Materialism, understood as a philosophical position recognising substance as fundamental, and frequently the only reality, is presented as a consistent consequence of rational rejection of metaphysics and belief in transcendent reality. In its more world-viewed form, atheism and the belief that man is only a biological being lead to serious questions about the foundation of morality. If there is no absolute origin of value outside the material world, on what basis can we base the claim that certain acts are actually good and others truly bad? Critical analysis of materialism leads to the conclusion that the consequence of specified a position may be the relativisation of moral standards, and in the long word besides the progressive moral freedom and weakening of the boundaries imposed on the individual.
The problem is not that all atheist is morally promiscuous or that all individual accepting a materialistic image of the planet rejects all norms. specified generalization would be unauthorised. The criticism of materialism primarily concerns his justification of morality. If man is only a peculiarly developed material organism, and consciousness, free will and values are only products of physical or social processes, it is hard to find the basis for the existence of absolute standards. Of course, it can be said that certain behaviors are conducive to society, to stability, or to human happiness. However, these are pragmatic arguments. They do not answer the question of why a individual should act morally even erstwhile immorality benefits him personally.
This is where relativism comes in. If moral values are not objective, but are the consequence of evolution, upbringing, culture or individual preferences, good and evil can be brought to what the community or individual considers desirable or undesirable. Then the “everything is relative” rule begins to have dangerous consequences. Since standards depend on circumstances, it can be argued that if something is accepted by 1 individual or group, it should besides be acceptable to others. Relativism does not gotta logically lead to the belief that "all things are allowed", but it surely makes it hard to identify an impenetrable limit that must not be breached independently of individual beliefs.
This problem is peculiarly evident in the moral sphere. If conventional standards on sexuality, family, work or work towards another man are not objective, they can be treated as historical conventions that modern man can freely reject. Consequently, freedom begins to be identified primarily with a deficiency of restrictions. Man is to be free not only from force and coercion, but besides from inherited norms, obligations and moral judgments. However, this concept of freedom is internally problematic: is unresponsible freedom inactive freedom, or is it voluntary?
A akin problem concerns civilian liberties. Liberal society needs a wide scope of freedom, but all freedom requires borders. If an entity may consider its desire to be the highest criterion of action, the conflict of interest becomes inevitable. Then the state must either increasingly interfere with citizens' lives or accept a situation where stronger and more ruthless people impose their rules on the weaker. Paradoxically, therefore, the complete rejection of nonsubjective standards may not lead to greater freedom, but to the request to establish increasingly detailed regulations.
However, this does not mean that all form of materialism automatically causes the decline of morality. You can make secular ethical systems based on understanding, the rule of reciprocity, human dignity or the minimisation of suffering. The problem is that these systems must answer the question of the eventual justification of their values. Thus, the critic of materialism may argue that the ethics without transcendent foundation is subject to change with a change in social preferences.
Ultimately, the top threat is not the atheism itself or materialism itself, but the transformation of relativism into the rule that man himself sets limits of good and evil. If everything becomes a substance of choice, it is increasingly hard to justify why certain choices cannot be made. Freedom without moral foundation can turn into freedom and freedom into indifference to good and bad. Therefore, criticism of materialism does not necessarily mean rejecting reason or freedom. On the contrary, it may be an effort to defend the thesis that actual freedom requires boundaries, and morality needs values that do not depend solely on man's momentary desires.
Conclusion:
Atheism leads to the belief that there is only death and on the way to it consummation, but religion in God gives hope that life has more meaning than just a passing existence.
Atheism, recognising moral relativism, leads to the acceptance of all form of killing: from abortion, through wars to euthanasia, due to the fact that it acknowledges the rule that anyone with an own or social benefit is simply a moral act.
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