Materialism, Faith, and the Search for Reality

Today, two possibilities seem to stand before us. A person either holds a materialist worldview or is religious. In reality, however, the materialist worldview is also a form of belief — just like any religion. Yet this “religion” offers the greatest sense of freedom to those who believe in it, perhaps the strongest experience of free will itself.

An important stage in the development of consciousness is when we become capable of excluding every form of “higher” direction and begin to feel entirely independent and free.

If we examine our options more closely, we find that nearly every religion is profoundly dogmatic. Reading the Bible, for example, it is difficult to understand why Christian churches cling so strongly to interpretations that establish entire branches of religion — and why such serious opposition exists between different churches.

But if we place the materialist worldview under the same scrutiny, and examine the evidence upon which it stands, we arrive at a surprising conclusion. The deeper we dig into the interpretation of the laws of physics, the more contradictions we encounter — and the explanations offered for these contradictions are often just as dogmatic as interpretations of scripture.

There is, however, an even greater problem here — one that forms an almost insurmountable obstacle for the questioning mind. Almost.

The moment we begin investigating the laws of physics, we encounter explanations and formulations that are often even less understandable than religious dogmas. If a physicist studies wave theory and asks why the electron behaves the way it does, meaningful answers are rarely given.

In fact, even the intention behind the question is discouraged.

- Shut up and calculate!

This became one of the most famous phrases in modern physics.

Wave theory works — so use it, calculate with it, apply it. Questions about why it works are treated as secondary, almost inappropriate. A physicist may concern themselves with such “philosophical” questions after retirement, but if a young scientist focuses on them too early, they risk no longer being taken seriously as a physicist.

What matters is producing something usable. Something “valuable.” Something profitable. Why it works is considered irrelevant. What matters is that it works.

The laws of physics undeniably exist. Yet the materialist worldview still offers no real explanation for why these laws are exactly as they are — or how they came into existence in the first place. A scientist who asks such questions is quickly labelled a philosopher by other “scientists.”

Newton still sought to uncover the laws governing reality itself. His primary motivation was the desire to understand.

Einstein similarly wanted to understand why reality functions the way we perceive it to function, yet his conclusions increasingly restricted explanation to what could materially appear, be observed, and measured.

With Planck, the emphasis increasingly shifted toward the practical use of matter rather than the deeper question of why reality functions as it does.

And if we return to the beginning — refusing to accept anything at face value and searching instead for genuine explanations — we discover more and more incomprehensible dogmas within the materialist worldview itself. Dogmas that are, in many ways, even more untouchable than religious ones.

Questioning these foundations is often treated as a greater “sin” than questioning religion. One quickly becomes labelled “unscientific.”

I have always considered the most respectable attitude to be that of the true scientist — the researcher who genuinely wants to understand reality.

But today, that is no longer what being a scientist primarily means.

Today, knowledge must be useful. Research must generate material value. Those who genuinely seek understanding are pushed to the margins of accepted science and often relegated to philosophy — a field considered “without practical value” according to the dominant value system of our age.

And in that system, the highest authority — the ultimate value — is Power. We could even assign a unit of measurement to it: Money.

A scientist receives funding only if their research promises even greater material profit in return. But if we truly thirst for knowledge, then the first thing we must reject is every definition that lacks a genuine explanation behind it.

Every dogma must be discarded — whether religious or scientific. Only explanations that do not contradict experience can be accepted.

The result of this process is unsettling: our current worldview begins to collapse. And what emerges are explanations accepted neither by religion nor by science.

This follows logically from everything above. Accepting it, however, is far more difficult. So what remains once our existing worldviews fall apart?

What remains is reality.

CF