What is the practical effect for a Buddhist whose view is materialist?

"A Buddhist whose view is materialist" can only mean someone who has just taken refuge in the triple gem, but has no idea what the Buddha taught on the subject matter. If he repudiates the teachings of the Buddha knowingly, the refuge is broken and he is no longer a Buddhist.

Ajita Kesakambali was a well known materialist during the time of the Buddha. He argued that there is no such thing as alms or sacrifice or offering. There is neither fruit nor result of good or evil deeds...A human being is built up of four elements. When he dies the earthly in him returns and relapses to the earth, the fluid to the water, the heat to the fire, the wind to the air, and his faculties pass into space.

Materialism falls under ucchedavada. It is one of the 2 misbeliefs that blocks the noble eightfold path. The other one being the belief of an eternal soul. Those who believe in an eternal soul can still get into heavenly realms. But those who are with materialistic views are said to be destined for hells.

Wrong view is words. What is in your experience, what you are focusing on within your experience moment by moment is right view. Really no opinion or laws are right view. They are agreements, assumptions and premade arguments. They can point to what is right view but they aren't right view.

If i can be permitted to answer this from my own personal experience and feelings about this - I think for a practitioner in the west materialism is a difficult view to work with. For many of us a materialist view is what we have been brought up with and it is a very dominant (the dominant?) paradigm in the west. We are fishes swimming in the waters of materialism and fishes don't see the water and many of us don't question our materialist assumptions.

I've had a few conversations with order members in my sangha about materialism. While no-one in my sangha will stop you practicing if you are an unreconstructed materialist it is ultimately a view like all the other views and like all views it needs to be ultimately transcended. For many of us (for me anyway) we can see materialism as the unquestioned truth but then other times the dominant world view (christianity, paganism etc...) would also have been the unquestioned truth and in 500 years time there will be another unquestioned truth. We are not living at the end of history where the answer is a materialist western liberal democracy - but at times it feels like that how things are presented in our culture.

As I'm sure you can tell it's a struggle for me but your materialist views are something to work with. Right now I feel things are just a lot more unknowable than I appreciated for most of my life. But then the unknowable nature of reality is surely just a view of itself. The work continues!!

I came from a background in Stoicism. While there are many differences, I have found it very similar to what might be considered a materialist view of Buddhism. Attachment is referred to as passion, and happiness is said to come from being virtuous. The Four Noble Truths become (paraphrasing Epictetus):

1. Somethings things are in our control, others not. Things we control: our actions, thoughts, words, intentions. Things we don't control: everything else.
2. Focusing our efforts on things we don't control is unproductive and leads to suffering.
3. Only minding what is in our control ends suffering (leading to nirvana).
4. Minding what is in our control is the domain of ethics and virtue.

Aristotle discuses virtue in the Nicomachean Ethics. He defines ethics as doing what a human does well. The same way a calculator that evaluates 2+2 as 4 is a good computer, a human that acts right is a good human. He defines a virtue as the middle path between two vices. Leading to the stoic version of the Noble Eightfold Path, the cardinal virtues:

1. Prudence: Right view, Right intention are the natural extension of a sound mind.
2. Justice: Right speech, Right action, Right livelihood.
3. Temperance: Right mindfulness, Right concentration.
4. Courage: Right effort.

Roughly, prudence is the "higher wisdom", justice is the "moral discipline group", courage and temperance are the "concentration group".

So taking the assumption that ethics and logic are the same thing, we can look at the relationship of physicality and the consciousness underpinning our path. Personally, as a materialist, I look at this as the relationship between causality and matter - or math and physics. Some things are evidently true, others are necessarily true. The latter is Formal Ethics. Harry Gensler has book on it where he shows that the golden rule is formally true in all cases. A materialist avoids stealing because it is nonsensical to do this. "Bad" actions rightly lead to their consequences. This is true regardless of what the physical specifics are: what life you live, how you live it (samsara), what you hope to gain... Personally, I see consciousness as the causal relation of matter, like calculation (the Curry-Howard Isomorphism). By this I don't mean that consciousness is a property of matter per se, but that it is inextricably linked and emerges with it, like the internal language in a cartesian closed category.

But whatever your view of consciousness is, you can see how the Four Noble Truths and Noble Eightfold Path could be seen as a necessary truth without mentioning consciousness at all.

As for #2, Harry Gensler's Formal Ethics is good reading. Practical training in ethics comes down to the Law of Universality (fair should be consistently fair in all cases, not just when it's convenient). Practical training in concentration is aided by continence (Smoking kills; I don't care for dying; Therefore I won't smoke) and ends-means (If I want to stop smoking I should actually do the work of quitting).

Honestly though, I don't think most scientists are strictly atheists or materialists. The nice thing about framing the issue this way is that it works with or without a duality of consciousness or a god. So you can be Buddhist, Atheist, Christian, Muslim, Nihilist, etc. and these principles still apply just as well.

I realize this answer strays a bit from Buddhism proper. I mean only to shed a different light on the subject.

Well,you have missed a valuable teaching so let me provide it to you briefly..

• What makes someone a "Buddhist" ?

A Buddhist is a one who had accepted Triple gems as his only path and refuge. He has absolute confidence in Lord Buddha's words.But this confidence is not a blind one,He has learnt and applied the teachings to his personal life and understood the truthfulness of them by himself.He follows every word of Lord Buddha because he has seen it by himself that thee is no other path.He understand that his ability to fathom something is far less from a lord Buddha so when he find some things that he has never even dreamed of in "Dhamma" he believes it because of the proofs he had previously about the practicality of Lord Buddha's teachings.He is sure of those things because even if he did not see those amazing things by himself he has his trust in Lord Buddha.

So what makes a real Buddhist?

Lord Buddha said this about it.....

• He should believe in lower and higher realms and about the birth without parents (Basicly the equalants of Hell and Heaven)

  But please understand this is not a foolish eternal heaven or hell like ones in other religions.These words are mostly lost in translation to English so checkout these links to learn about lower and higher realms.

Higher Realms

Lower Realms

• He should believe In Karma

• He should believe that some people are Special,that there are people who deserve respect and care from others (Parents,Elderly,monks)

• He should have Shraddha (Unshakable trust in lord Triple gems) But a trust built upon realization,not a one built on faith )

• He should Take the "Triple Gems" as his only refuge

This would look a bit rude what i am about to say,but as we are advised in Buddhism a good friend is a one who correct another for his own good.

Here is the thing my friend,Lord Buddha used to slam some beliefs that existed in his own age,One of which is materialism.So please try to understand if you believe in materialism you are not a part of any form of Buddhism

Because materialism is against everything Buddhism stands for.Before being a materialist please understand that to explain everything in science is still extremely impossible so how can you believe in a half-made belief? I'm afraid you are going to have to choose between Buddhism and materialism,it is that simple.

If you have any question we all are happy to help because as to Buddhism materialists are not bound to a good place in the lives to come.Because they generate an unusual karma (Lord Buddha said that universe expands and shrinks ,so when the time is right the universe as we know it meets it's end but people with views like materialism will have births in planets with such harsh conditions even in this chaos those planets will not be destroyed and without any hope of a comfort they will have to suffer for eons until the new universe is born.).If you have any question regarding this question please ask.

The term "materialist" appears to not exist in the Pali suttas. Therefore, this question appears to be more non-sense.

According to Theravada Buddhism, Right view (Samma Ditti) should eliminate both extreme ideologies( materialistic -"Everything exists" view and "Everything doesn't exist"). This is very clear per most of the suttas. For example. pls refer to Kaccayanagotta Sutta. Also if you could read Bhikku K Nanananda's Concept and Reality in Early Buddhist Thought that'd be helpful to clear your right view.