Materialism is a philosophy within the realm of metaphysics that holds that the only thing that can be proven beyond doubt to exist is matter. Materialism holds that all phenomena and processes can be explained as manifestations or results of matter.
Materialism defies both experience and logic. Experience provides numerous counterexamples that disprove materialism, such as migration, homing, action-at-a-distance and non-locality, plus extraordinary good and evil events that lack statistically plausible explanations. Materialism is also contrary to logic, as there no logical reason to expect human senses to be able to fully recognize all of reality.
Materialism ignores unseen opportunity costs, and often materialists are unable or unwilling to grasp this and other abstract truths. Materialists have trouble realizing that the deterrence effect of gun ownership yields more benefits than any harm that guns cause cause. Materialists often develop obsessions with their outlook, as reflected by evolution syndrome.
Harm Caused by Materialism
The falsehood of materialism causes significant harm, including:
- downplaying the harmful affects of gambling and pornography, which can be even more harmful than destructive substance abuse
- downplaying non-material causes of accidents, such as young children impulsively darting towards water or into the street
- exaggerating possible material causes of anxiety and possible material remedies, such as medication
Materialism misleads people into thinking that non-material-based addictions (e.g., gambling and pornography) are not harmful to one's health. They are often very harmful despite a lack of immediate physical harm.
Materialism in Politics
In politics, materialism overlooks abstract principles and instead focuses on tangible or directly observable characteristics, such as:
- job title or status
In the United States, Democrats tend to be materialistic, with particularly heavy emphasis placed on race, gender and job title. Republicans, in contrast, tend to focus on principles such as family values, pro-life or economics.
Materialism in Education
Materialism is taught heavily in public schools, leading students to undervalue unseen aspects of life. There is a high correlation between materialism and atheism as atheism is fundamentally a materialistic philosophy. Materialism denies that most great intellectual breakthroughs were the brainchild of men with faith in the unseen.
Materialism in Science
Materialism undermines science making it increasingly atheistic, rejecting God and his works in explanations of the world and all of human experience. Instead science readily embraces liberal logic and pseudo or junk science such as evolution, relativity, global warming and much of cosmology and geology based on a time frame which predates creation. Fortunately the rigid logic of creation science is gaining in importance, enabling intelligent people to distinguish real science from atheistic secular junk science.
Other Aspects of Materialism
Arguments for materialism commonly use principles such as Occam's Razor to propose that an immaterial realm is wholly superfluous to materialists' understanding of the world.
"Materialism" can also refer to an obsession with material goods.
- "[T]he greatest failure of materialism is that it simply cannot explain the existence of information!" 
- The history of the rise of materialism in Western society by Clement Butel
- Accidental angle: C.S. Lewis on materialistic thoughts
- 15 ways to refute materialistic bigotry:A point by point response to Scientific American by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati