Michael,

Monism simply means the philosophy that the universe is fundamentally comprised of one type of reality. One can be a physical monist (materialist), neutral monist or mental monist (idealist).

Great points Michael. IE Clinton and "I feel your pain". . .

I haven't defended people who spend large amounts of money on lottery tickets, clearly that is a disfunctional behavior.

But I have and do defend small-time purchase lottery tickets (at least up to $104 a year, that gets you one powerball ticket for each drawing). If someone wants to daydream about becoming a millionaire for much less money than daydreaming about hollywood stars in movies on a regular basis, I cannot call that a sin.

How and why the current reigning philosophical hegemon (reductionistic materialism) is obviously correct, unbiased, rational, and factual, while the reigning philosophical viewpoints of all past societies and civilizations are obviously suspect and based solely on superstitious nonsense and irrational dogma, and how the future will judge us as essentially correct in this matter, unlike how we judge all previous civilizations.

A nice coda would be some well-placed rocks thrown at anyone who would challenge the current paradigm, since they are obviously just fools or liars.