Elegant as always, sear.

However, I would like to counter the point myt contended that we live in a material society. I'm assuming this definition is pertaining to the philosophical sense of the word materialism?

Myt, if you're attempting to say that this society is primarily materialist (in that most of it's citizens focus merely on the material as measurements of their lives; or, they believe that one is to be measured on the basis of how large a house they own, what kind of car they have, or how beautiful they look), then I would agree with you. And in this sense, I am very anti-materialist.

Even with the above granted, in a more philosophical context of the word I believe we live in a very immaterial society insofar as the average individual is unappreciative of the true value of things material. Someone who is appreciative of material would be fascinated in the material reality before them as opposed to attempt to gain some kind of spiritual (or otherwise unseen) gain as one's personal attainment. In other words, a materialist in this conception is more appreciative of the here and now as opposed to seeing it as a mere means to some other kind of spiritual attainment. In this sense, I'm very materialist. And I am proud of it. I believe -no, I know through scientific understanding- that our ego (in terms of consciousness, feelings, etc.) are material concoctions of our brains. With the death of our brains, so dies the ego. Whether if there is a further ulterior mode of highly subtle consciousness (spirit or whatever underlying the material manifestations), free of all qualifications of ego, I believe is still up for debate but also completely irrelevant.

Even if there is some kind of ulterior consciousness underlying our existences (call it soul or spirit or whatever), it is irrelevant to my point because consciousness is still a material concoction. When you die (much like before you were born), everything percieving as your ego (memories, emotions, etc.) will die with you. I think the realization of this reality makes life more important. When I moved away from my more spiritual beliefs of God and an impermanent inherently existing spirit; things started to become in focus and a more compassionate and appreciative outlook was possible. I actually found a more powerful and real set of morality in the realization of a more secular humanistic understanding as opposed to Christianity!

Anyway, in retrospect, I apologize for some of my rather crude and cold language when I was trying to illustrate my points before. This issue, as I'm sure with you, gets me excited and I take it to heart!

Anyway, I took nothing personal as I'm used to that kind of debate now, and I hope you didn't either. But I believe it was definitely a more refreshing and important debate as opposed to the more shallow debates of politics, I must say. I thank you for that.