I am thinking simply that a worker is owed his wages. It is just that a worker is paid and is able to spend his wages. There must be balance in work and play to understand the meaning of life. I've lived life on each side and found that a healthy balance is what is needed to gain the wisdom about what is truly important: which is life. In this small way, material enjoyment is just.
So in societies that don't operate out of a notion of delayed rewards for obscure activity, there is no justice?
You are right, it is all but impossible. But, change starts with one and must be paid forward. If the chain is broken, then we have to restart. These things become impossible when the chain is broken and not restarted. Achieving success is a product of perseverance. I hope for this, but realistically and unfortunately, the only way to cure some things is to cut it out or burn it down and start over. I hope it doesn't come to destruction, but I also hope that one day the impossible will be reality. If not in my lifetime, but maybe someday. It is a pleasant thought, but not enough to take the easy solution to the problem for sanity's sake and just have faith it will come to pass by the hand of god. We have to do something. Besides, what will be our response to god if we had the power to change, but neglected to do so because we were confident that our prayers would suffice?
if society is guided by nothing more than an egoistic sense of ownership of this world (even a benevolent sense of egoistic ownership) it won't happen.
The reason is because the position is already taken.
Namely, the world belongs to god, and there's a set function for the resources and what not.
Thats why an absence of knowledge god automatically lands one in vice to a greater or lesser extent, regardless whether one is apparently affiliated with a religious institution or not.
The employment agency is something good. But that doesn't solve the problem. I do credit them on helping more people than god though, because god helps no one.
The reason it doesn't solve the problem is because money can't buy happiness (granted that money can provide base facility for existence in today's society).
This is why any sort of mission for relieving people from poverty as some sort of perfectional path is flawed.
The real problem is sin, which is evil deeds and attitudes which breeds evil deeds like injustice.
and the root of sin is ignorance of god, since thats the state that empowers all sinfula acts
Sin causes poverty, whether it be poor in spirit or in money, or whether it be the person's doing, or other people.
you are wrong.
Poverty has nothing to do with sin.
How is living without a tv and a hot water system a consequence of sin?
Some person or people most assuredly had the choice somewhere to prevent the effect called poverty on a case by case basis. The poor are failures who have been failed. They are a both the victim and sinner.
rubbish
There is no failure simply because one is poor.
Attributing spiritual value to material facility is nonsense
I meant that no one is immune to sin, so what difference does it make believing in God?
Merely believing god may be slightly helpful in surmounting sin, but immunity from sin requires that one be fully god conscious.
The path to enlightenment is the same. Theists and non-theists still have to make the same day-to-day decisions of good and evil.
I have to digress.
and that's precisely it.
If awareness of god doesn't come in to play in one's day to day decisions, there isn't any difference.
And if one is trying to play the game of good and evil purely within the material realm in ignorance of god, then its merely a pursuit that offers relative rewards
The knowledge of God does not help in any way. In fact, I propose it is a hindrance because believing in god promotes selfish thinking.
Incorrect
Ignorance of god promotes elfish behaviour, since the default position is to view this world solely in terms of "I" and "mine" (which in turn, promotes wrath, envy the whole kaboodle)
Caught unawares, the theists get trapped into focusing on making it to heaven or perhaps being rewarded in heaven, which is selfish.
On a neophyte level, perhaps the candidate wants to go heaven because he hears that god and everyone there has it pretty good. To be a serious candidate for the spiritual world however, one has to abandon that, since the spiritual world is all about god and service to god, whereas the material world is all about me and service to me (or my family, or my nation, or my people, or my species, and so on)
IOW there are two very clear paths for the pursuit of happiness - the materialist has one idea and the spiritualist has a different one. Actually the example you cite bears more in common with your path, since the notion of pursuing facility as the key to happiness is exactly what the material world provides (along with many key lessons that this is not the actual path of happiness ....)
Mundane life? Life is life.
and its the values that one lives by that shapes it
It is experienced. Whether it is mundane or not is up to the individual.
actually its up to the experience that one's values provide
In fact, that is precisely why Christians have what they call "Revivals". They are not immune mediocrity or degrading desires (plenty of that mush in the papers today).
if one pursues the values of pursuing material facility (or glorifying the pursuit as the topmost of values, and hence spreading the word to the masses), its a mundane revival
This is an interesting thought though. I was thinking just today while passing a cemetary. It said on the gate "Catholic Cemetary" carved in marble. Then I got to thinking about Catholicism and about how interesting all the fancy buildings and rituals are. It is all mystic and downright interesting. It's like playing with a Ouji board, except better because so many people play along. It almost makes me want to become catholic.
any sort of decoration on a dead body is simply done to satisfy the foolish.
After a person has left there body, the consequences of their acts are already well in motion
Anyhow, it is interesting what role rituals play in religion. It leaves the user with a sense of awe.
For as long as there is a society of any sort, there is ritual. I guess our greatest and most common indicator is the language of semiotics within advertising
Are you not responsible for the things you do?
sure, but that doesn't give me ownership over the objects I do things with or the people I do things with
Responsibility implies ownership.
and since the only thing you are really responsible for is yourself, thats all you really own (although conditioned life does a fine job of stuffing even that up through the agencies of envy, wrath etc)
If you don't own your life, you are not responsible for it.
sure but I am not sure how this relates to .....
This world is not here for you to enjoy nor renounce, since to do either of those two first requires ownership
This is true. Take god out and put "every living thing", and we still are left with a true statement.
the problem is that you are not in a position to serve evry living entity.
Even if you want to somehow draw up a plan for personal satisfaction by relieving a handful of people from poverty, they will still be dissatisfied.
Conditioned existence is exactly what religion promotes, which I agree is not beneficial and is why I started this thread to begin with.
the problem is that you have tried to establish how the path of material prosperity is the path of being free from conditioned existence.
This is simply not the case.
There are even studies done that after one has enough money to get food to eat and a place to stay, further acquisition of funds and resources doesn't really do much for a person
What good is the concept if it can be achieved with other means?
the problem is that you haven't achieved it.
All you have done is dressed up altruism with vague platitudes,coupled with a deluded sense of freedom that sees one bound to the material body and
all its inherent weaknesses, shortcomings, vices and sufferings
:shrug:
