Well, you can assume it is a brute fact, but that fails to explain, which is what people want when they ask for the question. I think this is the strength of Leibniz's cosmological argument. I'll hash it if you'd like.
I have some familiarity with it but I think my issue is slightly different.
"Why is the world the way it is?" is a fine question and in fact has propelled science, philosophy, religion and innovation of all kinds. I'm was questioning the first part of your statement, which is "people acknowledge that the world is not the way it is supposed to be".
Understanding how we got here seems a worthy exercise but I am not sure that the world is "supposed to be" any way other than what it is.
The first of the four noble truths in Buddhism is that life is suffering, and I think that's very correct, if you consider the many forms that suffering comes in. If you accept the evolutionary view, life on this planet is the way it is largely through suffering and desire. Buddhism concerns itself more with understanding and transmuting that suffering.
It certainly seems to be, at the very least, a factor. People have discovered materialism (philosophical and otherwise) fails to satisfy. Think about who is the most depressed in the West, the richest, the most powerful, and the safest.
I'm not sure what the patterns of depression are, but I would be surprised to learn that the rich are more depressed than the rest of us although I know that's held as a common truth.
Another way of looking at your statement above when contrasting rich and poor countries might be: "consumerism fails to satisfy, particularly when you don't feel you're getting what you deserve."
I think if we took the spiritual pulse of the rest of the world we would find deep spirituality (maybe not of the Christian persuasion, but nonetheless...).
I suppose that depends on what you mean by deep spirituality. I suspect that, like in the West, a lot of people typically accept the religious tradition in which they were brought up, but that doesn't imply their religion will bring them much comfort.
Consider the Dalit untouchable class in India. The Dalits live and still live in unimaginable poverty. I used to live in India as a boy and I can still remember the terrible squalor and poverty in which they live. One of the things I remember is that whenever I saw Dalits together they were smiling and laughing. They seemed happy, even though they were the lowest of the low, rejected by society and their own religion.
Until recently, most Dalits were Hindus, which for them meant they had little formal religion at all because Dalits weren't allowed in most Hindu temples because they were considered unclean. What teaching they received is that they were being punished for the sins of a past life.
To me, dalit is not the caste. He is a man exploited by the social and economic traditions of this country. He does not believe in God, rebirth, soul, holy books teaching separatism, fate and heaven because they have made him a slave. He does believe in humanism. .." [Nandu Ram 1995].
I think that may describe the mindset of a lot of Dalits but it certainly isn't true for all because recently a lot of Dalits have converted to Buddhism and a lesser number to Christianity. They find themselves for the first time able to question their place allotted to them within life, and to expect more than the status accorded to them.
The point is, spirituality was not serving the Dalits well, in this life or in the next, because most Hindu traditions that acknowledge the Dalits indicate that the only hope for a Dalit was to serve casted Hindus well enough that they might stand a chance of being born into a caste in the next reincarnation. Of course, that would also mean being born into soul-crushing poverty as most castes are not well off.
Conversely the Piraha tribe in the Amazon are fundamentally irreligious; although they have a conception of spirits, those spirits are confined to objects and people in the here and now in a very unspecified and undefined animism:
Living in the now also fits with the fact that the Pirahã don't appear to have a creation myth explaining existence. When asked, they simply reply: "Everything is the same, things always are." The mothers also don't tell their children fairy tales -- actually nobody tells any kind of stories. No one paints and there is no art.
Source
And yet, when Dan Everett came to live among them as a Christian missionary and learned their ways and language better than any outsider, he found them to be fundamentally happy. So much so, in fact, that he came to question his own beliefs and became an atheist.
To clarify my position; I am not arguing against religion's importance in society, or that it is a negative force. I am arguing that there are examples that show that spirituality isn't always a positive force to unchain the oppressed (in this life or the next) nor does it always provide a palliative worldview to help us bear suffering.
It might help explain why Dalits must suffer and be made to suffer for both the caste Hindus and the Dalits. But a more useful and empirically verifiable explanation is a socio-historical one.
Totally agree that this is part of the problem, but I would say that the reason we are as individualistic as we are is, at bottom, a worldview issue. Though I am a Reformation baby, not all that came from the Reformation was good...
...Again, a worldview issue rooted in materialism, not Christianity (not that you were accusing Christians of that).
True, and I don't think we really disagree on these key points. One important role that I think many religions including Christianity are good at playing is helping us to reconcile our lots in society, placing suffering in a different perspective, and providing hope and some answers regarding what happens after we die. Of course, that doesn't make Christianity or any other religion "true", but that's a different question.
Having said that, not even spirituality guarantees this in our culture. There are plenty of depressed Christians whose faith and commitment I wouldn't presume to question. Depression is no failing on their part, nor is it a failing on the part of their religion. But spirituality on its own is clearly not the whole answer.
Conversely, materialism in the philosophical sense rather than the spiritual sense, can provide its own fulfillment in an industrialized culture once you decide for yourself what meaning there is to be found in your existence. I have found a materialist outlook to be rewarding and enriching.
Just in case I have to head the Argument from Reason off at the pass, I am of a mind - but cannot prove - that the existence of reason has a materialist cause, in that we live in a universe composed of discreet objects. As such, it is governed by logic. My materialism reaches an end a fraction of a femtosecond after the Big Bang, at which I have to shrug my shoulders and say "I don't know."
John 16:33...Life is suffering...either there isn't an answer to that or there is.
The Buddha thought so too. Is there only one answer then? According to Christianity, yes.
Well, I'm off to eat a poptart...
They'll get my saturated fats and sugars when they pry them from my cold dead body.
PS. Sorry about the tl:dr
