up the population pie like this:

I reckon that allowing for materialist Buddhists and Hindus, non-materialists and noting that about half of the 'non-religious' espouse theistic beliefs but without religious affiliation, non-materialists outnumber materialists by about 10 to 1. Struggling to see how they can be to blame for all the worlds ills.

Very good point but religionists are not necessarily spiritual people. If you look at them you might find a lot of them are really religious materialists who are religious through tradition and really have not much interest in the well being of humanity.

So their outlook is materialistic too. The point here is that the materialistic view too much dominates the pattern of world thought.

The number of members is irrelevant as the spirit of this age is basically materialistic otherwise how could we allow 20 million to be near starvation? If the world were truly religious, these people would never have been in such a situation and world peace would reign.

 

[Aupmanyav]

I reject this worldview on several grounds:

1. It is illogical.
2. It is narrow minded and self-contradictory.
3. It is amoral.
4. It is nihilistic.
5. It is dark depressing.​

You are welcome to your views. I am not an anti-theist, but I believe all the five points you mention here are not true.​

 

[Dawnofhope]

I believe we need to explore the truth about reality in a manner that is respectful, courteous, and reasoned. I do not believe being anti-theist or anti-atheist is helpful because it implies antagonism that is a barrier to a shared exploration of reality. Atheists have their reasons for believing what they do, just as theists do. Let's have respectful, friendly discussions as we explore the truth. Is that too much to ask for?

 

[Kuzcotopia]

I have noticed there are quite a few people who self-identify as anti-theists, expressing a strong hatred for theists and religion in general. So, I thought why not self-identify as an anti-materialist, expressing my strong hatred for the view that all is just matter. That mind and consciousness is just the product of the brain, or for those materialists who like to play semantic games, "dependent on and arising from material processes" They do not generally believe in the survival of mind and consciousness after the death of the body, life after death, souls, gods, heaven and hell, moral law or that there is real purpose to life.

I reject this worldview on several grounds

1. It is illogical. How does matter having no mental properties originate mental properties i.e. hard problem of consciousness. How can and why would any arrangement of matter suddenly become self-aware? If this is not a fairy tale like Pinocchio coming alive, then I don't know what is​

2. It is narrow minded and self-contradictory: Materialists only accept as a valid epistemology sense perception or extensions to the senses like telescopes as their way of knowing reality, ignoring that we have other ways of knowing reality, through inference(those things which cannot be sensed or cannot currently be sensed, we can know through inferring from their effects.) And those materialists who accept inferences, like for atoms and gravity etc, then are selective about which inferences they select so that it does not breach their materialist paradigm e.g inferences to establish God, soul, reincarnation, other realms and PSI they reject.​

They also deny other means of knowledge like intuition, revelation, psychic perception. Hence, they are myopic.​

3. It is amoral. Materialists do not believe in a moral law and/or an enforcer of moral law. Hence, they are free to do whatever they want. They can do good things, but they can do equally bad thing i.e., they are forced to moral relativism or morality as a purely subjective interpretation. Sure, the majority of them have some sense of "conscience" but there is nothing stopping a materialist from being selfish, hedonistic and cruel. They are not morally accountable to anything outside of them. They are themselves the police, the judge, the jury and the accused. As such, they can constantly justify everything they do.​

4. It is nihilistic. There is no real purpose in life, life is just an accident of material processes, of atoms colliding with one another. Hence, they make up whatever purpose they want, with only subjective meaning and no objective meaning. If one decides their purpose is to help as many people as they can, another purpose can be to hurt as many people as they can. If one wants to dress up as a cow and graze in the field, another can be to do scientific research. They are both equally valid interpretations. They are after all are accident of matter and what purpose does an accident have? Their individuals lives have as much meaning as a cow grazing a field i.e., no meaning.

5. It is dark depressing. In the end they all believe in the same outcome: they will die and cease to exist. How they get to that final outcome each carries equal justification by natural causes, by an accident, by suicide or by murder. Some die before conception, some a few years after, some in their childhood, some in teens, some early adult years, some midlife, some elderly. They behave like death is not going to come anc go about pursuing all sort of things as if they have any real importance at all, and then either they are in the wrong place and time and they get gunned down or stabbed to death, get hit a bus or have a sudden heart attack. In fact they are already dead, just a bunch of skeletons walking about covered with flesh. If you had x-ray vision all you would see are skeletons walking about.

Disease is another depressing fact of life. Some are born with diseases, like paralysis, and are severely limited in what they can do in life. Diseases can strike at point in life, but by the age of 30-40 the body goes into accelerated decay and a host of diseases attack the body increasing discomfort and pain in life and limiting ones ability to enjoy it.

Inequality is another depressing fact of life. Life sucks, it is unfair. It is unfair from the very start some are born weak, some strong; some stupid, some intelligent; some with rich parents and some with poor parents; some in developed countries and some in developing countries. Then it is unfair through life as we see from school itself, how certain fortunate kids get popular and other unfortunate kids are bullied, some to the point of suicide. Then we see unfairness in society at every level at the work place, in government and in law. We see criminals get away with crimes and innocent people punished. We read in history of the horrible things humans do to each other(slavery, genocide) and are still doing to each other(Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria etc)

If this is the only world that exists, then it is depressing.​

Overall: The materialist worldview is illogical, narrow minded, self contradictory, amoral/cold and dark and depressing. It disenchants life.

Who else here would consider themselves an anti-materialist and those who consider themselves materialists how do you plead to the above allegations?

Would you agree that the political and scientific spheres of man are essentially materialistic in nature? I hope you say yes, and believe the acts and results of government are beneath your notice.

We'll keep doing things to make your life better, like computers, electricity, medicine, and promote programs designed to break the cycles and the effects of poverty.

You can still have a voice in the world we've created for you, and if you want to tantrum about it and claim that we're immoral, evil, or nihilistic. . . be my guest. I'm not going to argue with you any more than I'd argue with my 8 year daughter who says "it's not fair" when I ask her to eat her broccoli.

As long as you aren't a hypocrite and VOTE, then you and I will never have a problem.

 

[Kirran]

Would you agree that the political and scientific spheres of man are essentially materialistic in nature? I hope you say yes, and believe the acts and results of government are beneath your notice.

We'll keep doing things to make your life better, like computers, electricity, medicine, and promote programs designed to break the cycles and the effects of poverty.

You can still have a voice in the world we've created for you, and if you want to tantrum about it and claim that we're immoral, evil, or nihilistic. . . be my guest. I'm not going to argue with you any more than I'd argue with my 8 year daughter who says "it's not fair" when I ask her to eat her broccoli.

As long as you aren't a hypocrite and VOTE, then you and I will never have a problem.

Materialism=/=science. I'm a scientist, but not a materialist.

 

[Kuzcotopia]

Materialism=/=science. I'm a scientist, but not a materialist.

What aspects of your scientific method take into account non-empirical evidence?

 

[Kirran]

What aspects of your scientific method take into account non-empirical evidence?

What does that have to do with philosophical materialism?

 

[Kuzcotopia]

What does that have to do with philosophical materialism?

Why don't you tell me how the scientific method you employ every day and the philosophical materialism you don't agree with are different. . . I'd be intersted in hearing how you resolve the cognative dissonance.

 

[Kirran]

Why don't you tell me how the scientific method you employ every day and the philosophical materialism you don't agree with are different. . . I'd be intersted in hearing how you resolve the cognative dissonance.

Where are you seeing cognitive dissonance? There isn't any. The scientific method is applicable to external observed phenomena. It is useful in explaining them and in producing technologies within that realm. That is its extent.

 

[Windwalker]

While I most certainly do not consider myself a reductionist/materialist, I'll take some exception to the conclusions that are being reaching here and the basis for them. I have criticisms of my own of materialism, but I won't make all these conclusions. I'll take these points below as examples:

My understanding of what you're saying is that materialism is responsible for the mess the world is in and I fully agree.

All the world's problems? The world has done a fine job of creating problems long before materialism came along in the last 300 years. The materialism which is being referred to is a philosophical conclusion that all that is real can be reduced down to matter. It has nothing to do with "greed". But greed actually could be cited as the root of much evil.

When one believes there is no after life and this is all there is then all that matters to them is getting the most materially out of this life. That means one doesn't waste their time on humanitarian projects or trying to establish world peace because life is much too short to be wasted on anything but getting what one can for oneself whether that may be material or sensual pleasures.

This is not true at all. Secular humanism is just that: Humanism. It is all about bettering others, while it either does not include or rejects the ideas of a God or an afterlife. They conclude all there is is this life, so we need to make it as beautiful and loving as we can in the time we have here.

On the opposite side, I know more than a lion's share of Christians who are in fact, because they believe all this world is going to be vaporized by Jesus Christ in a fitful vengeance against sinners, do not live life for the betterment of others, but simply wait to be whisked away into the sky in the Rapture, and taken to their golden homes that await them in heaven. They are the most self-serving of all, and they are that way because they believe in an afterlife. This life does not matter to them, because heaven is their home, not this world. They have songs they sing that say this:

This world is not my home I'm just a passing through
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue
The angels beckon me from heaven's open door
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore
Oh lord you know I have no friend like you
If heaven's not my home then lord what will I do
The angels beckon me from heaven's open door
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore​

Read those lyrics and you tell me if this sounds healthy to you? Does it? To me, this is selfishness on parade being celebrated in song. It turns their back on this world. Narcissism. Period.

Honestly, not too many atheists I know are in fact nihilists, nor are they dog-eat-dog selfish, amoral people. In fact, I'd say for them realizing there is no God and no afterlife is what is responsible for making them more moral, not less. These are the facts on the ground, so such conclusions otherwise are proven unsound.

This leaves our world short of those who would work for its betterment.

Yes, read those lyrics above and who is it wanting to leave this world to its own ends? It's not the humanists.

What if we learned there was an afterlife and we would be judged according to our deeds? I think then everyone would be competing here not for money but for doing good.

Do you want to know the reality of this? When people come to the conclusion there is no God, it has the opposite effect. It makes them more loving. And here's why. When they are living their lives imaging a God in the sky is watching them and keeping record of their doings, to which they will owe an accounting of themselves in the day of judgement, it makes the focus about themselves! They live life worried they won't measure up to the "Big Guy in the Sky's" measuring stick of them. The focus is on saving their own skin.

As a result of this inherent self-facing relationship to God and the afterlife, they end up not moving beyond themselves in truly loving another. How can you see and have empathy for another while your eyes are on yourself? But, if you remove that threat, then they are freed and begin to be able to see beyond themselves and open to empathy. I think removing the threat of judgment of an afterlife is a good thing.

I'll give one simple example that may help you. You tell small children they will be punished if they disobey you. And so the small child learns the rules of conduct for their own safety. But while they are learning this, they are not yet in the place where they can truly love another. They are immature, still needing to learn what they need to for themselves. Their focus is on themselves, and it needs to be for their development. But when then grown up, the threats of a parent's scoldings are removed, and then they begin to see others and develop love and empathy.

Why would this threat need to continue with adults? How is that helping anyone? Do you see why atheists actually can be more moral than many theists? This is why.

So it's a matter of faith if one believes in another existence or not but what if there is? Then a lot of people are going to wish they could come back and do things differently.

A lot of people who have moved beyond religion feel the same way, that they wish they could go back and be more loving than they were as religionists. In reality, it all has its place in our development. But it's good for people to understand the reality of what this looks like.

To give it the benefit of the doubt, let's have a balanced life where we enjoy life but also try to do what we can for humanity to improve the lot of the poor, to create world peace and leave the world in a better place than when we found it.

Can we go wrong with having such a balanced outlook like this?

This is good, but believing in the afterlife or God is not a prerequisite for this.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

I've always thought that the reason not many would take the title anti-materialist is because hate is a material-based thing.

 

[LuisDantas]

Well, there seems to be some undue conflation happening here.

I have noticed there are quite a few people who self-identify as anti-theists,

I for one.

expressing a strong hatred for theists

I trust you will report those that do such a thing. Odds are that they will not long last in the forums.

and religion in general.

Is that so? We have enough challenge reaching a consensus on what would religion be in general, so I don't know how you can have reached that conclusion.

So, I thought why not self-identify as an anti-materialist, expressing my strong hatred for the view that all is just matter.

You can do whatever you want. And you will deal with the consequences, just like anyone else.

I will just point out that every single time people have been described as "materialists" in these forums I have wondered why they used such strange definitions as to literally disregard every single living person.

What is the point of being opposed to a perspective that no one has?

 

[jonathan180iq]

Where are you seeing cognitive dissonance? There isn't any. The scientific method is applicable to external observed phenomena. It is useful in explaining them and in producing technologies within that realm. That is its extent.

So, admittedly, your work revolves around the Materialistic world, it's just that you aren't a materialist personally, right?

Anything discovered in Science is, necessarily, based on the study of the world as seen materialistically... Anything that you've ever researched, or produced, or uncovered, or questioned, or refuted, as a scientist, was done through the lens of materialism.

You may very well reject ideas of materialism in your personal philosophies, but the Science that you participate in does not - it's founded upon it.