Atheist materialism - the mainstream ideology of the West, that monopolizes the entirety of public discourse - is a system of reasoning that claims to be wholly based on "evidence"; it claims to make no metaphysical assumptions regarding the ultimate or basic nature of reality.
Atheist materialism therefore operates wholly at the superficial level of evidence and logic - as defined by its won denied assumptions of what constitutes valid evidence and logic.
This is achieved by taking its own metaphysics for granted (and denying it exists) and keeping all discourse confined within its own assumptions; and declaring everything else to be meaningless, or merely arbitrary personal opinion (which amounts to the same thing).
Church religions are deeper than atheistic materialism, because churches declare specifically their own fundamental metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of reality - and that these assumptions are shared by the religion's adherents.
Church religion is superior to atheistic materialism because it knows and admits that it has metaphysical assumptions, which it then sets-out explicitly - whereas atheistic materialism falsely denies that it makes any metaphysical assumptions.
However, these fundamental religious assumptions differ between religions.
Each religion defends its own assumptions by trying to prove them: either prove them from evidence: such as the claimed observable consequences of belief and unbelief in terms of individual psychology, or perhaps societal functioning.
Or else religions try to prove their fundamental assumptions using rational logic - religions try to prove that their assumptions Must Be as they are, or else things would be incoherent or incomplete.
However; to the atheist materialist, the variety of Church religions metaphysical assumptions is regarded as conclusive evidence that their assumptions are arbitrary - just made-up.
And the atheist materialist regards attempts by religions to prove that their own particular metaphysical assumptions must be true, whether the attempted proof is by observations or by logic, as being dependent on already accepting the religious assumptions. i.e. Church proofs are seen merely as circular reasoning.
Atheist materialism has alternative and non-religious explanations for all church attempts to prove all possible systems of religious metaphysics.
To atheist materialism there is thus "zero evidence" for anything religious; and the assumptions of all religions are seen as arbitrary and just "made-up".
Atheist materialism (nearly-)always wins disputes with church religions, because atheist materialism is much more powerful... very-nearly all-powerful, at the Western civilizational level.
The metaphysical assumptions of atheist materialism are immune to social refutation because they never discussed as being "beliefs" - and are denied to be assumptions at all.
This rhetoric is effective and "works" because the metaphysics has been built-into every type and level of the functioning of modern society; and inculcated such as to become habitual during socialization.
Atheist materialism is the default for modern Men.
Church religion continues to lose this debate with atheist materialism, because the dominant public metaphysics depends on power, and church religion gets weaker and weaker.
Also because church religion has assimilated more and ever-more of the assumptions of atheistic materialism such that it has conceded all the most fundamental ground in advance of discussion.
Therefore, attempts to prove any religious metaphysics in publicly acceptable or socially effective ways in our society as it actually is; merely lead-back into atheistic materialism.
Church religion is consequently stuck and doomed; because insofar as a religion has power, cohesion, effective-influence, wealth, organization etc; that religion is itself a part of the atheist materialist civilization, and its already-existing assumptions.
From such a society, with such basic and habitual assumptions as we actually have; there can only arise various kinds of atheist materialist conclusions.
The way forward is therefore down - down to considering the metaphysical assumptions of religion as what they are - which is as assumptions, not evidence-derived...
And therefore religions need to stop pretending to derive our metaphysical assumptions from consensus definitions evidence and logic - because the modern consensus of what constitutes valid evidence and logic necessarily sustains atheistic materialism.
If we (you and I) continue to rely-upon societal and consensus (including church society and consensus) definitions and understandings of valid metaphysics; we will be trapped by atheistic materialism.
Only by using our own personal discernment to discover what it is that we really belive about the ultimate and basic nature of reality can we escape atheist materialism.
Only by coming to know our own personal and deepest metaphysical convictions can we move forward to a positive, sustaining, and motivating, and fundamentally different system of understanding.
And, only if reality is objectively real - and if that ultimate reality is set-up such that we each, as individuals, can attain to sufficient true understanding of reality - could this be possible.
That is the necessary faith: the faith that it is indeed possible and achievable for each one of us who desires it and consciously chooses to do it; to gain a sufficient understanding of the fundamental nature of reality for ourselves.
3 comments:
Another really important post.
I've been thinking about this very subject, and I've found that one core unstated assumption of materialism is literally that there is no spiritual dimension to reality. The assumption is that reality consists of what can be shown by "science", at best a process of direct observation and experiments of material processes.
However, there is no reason why a spiritual dimension of reality wouldn't exist, which could accessed through direct observation, mystical experiences such as meditation and prayer, and traditions handed down of people experiencing this reality. The materialist perspective simply denies this exists as an assumption, and seeks to explain away any evidence that it exists.
It might be possible to use reason and logic to demonstrate that material explanations can not explain all observed phenomena, but this is not necessary and may not be the best approach.
As I minor point, I use materialism (which I agree is the dominant post industrial religion), and not "atheist materialism", because while most people are materialists, many or most still claim to adhere to a religious tradition and even attend religious services.
@Ed -
My point is that all proof (whether empirical or observational) starts from assumptions about what is valid proof. And that is why materialism never seems to get refuted, even though it is internally incoherent.
People just learn to live with the incoherence (even, sometimes, with stark contradictions from one day to the next, one minute to the next!) - most people find this quite easy, apparently.
It seems to me that theistic materialism is just too feeble to have more than a "lifestyle" distinction from the dominating atheistic materialism - which is why all the churches are on-board-with the totalitarian agenda.
The extent to which atheist materialism has infected church religion may be clearly seen in the area of Christian apologetics. What has been termed Classical Apologetics (CA) is where logic and evidence are essentially used to prove God’s existence whereas Presuppositional Apologetics (PA) insists that one must start with His existence as a presupposition and see where that line of argument takes you. To grant neutrality on the question of God’s existence first and then to look for the proofs from there using logic (basically the theory of non-contradiction) is considered by PA to concede too much too early. The respective arguments soon cross over each other as the idea of God as superior or supreme being reasoned out from a so-called neutral position – the unmoved mover argument, the ontological argument of Anselm, the cosmological argument of Aquinas, etc., do not comprise a proof for, or even provide a pathway to the God and Father of Our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Philosophically, we can see this as contention between the many and diverse epistemological arguments over the need or otherwise for starting with express, unproven assumptions – presuppositions – which is a minefield of the various claims of different schools of thought.
Gordon Clark, R C Sproul and Clark Pinnock are three of the prominent CA’s whilst Cornelius Van Til, Rousas Rushdoony and Francis Schaffer are on the PA side.
The PA argument suffers from, and is confused with, the overarching Calvinism of its main proponents which is partly why it makes little progress within the established churches. Indeed, most evangelicals, including Calvinists, are materialists at heart, with a bit of spirituality thrown in to explain miracles and the like which "proper" materialism naturally baulks at.
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