Ontological materialism is not even possibly true. Since the laws of logic cannot not be true, and they are by necessity nonphysical, and conformity with them (logical consistency) is what allows the existence of matter to be possible to begin with, there is at least one thing that has to be part of reality that is not made of matter: the abstract necessary truths of reason [1]. Matter cannot be past-eternal, and thus it came into existence, and even if something else is causally responsible for creating whatever brought matter into being, at some point, the impossibility of infinite regress logically necessitates that there is an uncaused cause. Either way, whatever created the cosmos is not part of it, and thus is not comprised of matter--one universe can hypothetically create another, but the material cosmos in its entirety cannot have come into existence from itself, since matter would have to already exist in order to create matter, a contradiction [2]. Moreover, even if there was no God and no universe, along with logical necessities there would still be empty space [3].
There is no real or hypothetical way for materialism to be true, though emergent naturalism with respect to certain immaterial existents like consciousness is possible [4]. Naturalism is demonstrably false and logically impossible in itself. In fact, even the ancient Greek "materialism" of Democritus, termed atomism, supposedly holds that there is only matter and the void, that is, the otherwise empty space that contains physical substance, so even on this necessarily false metaphysical worldview, something other than mere matter exists, that being the void. The atoms he proposed were extremely miniscule pieces of matter, but they might have wildly varying geometric natures so that some have hooks, some have grooves, and some have such a shape as to fit in the grooves of others. Invisible to the human sense of sight, which pertains to the macroscopic (things that can be seen unaided, or things that are not microscopic), these atoms are the smallest articles of matter that build up everything seen in the natural world.
This is quite different than modern atomic theory, with its electrons and nucleons (the protons and neutrons of the atomic nucleus), the strong force holding the nucleus together, the quarks that make up the nucleons, and so on. Atoms are supposed to together form molecules that group together to form larger environments and objects. While the phrase quantum physics might seem intimidating to some, it really just pertains to the physical nature and properties of all matter smaller than an atom. Atoms, despite the word initially referring to an indivisible unit, are supposed to break down to particles that themselves in some cases break down into further subatomic particles. Modern atomic theory is very much unlike that of Democritus. His atomism also reportedly regards much, if not literally all things besides atoms and the void, as some sort of illusion, whether an erroneous personal assumption or a social construct. As aforementioned, there are other things which cannot be an illusion, like logical necessities that are independent of other things.
However, even if all macroscopic physical structures, from the human body to mountains to fruits like the apple, were formed at a visually inaccessible level by small, randomly shaped units of matter bound to each other with hooks or grooves, it would not be true that macroscopic structures are an illusion. If the atoms as Democritus conceived of them exist (just not as all that exists besides the void), then so too would the environments and objects that they contribute to. As with the contemporary atomic theory, which like that of Democritus has no inherent connection to metaphysical naturalism even though such a necessary connection would only render it false, one would not be able to tell from gazing at a river or stone or pot that it consists of multitudes of physical units so small that one simply cannot directly see any evidence for them. What is macroscopic would still in no way be illusory simply because of the presence of atoms. If anything, what would be "illusory" is just that macroscopic objects give no hint of atomic particles and yet are comprised of them anyway.
Yes, there is always an inherent epistemological barrier to ever "knowing" from everyday, typical sensory experience that there is such a thing as atoms at all, as much as indirect evidence could be amassed. Atoms do not exist in themselves by strict necessity like logical axioms, and the ordinary experience through the senses suggests nothing of them--and knowledge does require the absolute certainty of logical necessity, for anything short of this is only fallible, probabilistic evidence at best. This is aside from the fact that visually perceiving something does not mean it exists or has the appearance it would seem to. This is the real logically possible illusion of the material world one perceives. Though it is much more difficult to logically prove than so many people pretend, as opposed to the ease of merely assuming, matter of some kind truly does exist [5]! The existence of the individual objects within the material world does not have the same verifiability. It also does not follow from this that atomic theory or any other such thing is also true, and there are multiple epistemological barriers to knowing this due to the limitations of the human condition. The problem is not in the necessary truths of reason without which there would be neither truth nor knowledge; the issue is our own limitations.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-impossibility-of-absolutely-nothing.html
[4]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/05/refuting-consciousness-argument-for-god.html
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