I can feel your anger

[The Grand Nudger]

Why would you want to go away, I personally don't want you to leave. Unintentional comedy comes at a high premium in my life, so I appreciate your contributions.

You'd have a stronger case if matter required belief, it doesn't. You'd have a stronger case if we ever found or had any inklings of the existence of this mysterious supernatural world that you implicitly offer as an alternative, we haven't.

The material world is all that we know, and as it stands, all that we seem to be able to know in the first place. You could always change this, rather than bicker over whether or not people swallow whatever you'd like to sell. No one has ever done that, most opt to bicker instead. You might want to consider the differences between those things which you feel are "beliefs" if you want to understand why your continued insistence in this area will be less than fruitful. I think the term "belief" has been used far too loosely far to often in these posts amigo.

If you think you've found a gotcha moment, you're going to be disappointed. I do not believe in supernatural shit. This lands me in the materialist camp(or on the borders of it in any case) -almost by default- not through any sort of belief. It is where I find myself, case in point, due to a complete and utter inability to "believe" things in the first place.

That you state you don't need to justify your view/belief/dogma is amusing for me too, that said if the proportion of people who thought like you lot increaed I'd be worried.

I agree the material world is all we know, however that you apply that as material is all we know, that is all which can exist is odd presumption to make. You just presume your assumption to be true. Why you "believe" we can prove all there is is beyond me.

If this is not true, tell me why.

Except that I didn't state that, you did. Except that I don't hold such a belief, you merely insist that I do. Mostly for those reasons. You seem to be arguing against classical materialism, in the same way that creationists often argue against darwinism, as though it has any impact on our current understanding of either subject. Classical materialism was abandoned (by most) long ago, and not because a philosopher deconstructed it, or because an apologist refuted it, but because we discovered a little thing called gravity. Gravity, and not your holy bullshit, or demands for explanations ad naus, is a good argument against classical materialism. That you decided to go the route you have and not this particular route only shows that you couldn't even be bothered to fucking google....

As materialism is a position which finds the support of scientific endeavor behind it (at least for now-feel free to change that at any moment), our notions of materialism are subject to change or revision as our knowledge of our cosmos changes.

(and as a nod to those who would argue for classical materialism -gravity can be and is argued for as an effect of matter, of course.)

See, only tears lay down this road my love. You are demanding absolutes of a person who does not subscribe to beliefs, instead preferring provisional certitude, you may as well beat your head against a brick wall. If you were interested in my opinion (which of course you must be) then I'd have to say that I think you're projecting your own perceptions onto mine. You believe there to be absolutes, and so you assume that there must be similar absolutes in my perceptions. You believe that there can be certainty without provisions and so you look to find those areas in my own appraisals of reality that would suggest this -in order to criticize those things -and all of this, I suspect, in the hopes that by weakening another's views (either in actuality or perception) yours will somehow become strengthened, or at least placed on an equal plane. Unfortunately, that's not how this works.

As far as the strength of materialism in philosophy. Any conclusion you may reach can only have as much value as the premise and assumptions that went into it's culmination can be said to have. Materialism has an edge here in that the premise and assumptions (which vary, depending upon which type of materialism you want to invoke -it;s a broader field than you probably realize) can have a measure of truth or value assigned to them, because they lend themselves well to the methods we have collectively decided are a productive way of explaining the world around us. In truth, you don't have an issue with materialism until it conflicts (or is perceived by you to conflict) with some pet fantasy, such as a soul or spirit world, or magic. If these things were important to you I imagine that it would be much more useful for you to find a manner in which these things could coexist with our appraisal of the workings of the cosmos, rather than scorching the earth -even for yourself- as a kneejerk defense of a concept which you obviously haven't invested much thought in. If you want you fairy realm, make it work -don't tell others why their material realm doesn't -because it clearly does, even for you.