RADICAL FUNDAMENTAL MATERIALISM
I’m not the only one writing about this!
from a Thai publication called “The Nation”
Spirits in a Material World: David Loy on Re-evaluating Religion
by Pravit Rojanaphruk
A dynamic new belief system has evolved over the last few decades, says Prof. David Loy: one that he thinks can be described as ‘the first truly world religion.’ “It’s the most successful religion of all time,” says Loy, a professor of philosophy and religion at Japan’s Bunkyo University, during a recent trip to Bangkok.
“It’s winning more converts, more quickly than any other religion in human history.” Loy is referring to what he terms “the religion of the market”, a belief system which offers “salvation through consumerism” and whose message, “buy me if you want to be happy”, is transmitted through the mass media using “the most effective proselytising technique ever developed”: addictive advertisements.
Loy regards the desire to accumulate ever-increasing amounts of money and material possessions as a “religion” because he feels it is motivated by the spiritual drive–albeit a distortion of the same, which he believes all of us possess. “All of us have a sense of lack. Buddhism says that there is no self. Well, I think all of us know this (intuitively) but we repress it. And the way it comes out is (in our) great concern for security, for grounding ourselves. Some people think, “I don’t have a girlfriend”; “I don’t have enough money.” It comes out in many different ways. For a lot of intellectuals, like myself, I think it comes out more strongly in terms of fame. We all want to be famous: we all want to be interviewed.”
