From John Stonestreet at Breakpoint:
C. S. Lewis observed that the most dangerous ideas in a society are not the ones argued, but the ones assumed. And there’s little doubt that in most universities across the United States, secularist materialism, in one form or another, is the assumed and unquestioned perspective from which most subjects are understood and taught.
So much so, that even professors theoretically committed to open-mindedness and inquiry are like the proverbial fish who don’t know they’re wet. And if they can’t recognize their own materialist limitations, then neither do the students they indoctrinate.
Let me be clear. The real problem with secularist materialism is not that it is now largely assumed and unquestioned. And it’s not even that materialist explanations are never right, because they are at times.
Rather, the problem is that as a worldview, materialism is so severely limited. You see, the “rules” of secularist materialism are that nothing other than purely physical causes or processes can be considered when looking at any area of life. Self-deluded as “neutral and scientific,” materialism disallows up front any metaphysical, spiritual, or supernatural considerations at all.