Why I'm not a Materialist

By Rev. Rebecca

Being an atheistic materialist is the exception in terms of cultural and world history. If you spend some time in countries where people are still in touch with the world outside of the physical material one, you quickly realize there is plenty of "stuff" going on behind the scenes that a materialistic viewpoint can never explain. Living in Thailand did that for me. But almost any non-western country or culture (ie Native American in the US) will suffice. Any country/culture that hasn't totally bought into the philosophical presuppositions of the Enlightenment and subsequently, atheistic materialism. That includes, essentially, the non-western world. Until one hundred years ago, that included every last woman and child that ever walked the planet. I believe atheism is a mere blip on the screen in terms of world views and will die out again as its faulty philosophical underpinnings fail. It's already happening in the western world as the younger generations are turning back to spirituality...they know and "feel" we've lost touch with something vital and true.

I think the only reason people think atheism is rational is because they were taught that scientific materialism is the only rational system of thought and that everything outside of that is irrational or superstitious. I believe this is faulty logic and I don't agree with the presuposition to begin with. I actually find scientific materialism to be irrational. It denies human experience throughout the millennia and employs an extremely narrow view of the world....ie, only that which can be empirically verified is considered valid. That seems plainly non-sensical. But we're fed this bias so thoroughly in the western world, we can't get past it now. We automatically equate anything that diverges from scientific materialism to be "irrational" because we were told it is.

I am an extremely logical, rational person and have reasons for believing everything I do. Skepticism is of great value. We question everything/everyone. Although spiritual experience and truth cannot be verified/proven in a laboratory under the conditions a scientist would like, spirituality is far from irrational.

Back to Writings