The existence of Christian merchandise does not imply that Christianity is consumerist. Why? Because "Christian merchandise" equals merchandise labelled Christian by the guy selling it. Guys selling china figurines of angels are not necessarily authoritative Biblical scholars. It does not follow from the scriptures that men ought to be materialistic. Quite the opposite. Camels and needles and all that.

This is similar to the Discovery Institute's rationality for attacking science. It appears they believe that scence begets materialism (as in the metaphysics Paisley is always whinging on about), and materialism begets all the ills of the world, including consumerism, corporatism, men who think the comb-over is a great hair style, abortion, egg salad sandwiches, greed, hate, men who fly planes into buildings, women who show too much flesh, spumoni ice cream, women who don't show enough flesh, and so on.

This was one of the major "points" of the clusterfuck "Expelled," and allowed Ben Stein to go on about how every atheist is really a clone off Hitler, and we all hanker to grow a stupid moustache and have hordes of adoring and compliant supplicants. I mean, I do kinda want my own horde of adoring and compliant supplicants, but it's not because I'm atheist.

Although, now that I think about it, science does promote consumerism.

Consider: one of the main reasons we are good little consumers is because we live in a nice soft world that has lots of cool things available for purchase. The economy is good (even in spite of the recent downward plunge, we still currently have a fairly bright future, unless we continue to spiral down out of control for more than a year or so), at least for the moment. Everyone wants a piece of that nice consumerist pie.

Part of the reason we have such riches is because science and engineering and other materialistic pursuits allows us to live in such comfort and wealth. So in a sense, Paisley (and the DI) is right. Our nice comfy world is a direct result of the non-religious pursuit of knowledge. A secondary consequence is that people want things that make life nice and comfy, and  everyone needs a Tivo, especially Aunt Grace.

Whether or not we should partake of that nice comfy world so ravenously is a different question.

I'll make it simple. Your argument takes a few pieces of information, and draws an inductive conclusion:

(1) There is a lot of Christian merchandise, so Christians buy lots of things.

(2) Some churches endorse buying lots of things.

(3) Everyone has to have material things to survive, so everyone is, in fact, materialistic.

(C) Therefore, Christianity is materialistic.

There are two obvious ways of interpreting that conclusion.

First, you might mean that Christianity, as in the individuals presently practicing it, are materialistic. That conclusion could be supported by #1 or #3. However, that conclusion, even if true, is irrelevant to the charge that your essay is meant to address. The person who says that secular materialism is destroying the culture is referring to its philosophic impact, the changes wrought by secular ideas. He is NOT comparing the activities of individual secularists to the activities of individual Christians, and saying that Christians are better behaved. Nor is he referring to the fact that everyone must have some minimum daily allotment of food and water (The pursuit of that minimum, incidentally, is not what most would call "materialistic". The term is associated with the excessive pursuit of goods, for the sake of the goods, not with mere subsistence.) To rebut his charge with a census of the buying habits of the religious is to sink into irrelevance.

Second, you might mean that Christianity, as in the philosophy, should lead a person to believe that materialism is correct and that consumerism is good. You could try to support this with #2, but as I don't acknowledge the authority of the preachers who make those claims, that won't be dialectically effective. You must support this from the scriptures.

And you have tried to do exactly that. Let's see how you did:

Neither of these imply that Christianity is materialistic. In both cases, wealth is a reward to be received at the benevolence of God, not a thing to be actively pursued and attained on one's own.

Ad hom. My behavior cannot prove or disprove the Christian moral code. More generally, the difficulty or ease with which a moral code may be practiced says nothing about its truth.

Does not fit with the text. The man Jesus made the analogy about was rich in material goods, not in spirit. Indeed, the man said that he had practiced the law faithfully since he was a boy. That makes him poor in spirit under your usage of the phrase.

I'm going to try this again, with very short sentences.

* The set {All Christians} contains all degrees of materialism.

* The set {All Atheists} contains all degrees of materialism.

* The Bible does not offer a unique or lucid set of instructions regarding materialism.

That's it.  That's all I'm saying.  People are just people, and there's no empirical evidence on which to base a conclusion that Christianity makes people less materialistic.

This is a fallacy of equivocation. And the answer to your next question would obviously be "knowledge", which is probably the most important thing of value. Actually, I tend to look at people who are only concerned with consumption with contempt, which sort of puts a hole in your argument. Granted, I like having a comfortable life and so forth (who wouldn't?) but I am much more concerned with intellect than with property. Intellect, is, after all, more important than anything else (certainly more important than the vapid notion of "spirituality" ). The best Christmas present I ever recieved (I still have this, btw) is a book on advanced quantum electrodynamics that I had actually requested. That reminds me, you've put forth a fallacy of bifurcation. You implied there would be nothing to value apart from "material goods" under a materialist perspective (this, as I have already pointed out, is a fallacy of equivocation as well).

If knowledge is not material, then you have just made a case against materialism.

Then if knowledge is material, then you are still seeking to "accumulate material goods." 

Then why does God reward so many people in the Bible with material gain?

Why do Christians make such a big deal of the everlasting life as a reward for accepting Jesus? That is, after all, a material gain.

There's certainly a clear-cut message that Jesus has about religious merchandise: he overturned the carts outside the temple. Buying Christian merchandise that says "What would Jesus do?" is accomplishing the exact opposite thing that Jesus would do.

To address both Will and Presup, I didn't say the bible doesn't offer any instructions regarding materialism.  I said it doesn't offer a unique or lucid set of instructions.  Certainly one can read the story of Jesus overturning the tables and reach the conclusion that selling shit in church is bad.  One could also reach the conclusion that Jesus didn't like any kind of selling in church.  Or... maybe he didn't like dishonest sellers in church.  Or... maybe he didn't like selling religious stuff in church but selling it outside is ok.

Then again, who's going to buy anything if everybody is supposed to sell everything they own?  Then again, why does Jesus promise us riches in heaven if we're not supposed to be materialistic?  If we're only supposed to be materialistic once we get to heaven, is it because the resources on the earth are limited?  Does that mean the environmentlists are on God's side?

By the way, Presup, I'm not asking these questions in search of an answer.  They're rhetorical.  Everybody but you can see that the Bible has conflicting messages that can be interpreted in different ways.

DG has spelled out the conflation I was talking about earlier.  "Materialism" doesn't lead logically to "Materialism."  That is, the belief that all that exists is material has no connection whatsoever to the lifestyle choice of accumulation of wealth.

Finally, to re-reiterate, nothing in the Bible with regard to materialism is unique.  Ascetics of various ilks the world over had discovered the value of non-materialism before anyone had thought of the idea of one masochistic god to rule over the desert.

 Paisley, do you just not understand the explanation of thought, ideas, abstractions, etc?  You've read it an awful lot of times, and never been able to refute it.  I wonder if you're just ignoring it.

 To put it another way, the desire for accumulating knowledge has no particular correlation with the desire to accumulate physical items.

So let's get really nitpicky:

Materialism(1) - the belief that all that exists is a natural part of the material universe.

Materialism(2) - the belief that accumulation of physical items is worthwhile

Curiosity - the desire to accumulate knowledge.

These three things are distinct as ideas, and one does not lead logically to any other.

I blame Madonna for this argument. If she could have gotten "materialistic" to scan in the chorus of "Material World" (what the song really meant in other words) then English-speaking christians who obviously don't possess a dictionary might not now be so confused.

Dogs have a bark. Trees have a bark. Do christians spend sleepless nights near wooded areas, unable to nod off for the incessant baying of the sycamores?

I grant that God often uses wealth as a reward. However, rewarding good behavior with wealth is not the same as saying that the independent pursuit of wealth for the sake of having wealth is good.

As an analogy, a parent might give a child candy as a reward for good behavior. It does not follow that the parent wants the child to be good simply for the sake of getting candy, or that the parent wants the pursuit of candy to be the child's all-consuming goal, or even that the parent wants the child to try to get candy on his own. It simply means that the parent, for whatever reason, is using candy as a reward.

The behavior of individual Christians does not tell us whether or not Christianity is philosophically materialistic.

Dammit, Nigel, I like egg salad sandwiches! They are not evil!

Is the candy an important factor at all? 

For whatever reason, eh.......

How about Luke, 12:30-33ish? Yes, you can say 'he's just talking to specific people there', but if that's the case, and that only applies to the disciples, then why do so many other things he said to the disciples apply to everyone? What about that whole 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Light. None come to the Father except through me.'? That was said to the disciples, and that was clearly a call to live a life following his example. Most Christians will claim it means that salvation only comes through believing in Christ's message and worshiping Jesus Christ. But Christ never demanded or accepted worship. At no point does Jesus claim the Godhead. The closest he comes is telling Thomas that 'blessed are those who do not see, but still believe'... and that wasn't about his own divinity, but about him being ressurected by God, as a seperate Power that raised him from the dead. He called upon people to follow him, not to worship him... and what was that message that salvation can only be found by following? What was the example people were to follow?

Luke: 12:33: "Sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor. Make yourselves wallets that don't wear out-a dependable treasure in heaven, where no thief can get close and no moth can destroy anything."

If it is unreasonable to infer from that instance that everyone should do as he says there, then it is unreasonable to infer that anything he said to the Disciples is binding on anyone else. Which includes the Way/Truth/Light bit, the Golden Rule, and turning the other cheek. Keep in mind that despite what a lot of Christians assume, 'The Disciples' is not 'The Twelve'. It's the larger group of his followers that tagged along, dead-head style, while he was on his 'Jesus Christ - 33 AD' Tour through Galiliee and Judea.

And the true irony here? The only way to really do that is to forsake God entirely. To live a moral and just life without concern for God, because as long as you hold to God, you are holding to that hope of heavenly reward. If it is right to do, it is right to do, regardless of God.

Hmmm... might wanna check that line from Luke again... he's pretty clearly saying that the impetus for change should be a desire for reward in Heaven. While it might not include the accumulation of excess material items, a case could be made that simple existence in Heaven, instead of 1,000 years of torture in Gehenna and then ultimate annihilation is a tangible material reward.

Indeed! Ironic, no? Especially since both of you sincerely believe in what you're saying and think the other is a clueless dunderhead who just doesn't Get It (tm)...

See, here's the problem: Person A has reached a conclusion, and has their mind made up. There is no room for real discussion, only instruction, because Person A feels Person B is completely wrong and needs to just admit it already.

I leave it to Persons A and B to realize that everyone who's taken a gnostic position is both Person A, and everyone else's Person B.

Hmmm... in reviewing my post, I have come to the realization that I started writing with something in mind for you, and it simply isn't in the finished product.  I have no idea what it was.

By the way, for Presup and Paisley and anyone else objecting to my statement that the Bible is open to interpretation, I'm sorry.  I can't even think of a way to start to argue this.  It's like if someone told me to argue that street lamps in Manhattan aren't made of Jello pudding.

Interlocutor: Prove that street lamps in Manhattan aren't made of Jello pudding.

Me: Um...  they're not.  Duh.

How do you even argue against someone saying that the Bible can only be interpreted in one way?  I mean... fucking hell!  I've personally sat through at least three different sermons on the camel and the eye of a needle.  All three of them were different.  There you go.  Proof positive.  The bible can be interpreted in different ways.  End of discussion.  

ROFL

I'm going to try that sometime.