Materialism is the best way to pursue happiness

My case will be divided into two parts. I will first be stating the benefits of living a materialistic lifestyle. Than I will show the harms of a spiritual lifestyle, and compare the two. ------------------------------------------------------------- Materialism benefits everybody. If one is capable of acquiring physical comfort, than one should put all of his or her energy into acquiring that physical comfort. I would like to state that I believe that there is a low probability of there being an afterlife. I believe that we must live our lives we have now to the best of our potential. An afterlife though would be great. ----------------------------------- Materialistic Examples-This argument is a compilation of products and devices that give people physical comfort. I will be arguing why this is beneficial considering the world we live in. --------------------- Video Games-I noticed that someone in the comments stated that as a fellow gamer; they would completely agree with materialism. My opponent cannot underestimate the significance of gaming, because 217 million people around the world play video games. Why do people play video games? There are an abundant amount of answers that I could give. A simple answer would be that almost all gamers see games as a source of physical comfort. The escape video games offer is very comforting. It has been estimated that we spend 3 billion hours a week playing video games collectively. This a huge harm to people that are of the spiritual world. I would argue that materialism represents itself to the common man through video games. Gamers are obviously achieving more benefits from video games than spiritualism. I would ask my opponent these questions. Why would the common man resort to spiritualism for happiness than video games? Can you prove that spiritual values will even make a significant impact on the common man? ---------------------------------------------- Internet-I can basically argue that the internet itself is a physical comfort. The internet itself is a materialistic source. There are many sub-points that I could put on this example, but won't due to lack of characters. Again, what your going to find is that there is a large number of people that use the Internet. 2 billion people use the internet. I am just going to list the common websites that people visit for physical comfort. -YouTube-Number of Videos people watch daily is 100,000,000 -Facebook-175 million people log in daily. -Instagram- 100 million users log on daily. -Porn-Pretty much everybody=. http://www.bing.com... Now, I will again ask the same questions. Why would the common man resort to spiritualism for happiness than the Internet? Can you prove that spiritual values will even make a significant impact on the common man? ------------------------------- Money-People will usually assume that the height of practicing materialism is when one is very rich. This might be true, but there are a lot of advantages that come with money. Advantages: -Financial freedom -Holidays anywhere -A great home -Funding for your pastimes and passions -Good suits -Great health care -A swimming pool full of girls in bikinis -Gold teeth Now, I know my opponent would use the argument that money does not make you happy. But, does having little to no money make you happy either? Is being in the middle class offer any happiness? As human beings, it is only natural for us to keep aiming higher. I also think the idea of being rich has been over-hyped by the "American Dream". Can my opponent really dispute that being wealthy does not benefit your stability in life? It does offer stability. Wealth does give you leisure time to discover what gives you physical comfort. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Spiritualism- First let me define what spiritualism is. Spiritualism is a belief that spirits of the dead have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living. One can be spiritual by embracing the common values that religions offer. I will also accept the association of humanism with spiritualism. Here is a list of spiritual values. -Self-understanding -Integrity -Diversity -Honesty -Uncertainty -Discernment -Novelty -Humility -Holism -Synthesis All of these values seem beneficial at first. But, how realistic are they is my question, and main attack on spiritual values. Novelty, humility, and honesty are all idealistic for the human being. Materialists can also practice these values in order to maintain order in our social lives. But, how can one really practice these values. I will be arguing that the common man cannot possible execute these values to the level of proficiency a Buddhist in Asia can. ------------------ Humans are naturally selfish. One can observe throughout evolution that the common theme and survival of our race was off of selfishness. Our race hunted and killed animals. We built tools that made us efficient in this task. We started to evolve. Our ambition made us discover new areas in the world. Humans split up into different areas in the world. This is also in recent history that we have accomplished this. One can look at the endless conquests humans have done. The Persians, Romans, Arabs, Mongols, French, British, and German conquests all reflect who we are. Humanity holds traits that are itself materialistic. Humans want physical comfort. It is engrained in our DNA. I have provided statistics in this debate that prove people do look towards materialism as a source through happiness. The common man in the status quo pursues happiness through video games, the internet, and money. Sources: . http://www.thecultureist.com... . http://techcrunch.com... . https://answers.yahoo.com... . http://www.ted.com...