Materialism as an Undeclared Religion: _The Unmet Burden of Proof_

Materialism claims to be the scientific worldview. Yet it rests on an unprovable assumption: that a mind-independent material reality exists and causes our experiences. Every piece of evidence for this claim comes through experience itself, making the justification circular. Materialism therefore carries an impossible burden of proof that it can never meet by its own standards. This makes materialism not science but an undeclared religion. In contrast, Experiential Empiricism (EE) removes the metaphysical assumption and grounds knowledge directly in experiential patterns. This paper contrasts the two approaches, showing why materialism is structurally faith-based while EE is structurally empirical.