movements, ideologies and intellectual systems that rejected belief in Allah were, similarly, rooted in materialism. In other words, materialism was the most influential religion of atheism.
Stanley Sobottka, a professor of physics from Virginia University, describes the perversion of materialism in these terms:
If we believe this way [believe in materialism], we must conclude that everything, including ourselves and all of life, is governed completely by physical law. Physical law is the only law governing our desires, our hopes, our ethics, our goals, and our destinies. Matter and energy must be our primary focus, the object of all of our desires and ambitions. Specifically, this means that our lives must be focused on acquiring material goods (including bodies), or at least rearranging or exchanging them, in order to produce the maximum material satisfaction and pleasure. We must expend all of our energy in this quest, for there can be no other goal. And in all of this, we have no choice, because we are totally governed by physical law. We may feel trapped by these beliefs and desires, but we cannot shake them. They totally dominate us.
A succinct, personalized, summary statement of materialist philosophy is, “I am a body.” (Stanley Sobottka, “A Course in Consciousness)
In Ancient Greece, materialists held that religious adherents were illogically opposed to science. For that reason, materialists throughout history have sought to give the impression that belief in Allah and science are incompatible. In fact, however, science has increasingly showed evidence of His existence, and those discoveries worked against the materialist mindset that fought against belief in Allah.