Posts: 5336
Threads: 198
Joined: June 24, 2010
Reputation:
77
Yes, I Assume Naturalism
September 20, 2013 at 10:16 am
(This post was last modified: September 20, 2013 at 10:17 am by DeistPaladin.)
I'm sure everyone has heard at one time an accusation that we have a bias toward naturalism or against miracles. Why should miracles be considered an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence?
Because the natural universe is all I have ever experienced.
Because the claims by other people to have experienced or witnessed the supernatural have all either not been proven true or proven not to be true.
Because every mystery about our universe we've ever solved has discredited any previously proposed supernatural explanations and replaced them with natural causes.
Because this is how everyone who is sane treats extraordinary claims that are not part of his/her favorite religion.
On that last point, if I told you I had lunch with my wife yesterday, my testimony would be sufficient. If I told you I had lunch with the President of the United States, even though such a thing could happen, you'd require evidence to believe it. If I told you I had lunch with my father yesterday, a man deceased 10 years and his cremated body has reconstituted itself, even with eye-witness accounts, video footage and media coverage, you'd be well within the bounds of reason to suspect a hoax. Our skepticism of claims scales with the nature of how extraordinary the claim is. The religious just make a special exception for their favorite supernatural beliefs.
That's why I assume naturalism and I'm quite comfortable defending that position.
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
Posts: 2177
Threads: 45
Joined: June 5, 2013
Reputation:
39
RE: Yes, I Assume Naturalism
September 20, 2013 at 10:31 am
When someone makes extraordinary claims to have met dead people or some such the general rule is to suspect schizophrenia rather than a miracle.
A couple of weeks back there was quite an interesting analysis of various biblical figures and the similarity of their symptoms to psychiatric illness.
Coincidence?
Posts: 23918
Threads: 300
Joined: June 25, 2011
Reputation:
150
RE: Yes, I Assume Naturalism
September 20, 2013 at 10:41 am
Of course you are right to do so for all those reasons. For myself the reasons are pretty much a priori. The alternative to the known natural world, if it exists at all, is the not-yet-known natural world. The existence of a thing automatically qualifies it as natural. I suppose I should confess I just can't attach any meaning to the word. Seems like nonsense to me.
Posts: 7175
Threads: 12
Joined: March 14, 2013
Reputation:
72
RE: Yes, I Assume Naturalism
September 20, 2013 at 10:49 am
(This post was last modified: September 20, 2013 at 10:50 am by Tonus.)
As a child I feared the bloodthirsty creature that hid under my bed, just waiting for a chance to grab a dangling leg and drag me to my doom. I couldn't prove he was there, even to myself. As far as I could prove, he wasn't there. But I sure as hell wasn't going to let my leg dangle over the edge of the bed, either.
I got over that belief when I was fairly young. A similar (if more complicated and ridiculous) system of belief took much longer to get over. Having discarded all of those immaterial universes and the creatures that inhabited them, I'm left with the material universe. The one that has always been there when I grew bold enough to dare to peek.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
Posts: 4940
Threads: 99
Joined: April 17, 2011
Reputation:
45
RE: Yes, I Assume Naturalism
September 20, 2013 at 1:26 pm
Just try seeing how claims of a miracle will hold up in a court of law...
Why is it that if I were to tell a Christian that a snake talked to me, they'd think I was either lying or insane, but tell them it happened in a 6,000 year old book and they believe it unquestioningly?
Christian apologetics is the art of rolling a dog turd in sugar and selling it as a donut.
Posts: 5336
Threads: 198
Joined: June 24, 2010
Reputation:
77
RE: Yes, I Assume Naturalism
September 20, 2013 at 2:18 pm
(September 20, 2013 at 1:26 pm)Doubting Thomas Wrote: Why is it that if I were to tell a Christian that a snake talked to me, they'd think I was either lying or insane, but tell them it happened in a 6,000 year old book and they believe it unquestioningly?
On that note, why is it that if I were part of a religion that sacrificed a human to appease the volcano god's anger, my religion would be ridiculed as both barbaric and absurd but if you change "the volcano god" to "Yahweh" and make the sacrifice on a cross, I'm a brother in Christ?
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
Posts: 69247
Threads: 3759
Joined: August 2, 2009
Reputation:
258
RE: Yes, I Assume Naturalism
September 20, 2013 at 3:32 pm
(September 20, 2013 at 1:26 pm)Doubting Thomas Wrote: Just try seeing how claims of a miracle will hold up in a court of law...
Why is it that if I were to tell a Christian that a snake talked to me, they'd think I was either lying or insane, but tell them it happened in a 6,000 year old book and they believe it unquestioningly?
Is the answer that they are idiots?
Posts: 222
Threads: 16
Joined: July 4, 2013
Reputation:
8
RE: Yes, I Assume Naturalism
September 20, 2013 at 4:06 pm
DP, I wholeheartedly agree with you. You are wise.
If you want a short, cheap book that parallels your ideas amazingly close, read this:
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Not-Christian-...+christian
Just $4 on Kindle. Do I think you need it? Not at all. But like I said, its ideas are very similar to yours. And you can read it in a day!
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”
- Buddha
"Anyone wanting to believe Jesus lived and walked as a real live human being must do so despite the evidence, not because of it."
- Dennis McKinsey
Posts: 23918
Threads: 300
Joined: June 25, 2011
Reputation:
150
RE: Yes, I Assume Naturalism
September 20, 2013 at 6:33 pm
(September 20, 2013 at 3:32 pm)Minimalist Wrote: (September 20, 2013 at 1:26 pm)Doubting Thomas Wrote: Just try seeing how claims of a miracle will hold up in a court of law...
Why is it that if I were to tell a Christian that a snake talked to me, they'd think I was either lying or insane, but tell them it happened in a 6,000 year old book and they believe it unquestioningly?
Is the answer that they are idiots?
We have a winner.
Posts: 2921
Threads: 26
Joined: June 25, 2013
Reputation:
41
RE: Yes, I Assume Naturalism
September 20, 2013 at 8:08 pm
I feel like this will draw SW into this thread. I smell bullshit approaching masked with perfumed special pleading.
|
![[Image: 10314461_875206779161622_3907189760171701548_n.jpg]](https://scontent-a-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/t1.0-9/10314461_875206779161622_3907189760171701548_n.jpg)
