Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Assuming that one is not biased to automatically rule out supernatural causes, is there anything wrong with tentatively accepting them until a reasonable natural cause is posited? Or is something only considered explained if attributed to some visible efficient cause?

Something for which the cause is unknown should stay under the 'unexplained' label until the cause is know, though we can discuss which scenarios are more likely to be the cause. 'I don't know' is not a gap that must be filled with 'some explanation' until the real one comes along.

However, if your opinion is that some scenario is more likely and you want to tentatively accept it, that's your business. Whether it's reasonable for you to do so depends on why you're doing it.

That approach is fine with respect to academic or esoteric issues. It doesn't affect my life one way or the other how the world was created or whether tarot cards work. However, topics that touch on how we interpret and live our lives, such as questions of value, character, and identity do matter. And they are unavoidable, affecting everything from parking dibs and tax policy to family relationship and aesthetic appreciation. Life requires people to take either tacit or explicit stances on the profound existential questions.

It is an open question as to whether the fundamental values of Western civilization, such as egalitarianism, human dignity, and individual liberty, will long persist once they are divorced from their Greco-Roman philosophical and Christian theological roots. Whether God exists or not is not an esoteric concern. In my opinion, belief in the existence of a transcendent moral good is the only thing that stands between traditional Western values and dangerous secular justifications for infanticide (Peter Singer), eugenics (Margaret Sanger) and collectivist tyranny (Karl Marx).

my point is simply that I find "I don't know" to be a perfectly acceptable provisional answer, and I don't understand why your particular god should be the default answer in the face of ignorance.

See above. It is not a option to say "I don't know" when, for example, faced with certain end of life decisions, such as pulling the plug on a critically injured loved one.