Why do so many people confuse Materialism and Atheism?

Western materialism itself is a recipe for increased selfishness (and therefore societal deterioration). Consumer capitalism only works by convincing people to want things that they do not need. The economy would collapse, our country would fall apart in an instant, nearly everyone would be out of a job, if people just stopped buying all the useless crap that's pandered to us.

We're all bred to be selfish, in order to ensure the success of our country. I don't see what religion has to do with it - unless you can link an individual's degree of greed to their beliefs, which AFAIK no study has ever done.

Looks like secular Europe with increasing atheism is getting flooded by muslims and other immigrants, after foolishly assisting USA in bombing their countries and assisting them in civil wars by supplying them with weapons for that. I'd say that is deterioration.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.