Why Materialism?
  by Phil Stahl

At various debates I've had with supernaturalists over the years, one of their recurring objections has been "the hackneyed characterization of Atheists and Materialists as people who deal with reality -- while religionists deal with fantasy."

When pressed to elaborate, they fulminate that we (Atheists) have no right to dismiss religion and supernatural belief -- including god, devils, angels and the rest -- as nothing more than imaginary confections or figments. Science is "limited" after all, so how can we be sure a bevy of invisible presences don't pervade the cosmos?

Of course, they miss the whole point.

Materialism didn't simply emerge into prominence out of subjective preference. Rather, by reducing the cosmos to its constituents -- which can be mathematically or empirically manipulated -- Materialism fashions a desirable parsimony (meeting the Ockham's Razor requirement that "speculative existences are not to be increased without necessity").

Thus, Materialism is minimalist by definition. By its very nature, focusing on manifestations of accessible (and measurable) matter, energy and fields, it excludes distracting and unverifiable presences -- immaterial "macguffins" that would otherwise induce intellects to be squandered on the meaningless pursuit of phantasmagorias.

Note that Materialism does not deny such presences, it simply asserts that they're all superfluous since science can already answer (or at least adequately address) state of the world questions. Thus, invoking an unseen or immaterial agent serves no practical purpose. It can't be used to predict a novel event or phenomenon or even understand existing ones.

Ancients supposed that "spirits" drove the planets round in their orbits, but science (namely physics) has disclosed the cause is actually centripetal acceleration with the primary motive force traced to the Sun. We may thereby dispense with spirits.

Why then do religionists and their apologists get into a snit over this?

I suspect one reason is that they mistake where the onus lies for the burden of proof or evidence. They believe it's on science or Materialism to disprove their immaterial claim. But one of the most fundamental rubrics of logic is the impossibility of proving a negative (i.e. proving that god, demons or spirits don't exist).

The correct position is that supernaturalist defenders must prove -- or at least provide extraordinary evidence -- for their claim that immaterial entities exist. They, after all, are the ones who would add to the existing (material-physical) reality. The Materialist, on the other hand, is quite content to make do with the physical universe as presented to him, as revealed by modern astrophysics, plasma physics and astronomy.

Since the existing physical structure of the cosmos is readily observable (see, for example, the Hubble photos of stellar birth) and analyzable, then it is clear that Materialism doesn't rest on "faith." Nor does the Materialist embrace any "faith" by a priori eliminating the immaterial from his considerations or mathematical models.

No - it's simply a case of preferring not to waste time, attention and scarce resources over a supposition for which the most menial justification hasn't been provided. In other words, the Materialist displays common sense, not "faith."

Until such time that supernaturalists can give quality evidence for their ethereal inventions, the Materialist has boundless confidence in ignoring them. Devils will not distract him from achieving scientific goals, nor will angels, fairies or ghosts mess up any scientific experiments or predictions. And no god will send him to "Hell."

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