Page 283 - For Men of Understanding

The Worry of the Materialists
The facts discussed in this chapter, namely the truth underlying matter,
timelessness, and spacelessness, are extremely clear indeed. As expressed ear-
lier, these are hardly some sort of philosophy or way of thinking, but crystal-
clear scientific truths, impossible to deny. On this issue, rational and logical evi-
dence admits no other alternatives: For us, the universe-with all the matter
composing it and all the people living on it-is an illusory entirety, a collection
of perceptions that we experience in our minds and whose original reality we
cannot contact directly.
Materialists have a hard time in understanding this-for example, if we return
to the example of Politzer's bus. Although Politzer technically knew that he
could not step out of his perceptions, he could admit it only for certain cases.
For him, events take place in the brain until the bus crash takes place, then
events escape from the brain and assume a physical reality. At this point, the
logical defect is very clear: Politzer has made the same mistake as the materi-
alist Samuel Johnson, who said, "I hit the stone, my foot hurts, therefore it exists."
Politzer could not understand that in fact, the shock felt after a bus impact was
a mere perception too.
One subliminal reason why materialists cannot comprehend this is their fear
of the implication they must face if they comprehend it. Lincoln Barnett tells of
the fear and anxiety that even "discerning" this subject inspires in materialist
scientists:
Along with philosophers' reduction of all objective reality to a shadow-
world of perceptions, scientists became aware of the alarming limitations of
man's senses. 22
Any reference to the fact that we cannot make contact with original matter,
and that time is a perception, arouses great fear in a materialist because these
are the only notions he relies on as absolutes. In a sense, he takes these as
idols to worship; because he thinks that he has been created by matter and
time, through evolution.
When he feels that he cannot get to the essence of the universe he
lives in, nor the world, his own body, other people, other material-
ist philosophers whose ideas he is influenced by-in short, to any-
thing-he feels overwhelmed by the horror of it all. Everything he
depends on and believes in suddenly vanishes. He feels the despair
which he, essentially, will experience on Judgement Day in its real
sense as described in the verse "That Day shall they [openly] show

[their] submission to Allah; and all their inventions shall leave them
in the lurch." (Surat an-Nahl: 87)

Matter and the External World 281