Isms Are Not That Complicated

The "ism" is the most commonly misused, misrepresented, and misunderstood concept than any other part of language. The three most misused ones by theists are theism, materialism, and commercialism.

While other such adjectives are abused nearly as often, I will focus on these because even a few atheists and scientists abuse these three. An "ism" has nothing inherently to do with belief or worship, nor does it inherently have anything to do with obsession.

An ism is really just an adjective made out of a verb or noun, and that's it. Adding the suffix ism to something makes it "about this," in other words, a single descriptive trait. Thus, materialism is NOT "worshipping of material objects," it means "pertaining to the material world" or the physical world as opposed to the philosophical or imaginary world.

When a person is materialistic it means they are concerned with the physical world, such as food, shelter, safety, … on and on. It does not mean they worship luxury objects, theists often misconstrue this to distract people from the fact that they are greedy and often addicted to luxury objects more than anyone else.

Which brings us to the related, though also misused, adjective of commercialism. Commercialism applies to any system in whicb an arbitrary value is placed on something, even barter and trade is commercialism.

Money is just a marker of value, a scale used to measure the comparative values of everything, even your very life. You earn value by working for it, then you spend that value on things you need and want.

Corporatism is rarely abused as a word, but often people will mistakenly use commercialism when they intend to say corporatism. Corporatism is the incorporation of values, allowing a few elite to decide the worth or value of everything instead of society.

Enter capitalism, another commonly misused word. Capitalism is where the values are determined by society by popularity, what people are able and willing to give for something is it's value and nothing else impacts it.

Back to the original three before I stray too far. Everyone who wants to survive is materialistic, because surviving in the physical world requires that one be concerned with the physical world.

Everyone who adheres to a value system of any sort is a commercalist, if you place a value on your work you are a commercialist. If you believe a god exists then you are a theist, if you don't believe a god exists then you are technically an atheist.

Some isms do include belief, but belief is not inherent. So pull your heads out of your asses and learn to communicate, instead of making everything up like you do in church.

Comsumerism - Ignorance Abound

I am known to beat a dead horse quite a bit, and this is almost an exception to that rule. However, the entire reason the USA will not become a Capitalist society is because of how inundated our culture is with religious nonsense. If a child is not offered the chances to make decisions as they learn, they will not learn to make decisions well as an adult, this holds true for society as well. For too long people have been given answers to questions that benefit only those in power, and people became too use to having someone else watch out for them.

This phenomenon has been the primary reason Capitalism cannot take root in the USA, people are slow to learn how to make smart decisions and thus still need someone else to tell them what to do. This "someone" is often a government agency, such as the FDA. This has opened a path for criminals to take advantage of people, instead of being smart and looking up information to validate claims and businesses, people just accept what information is handed them as fact.

In true Capitalism, the consumer has the power, businesses must please the consumer or fail due to a lack of profit, and failed businesses just get replaced by better ones. The consumers make the ultimate decision in which businesses are healthy, and which are bad, making for a very powerful, and stable, form of society. The problem is that this requires the consumers to become educated, to know what they are buying, why, and how it's made and sold. It means the consumer must ignore the figurehead "masters" and be responsible for their own decisions.

This is a difficult task, because people are still stuck on "now now now," they want quick answers, quick results, and even quicker paybacks. In the past we had little time, as a species, to think on matters, and having someone who looked out for us was of some benefit. But in this day, everyone has access to all the information required for any intelligent decision. This means we can ... relax. For the first time in history we are able to actually learn, study, and analyze every decision, every product, every service we need or want.

So I challenge anyone who reads this, ignore the advertisements, ignore the government's opinion, ignore the opinions of others, and investigate everything you buy. Turn to scientific research, to actual facts and figures. Turn to the things that can actually inform you on matters, the opinion of a perfect stranger can often be more valuable than that of a friend for such matters, because the friend will worry more about your relationship than the facts, while a perfect stranger will just tell you what they think.

Scientific papers are the most valuable sources of information, and now, thanks to the internet, you can buy these papers or acquire them from friends at the click of a link. The thing about scientific papers is that they go through a rigorous method of peer review, make sure you check for that specifically to make certain it's valid. This process eliminates errors, almost flawlessly, in the data, making the information more accurate and thus more valuable.

Try it yourself, you will find that many of the products you have been ignoring due to false information are some of the best products you could have been using. You will find that many of the companies you have been avoiding are some of the best companies as well.