It's always fascinating to watch Christians take refuge in dogma, platitudes and personal abuse.
I remember a time when I also had to hide from reality in order to protect faith.
Materialism is a dogma just as sure as any religion is. Just because it is the dominant ideology of the age we live in doesn’t make it any less dogmatic. In fact, probably more so, because people become complacent and assume that, because it’s the received orthodoxy of the day, it therefore stands above other beliefs as more respectable or reliable. The fact that materialism is the current accepted wisdom should make us more rigorous in challenging its claims, not less so.
There are serious problems at the core of a purely materialist account of reality that cannot easily be dismissed. Such as, if everything that is real can be explained in terms of material causes and effects, then what is consciousness? Since we experience consciouness directly, and the material world only indirectly, would we not be more rigorous empiricists if we affirm the reality of consciousness as primary, and remain more sceptical about the nature of the material world? And if we are to use empiricism as a bedrock for understanding, how do we cope with its shaky foundation? In that, what evidence can be produced to support the statement itself: “we should only believe statements on the basis of evidence”? And then, why do we suppose the human mind is capable of posing and answering fundamental questions about reality in the first place. Is this anything more than just wishful thinking?
It’s not just those who believe in God who have difficult questions to answer. If you eliminate God as an explanation then you are also left with a formidable set of difficulties. At least many theists acknowledge the difficulties associated with their beliefs. Some atheists seem to cope with the difficulties of their worldview by pretending they don’t exist. Or maybe they genuinely don’t understand the problems their view of reality throws up.
