"You're a Materialist/Naturalist"

[FreeTony]

OK, so this seems to be a Christian tactic, claiming materialism/naturalism is a religion which relies on faith. Firstly, I find it strange that a religious person would claim being religious is a bad thing.

I don't think I am either of these. If there is some phenomenon that cannot yet be explained by science, I leave it at that. I don't then say it must have a supernatural cause. I don't say it cannot have a supernatural cause either.


My understanding of the supernatural hypothesis is this:

1. There is a natural realm, following laws. This is where we live, and we can test things in it.

2.There is also this supernatural realm that we cannot examine. However something in the supernatural realm can alter things in the natural realm, breaking the laws in it.

3. The only way we can test whether the supernatural realm exists is through the interactions it has with the natural realm.


This leads me to think - How can I know something has a supernatural cause, and not a natural cause? Surely I'd have to be omniscient to know this? What is more, every time someone has suggested something has a supernatural cause, it has found to have a natural cause.

Have I made any assumptions based on faith here? I don't think I have, although my understanding of the supernatural hypothesis may be wrong.

I think it is just the same as the Theist not understanding the Agnostic Atheist position. I don't claim the supernatural doesn't exist, but I don't think there is any way of gathering evidence it does. To me "Supernatural" has no practical difference to "I don't know".

Objections?

[Jackalope]

This leads me to think - How can I know something has a supernatural cause, and not a natural cause?

It's my position that a supernatural cause and an unknown cause are indistinguishable from one another, and therefore it is not reasonable to draw firm conclusions regarding things which are not in practice falsifiable.

Of course, certain theists want to read way more into that than what is actually there. That's their problem.

[Alex K]

What is a supernatural cause? What does the word mean? I honestly don't know.

[Zen Badger]

When a theist claims that naturalism/atheism/science etc is just a religion, it's like they're saying " you're as stupid as we are"

[FreeTony]

Yeah it's difficult to know. When dealing with this kind of thing I try and take a scientific approach to it. Firstly by actually trying to define what we're actually talking about, and secondly seeing how we can gather evidence it exists or not. Believers in it don't seem to like this approach. They'd much rather speak in metaphors and rely on fallacies to "prove" it exists.

I've found some definitions, I'm not sure if they are "good" ones or not:

Materialism: Materialism is the view that the only thing that exists is matter; if anything else, such as mental events, exists, then it is reducible to matter. Matter here I think includes everything we can examine, so the structure of spacetime etc.
Naturalism: The system of thought holding that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes and laws.

I don't think a scientific approach actually mandates either of these. It's just that so far the only successful* approach so far has been to assume things follow laws, and attempting to find out what these laws are. You get nowhere by just saying "things happen for unknown reasons, and we can't examine these reasons".

* Theists may differ on successful and argue circular reasoning, despite using a product of science to express this view.

[KichigaiNeko]

It is just mental apologetic masturbation is my thinking.

[Whateverist]

I also do not understand the motivation for positing a 'realm of the supernatural'. The distinction has much more to do with what we experience and can explain than it does with a type of thing lying somewhere beyond our experience. The 'natural' world, to my way of thinking, is all inclusive. Within it you may find the explainable and the not yet explainable and (just possibly) the never to be explained. It is just hard to know in advance if there is anything which must remain in the forever unexplainable category. But if there is anything which doesn't interact with the rest of the natural world in any perceivable way then most likely the only realm in which it exists is the imaginary.

[Ben Davis]

OK, so this seems to be a Christian tactic, claiming materialism/naturalism is a religion which relies on faith. Firstly, I find it strange that a religious person would claim being religious is a bad thing.

What Zen said.

I don't think I am either of these. If there is some phenomenon that cannot yet be explained by science, I leave it at that. I don't then say it must have a supernatural cause. I don't say it cannot have a supernatural cause either.

Then you're tacitly accepting that the 'supernatural' exists when there is, in fact, zero evidence that it does. For me, when there's no evidence, I assume the null hypothesis as the default position. That doesn't mean I'm not open to being shown evidence in the future (and if the evidence is reasonable and supported, I may accept it), it means that until such evidence is put forward, I'll work on the assumption that it doesn't exist. On that basis, I'm a 'materialist/naturalist' because that's all that the evidence has ever shown the existence of; in other words, my empiricism leads me to materialism/naturalism.

My understanding of the supernatural hypothesis is this:

1. There is a natural realm, following laws. This is where we live, and we can test things in it.

2.There is also this supernatural realm that we can only examine when the claim is made that something in the supernatural realm alters things in the natural realm, breaking the laws in it.

Point 3 is actually part of point 2 (see my change above)

This leads me to think - How can I know something has a supernatural cause, and not a natural cause? Surely I'd have to be omniscient to know this?

Nope; firstly you'd have to be able to demonstrate and define the supernatural then secondly, study the interaction to provide evidence that it results from the supernatural. The more rigor with which you can define the supernatural, the more certain you'll be that the interaction is supernatural rather than natural.

However since that methodology falls at the first hurdle...

What is more, every time someone has suggested something has a supernatural cause, it has found to have a natural cause.

Indeed. As there's never been a demonstration of 'supernaturality', the default position is that it doesn't exist. My belief is that a materialist/naturalist universe is the best description of our reality. That belief is justified, true by facts and robust evidence. What do we call a 'justified, true belief'? Knowledge. The opposite of religious 'faith'.

Have I made any assumptions based on faith here? I don't think I have, although my understanding of the supernatural hypothesis may be wrong.

Not 'faith', just the assumption that the supernatural is an option when it's clearly not even on the table.

I think it is just the same as the Theist not understanding the Agnostic Atheist position. I don't claim the supernatural doesn't exist, but I don't think there is any way of gathering evidence it does. To me "Supernatural" has no practical difference to "I don't know".

'Supernatural' is a claim not an 'I don't know'. Until the claim is evidenced, it can be dismissed without consideration. Consequently, I claim (in every useful sense) that the supernatural doesn't exist. That doesn't mean I make claims to 'absolute' non-existence (I would never be so arrogant) but until the evidence is presented to support the claim, I can't discount the null hypothesis (which would be equally arrogant).

[Alex K]

Precisely how I see it

I also do not understand the motivation for positing a 'realm of the supernatural'. The distinction has much more to do with what we experience and can explain than it does with a type of thing lying somewhere beyond our experience. The 'natural' world, to my way of thinking, is all inclusive. Within it you may find the explainable and the not yet explainable and (just possibly) the never to be explained. It is just hard to know in advance if there is anything which must remain in the forever unexplainable category. But if there is anything which doesn't interact with the rest of the natural world in any perceivable way then most likely the only realm in which it exists is the imaginary.

[FreeTony]

Ben Davis - What I'm trying to show is that even if we consider the Supernatural as a hypothesis, we cannot possibly find any evidence to support it so it is pointless trying to posit it as an explanation for a phenomenon.

I say you need to omniscient because:
Let's imagine we see a new phenomenon. Unless we have a complete understanding of the laws of the universe we cannot know it is not following one of these laws. There is no way to know that you know every single law of the universe unless you are omniscient (possibly, but anyway we haven't gotten to this stage yet so it doesn't really matter).


Theists claim that we discount the supernatural and claim it definitely does not exist. I disagree with this.