Capitalism - the Ultimate Religion

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

I didn't link you to any of the Churchill posts. I agree you made some contemptuous comments about one or two of the middle ones apart from #1 and #20. I see no comments at all from you about my references to the work of Walter Benjamin, although when I referenced Marx you did make a dismissive remark telling me to have my own ideas and that I should not quote other writers.

I did more than make contemptuous comments. Just because you chose to stop reading and retaliate with your own and provide little else (particularly in the first few posts you've responded to) doesn't mean that that's all I've provided.

You have yet to give me or anyone any reason to believe anything you've said about Capitalism being a religion and not one of those posts provide it. I responded specifically to the first post because it was the only one specifically to address this topic, but all of the assumptions your statements are founded upon are unsupported.

Thank you for now partially replying to Post #1. I agree that I state a number of things which I believe to be true although it is particularly ungenerous to dismiss them all as "baseless assertions".

Unless I'm mistaken, I've responded to the entire post. If I've missed something pertinent you can put it up and I'll address it.
Baseless assertions is what happens when you say something to be true without really giving any reason for the reader to believe this is the case.
For example, telling me that apples are stupid because purple is a stupid color is not only inane, but also baseless because apples do not have the necessary pigmentation in order to produce a purple apple (you know, short of genetically engineering). This statement already reached a conclusion based on a false premise and that's what you've been doing about this whole 'capitalism is a religion' thing.

Not only that, if you read the post, over three quarters of my remarks are posed in the form of questions, inviting others to comment on what I think are quite reasonable and interesting ideas.

As I've just pointed out, your statements are based on false premises and baseless assertions. In order to have a discussion stemming from your questions, I would have to accept your premise to be true and since they clearly aren't, that premise has to be addressed because if they aren't true, then your questions are irrelevant.

And that's it! That's your counter-argument to my idea that capitalism is a religion!

Just as with religious claims on god, divinity, the afterlife, miracles, and other points they make, the burdon of proof is on you. You have to give me some reason to accept your premise and you haven't done it. Not at all.
You've told me to go and re-read your previous posts to find the proof you've provided, but I can't do that because you haven't provided any.
Further, my counterarguements have addressed all this. Just because you read my more nuanced arguements and come out with 'you're wrong, nya nya nyaa nyaa' doesn't mean that's all I wrote.

You ask why atheists would have a 'stance' as atheists about capitalism. My argument is that capitalism is a religion, so atheists, being at the very least sceptical of religious ideas, should be as vociferous and as rejecting of capitalism as they are about rejecting christianity, islam and judaism. But they tend not to be, and that makes me wonder why.

That's absolutely inane. There are several atheists here repeatedly telling you why - it's because it's not a religion.

You assert that, "No one worships capital as a god." Really that simple sentence takes us back to the debate at the core of my argument, but no further forward in terms of examining its validity. I say people do worship capital as a god, because by worship I mean they regard it with ardent devotion: they do degrees in the study of it, build careers around it, businesses and industries, start wars over it and they cut public services on the basis of its needs, treating anyone who disagrees as blasphemous.

This is exactly what I mean by broadening the definition of a religion so much that you've essentially nubbed off the corners of a cube to fit it in the circle hole.
People don't worship capital. They use it. It's a tool and it is used as such. People do not get degrees in money-ology (akin to theology) people get degrees in things accounting, economics, and business because the exchange of money is necessary in the exchange of goods and services and people treat it exactly as such.
There are no places of worship for money of any kind and people do not devote themselves to money in the same way that christians devote themselves to god. The two are completely and wholly seporate things and are defined as such.

You keep asking for evidence. I know what I'm going to say will probably give you a pretext for another bout of dismissive remarks, but on the subject of evidence I'd better just make it clear that I see "evidence" as a relatively minor player when it comes to philosophical or political ideas, for a couple of reasons. I often say that if I were presented with a valid proof of the existence of God, it wouldn't stop me being an atheist. If it got to the stage of being presented with a valid proof of such a ridiculous idea, I would have to doubt my own sanity (really, don't feel the need to comment on that) so the validity of my interpretation of the evidence would be flawed. For this reason, evidence is generally kinda interesting but by no means conclusive in philosophy.

Then this 'discussion', such that it is, is essentially over.
You've admitted that the dictionary definition doesn't fit your use of the term religion.
You've admitted that evidence to you is secondary in proving your point.
Your conclusion is thus based on the lack of both your desire to be constrained by the english language use of the term 'religion' by broadening it so much that anything could be a religion and that despite the fact that you cannot provide me anything in which I could use to see your arguement as even relatively close to being anything like truth - let alone an arguement with any validity.
Further, you did not pose a philisophical arguement - you outright asserted that capitalism is a religion without even holding that point up for discussion until I and others called you out on that. Philosophy is a school of thought that discusses the nature of existance, reason, mind, and the nature of existance. The Matrix, as the movie, is a thought on existance and a question of reality through the simple question of what is reality? What you did is mistake the importance of currency and the methodology of the exchange of goods and services with the ideas of life, death, spirituality, creation, and morality.
The two have absolutely nothing to do with one another except in such a general sense that you could define anything as a religion as long as more than one person follows that idea.

I am far more interested in the coherence of people's arguments than I am in evidence. I don't dismiss evidence, but equally I know that in philosophy, the presentation of evidence often leads to demands for more evidence. You end up with a mass of perplexing evidence, but at the end of the day you still have to make your own decision what to believe. The process is the same with people who insist that dictionary definitions of words are the only legitimate tool for interpreting the use of words in debates about philosophical concepts. The problem I see is that for every dictionary definition you then need to start looking up all the words containing the definition. This eventually gets you nowhere. Far better to discuss the internal coherence of the arguments people are putting forward, and to agree to disagree if you cannot reach agreement.

The thing about the dictionary is that the people who print them usually perform that kind of research. You see, languages exist because words have definitions - you always use one word in precisely the same way each time. Sometimes that changes but sometimes it doesn't - that's why terms like 'gay' have archaic defintions that can sometimes be outrageously different than modern uses.
That is how languages can even sometimes evolve into completely different languages given time and isolation. English is a perfect example of a language that has defined roots in virtually every language on the planet given its wide use around the world.
However, that doesn't mean a person can just start using words however he or she chooses and expect others to follow. That would lead to chaos and language itself would become meaningless.
Now, my point here is that you're not using 'religion' in the same sense that anyone else is. This is because religion is a defined thing which, as we've already discovered, a fairly exacting definition and few dictionaries tend to stray from any one definition - usually just rewordings of the exact same meaning. However, what you're doing is saying that a not-religion is a religion because the dictionary doesn't have the proper definition for the way in which you want to define religion as and that dictionaries, which exist precisely so allow anyone to know and understand these definitions - is wrong.

Well, I have to tell you, I'll believe the dictionary before I believe you - particularly since the dictionary definition mismatch you have going on here isn't the only reason I don't believe you.

If you managed to point out any coherent internal contradictions then I'd have more respect for your position, but just repeating "That's not true" and "where's your evidence?" isn't what I'd call a coherent counter-argument to the ideas that I've presented.

Evidence wasn't the only thing I've asked for. Your arguements have severe issues with not being logical or rational. Your arguements are not based on anything other than, from what I've been able to determine from this entire thread, nothing. Your definitions of terms is outright wrong.
This is in addition to having no supporting evidence. There are no united states money churches. There are no sunday services to praise money. There are no prophets to the all mighty dollar. There are no holidays exclusively to praise capitalism or any saint (or whatever) specifically or even indirectly devoted to capitalism. There are no capitalism anything that does anything like any religion anywhere. There are no rituals, morals, life lessons, moral codes, or anything that Captialism teaches.
The beginning and end of Capitalism is a methodology of trade and economics and you have given me nothing to convince anyone otherwise.

You gave an argument that Superman fandom can be said to be a religion. Well - it's more a cult than a religion. I'd say a cult is just applicable to the limited number of people under its influence, whereas a religion is more fundamental to a bigger proportion of the population because it's about beliefs and values pervade the whole social structure.

You've already practically proved my point. The fact that you've even given the concept merit already means you've defined it so broadly the the arguement could be made for ANYTHING popular.
I'll expand that a bit: Although I don't have exact numbers on Superman's popularity - I am aware that Superman's fans range in the tens of millions (at least) worldwide. Movies and television shows have been made about him all over the world and the original action comics #1 has sold for oodles of money. Superman as a brand name is worth billions of dollars.
If we define Superman Fandom as religious in nature, it would be a religion with many millions of followers worldwide.

But it doesn't end there. More to the point of capitalism, by default, if capitalism is a religion, then every economic system is a religion. All of them. Each and every one of them fits the definition you have given religion entirely because it has a large impact on our daily lives instead of a small or insignificant impact either profoundly to individuals or broadly to a large swath of the population.
But your definition also allows for other things to be defined as either religious in nature, a religion, or a cult. This includes all brand names with a great deal of popularity (like Mountain Dew or Coca Cola), popular television and movies (Avatar, Harry Potter, Inception, the Simpsons), popular individuals and personalities (brangelina, Oprah, Jon Stewart, Fox News personalities, etc), video games (World of Warcraft, Starcraft), and probably many other things but it still covers just about everything based on how I've argued that Superman is a religion because those things could potentially be anything and that's why your arguement fails and fails hard based on any logical or rational reasonings.

You also said that capitalism professes no beliefs about existence and the purpose of life, morality, so it can't be a religion. In response to that I'd say first that capitalism doesn't have to profess any beliefs about the existence and purpose of life in order to be a religion. As it happens, I think that most capitalist propaganda does suggest that the profit principle applies to everyone and there is a whole moral code around living within your means and not making others pay for your needs, for example through the welfare state. One capitalist teaching would therefore be that people must get through life while balancing the books, and not make a loss - don't allow your expenditure to exceed your income over your lifetime. A lot of thinking about welfare is influenced by this profoundly moral belief which ties into the capitalist work ethic among other things.

... so let me get this straight...
In addition to not basing your arguements on supporting evidence, the definition of religion or capitalism, you're now going to include the fact that capitalism is a religion despite having no religious teachings, morals, guidelines, or rituals?

Also - Capitalist propoganda? Whose capitalist propag... nevermind.

I am arguing that Capital is the central figure, and is personified in many forms: the accountant, the Treasury Minister, the Governor of the Bank. But there is no requirement that this central figure should be a person or even that there should be a central figure at all. Usually there is such a figure, but it is not compulsory, and in any event I think Capitalism has one.

By that arguement, the guy who owns the McDonalds from where I get my McDonalds food is the minister of the church of McDonalds.
But that's just one of my patented dismissive remarks, which I have given to you because that thing you posted above is ridiculous. Accountants don't worship money nor do they preach money as though it has anything to teach. He handles money in the same way that my grocer handles food.
Why is it that you can't seem to tell the difference?

You then said "there are no tenants of faith, rules, or codes in which a person is to live their life by" Well I think that one tenet of faith is that capitalism is an inevitable system, a "given" and that anyone who argues against it is mad or a troublemaker. Rules are elaborated around the profit principle and the guilt associated with failing to live up to it.

My computer has a technical manual too. It recommends the ways I should and should not use my computer and from what it tells me I'm certain that I should not take it into the shower with me. That doesn't make the technical manual for proper computer operation a religious text any more than your definition of a 'tenant of faith.'

I have difficulty understanding the first sentence or how murder relates to it. I recognise that capitalism per se does not identify murder as a moral outrage - I wonder if that is why it has continued to allow the other religions their existence. There is no point in capitalism allowing christianity, islam etc to exist if they do not have a function that is beneficial to capitalism.

That's because those are religions. They have an effect on people's lives that's distinct and completely seporate from the manner to which capitalism affects anyone's life. The reason that Capitalism hasn't quashed anything is because Capitalism isn't an organized faith of any kind and doesn't have that kind of focused power.

Weddings tend to be an excuse for a party. Marriage is highly useful to capitalism as it establishes a productive unit of consumption. I agree that capitalism delegates the recognition of this legal arrangement to the sub-religions because they tend to be better at it. Capitalism must tread a careful path: if it is too blatent in its interference in everyday life then it exposes itself to the risk of being replaced by a more rational, less oppressive system. That's why the other religions are tolerated: to lend legitimacy to rituals and morals that are necessary to the survival of the capitalist system.

There isn't any response to this that hasn't already been said.
I'll just add that between this and every other response you've given thus far is that Capitalism just like a religion except in every way that a religion actually works and operates in the real world.