Materialism? (Score: 1) by koen@pipedot.org on 2014-05-07 19:41 (#1FC) What exactly is "materialism"?- philosophical: everything is made of matter (and energy, by E=mc²) - in other words: there is no such thing as a soul.- common: a tendency to collect property/money.It seems they confuse both meanings, especially in a sentence like "the perceived shift towards more materialistic values in the west".Both meanings are unrelated. I am a materialist in the first sense (for the moment, that is until there is scientific proof of the existence of something else - which would surprise me even if the possibility is not zero), but not in the second. I also know enough religious (so not materialist in the first meaning) people who are materialists in the second meaning.