Page 177 - Allah is Known through Reason

LOGICAL DEFECTS OF THE MATERIALISTS
From the beginning of this chapter, it is clearly stated that matter does
not have absolute being, as materialists claim, but is rather a collection of
sense impressions created by Allah. Materialists resist this evident reality,
which destroys their philosophy, in an extremely dogmatic manner and
bring forward baseless anti-theses.
For example, one of the biggest advocates of materialist philosophy in
the 20th century, an ardent Marxist, George Politzer, gave the "bus exam-
ple" as the "greatest evidence" for the existence of matter. According to
Politzer, philosophers who think that matter is only a perception also run
away when they see a bus about to run them over and this is the proof of
the physical existence of matter. 34
When another famous materialist, Johnson, was told that matter is a col-
lection of perceptions, he tried to "prove" the physical existence of stones
by giving them a kick. 35
A similar example is given by Friedrich Engels, the mentor of Politzer
and founder, along with Marx, of dialectical materialism. He wrote, "if the
cakes we eat were mere perceptions, they would not stop our
hunger". 36
There are similar examples and some outrageous sentences such as
"you understand the existence of matter when you are slapped in
the face" in the books of famous materialists such as Marx, Engels,
Lenin, and others.
The disorder in comprehension that gives way to these examples of the
materialists is their interpreting the explanation of "matter is a perception"
as "matter is a trick of light". They think that perception is limited to sight
and that other faculties like touch have physical correlates. A bus knock-
ing down a man makes them say "look, it crashed, therefore it is not a per-
ception". They do not understand that all perceptions experienced during
a bus crash, such as hardness, collision, and pain, are also formed in the
brain.

A Very Different Approach to Matter 177