Materialism only sees half the picture
As far as the history of ideas is concerned materialism is the new kid on the block. The term materialism was first coined in 1713 by George Berkeley (Bishop Berkeley). Among other things, Berkeley said that Pantheism, Materialism, Fatalism are nothing but Atheism a little disguised. I would tend to agree.
More in keeping with what the Buddha taught I would say that Pantheism, Materialism, and Fatalism are a result of a despiritualizing tendency in Western society that is eager to destroy all that is holy in human beings and for that matter all living things (our current ecological crisis is a result of this despiritualizing tendency).
The materialist is basically saying there is no Buddha-naturenothing holy, spiritual, or transcendent whereby sentient beings can escape from the vicious cycle of illusory existence. On the other hand, for anyone who has experienced genuine Bodhicitta, illusory phenomena have only heuristic value (they can never be ends in themselves). This means that all phenomena serve only to reveal the effective work of the radiant pure Mind, that once revealed, completely ends suffering for us. To make phenomena an end in itself is madness.
As one can clearly see, materialism is only capable of seeing half the picture: the half that cannot and should not be an end in itself but is made such by its wrongheaded adherents. This leads to endless samsara: a wandering from one phenomenal existence to another, without seeming end.
On this same score, religious materialism is found in the excesses of ritualism which is the veneration of the symbolic. This is done at the expense of religions spiritual content. Incidentally, this is my beef with Dogens Soto Zen in which meditation has been ritualized (J., gyoji) in just sitting (shikantaza) as if the posture of the physical body, itself, were spiritually significant (it aint).
Why we have been on the course of materialism for almost the last three hundred years, I cannot say with any degr! ee of ac curacy except to opine that materialism is profoundly evil.
