RE: Atheist VS Naturalist - the latter sounds more appealing to me...
May 14, 2020 at 2:48 pm
(This post was last modified: May 14, 2020 at 2:52 pm by Simon Moon.)
There are different types of naturalism.
Philosophical naturalism - the claim that the natural is all that exists.
This is a claim that requires demonstration.
Since I do not make the claim, that the natural realm is all that exists, I am not a philosophical naturalist. I am unconvinced that there is anything beyond the natural world, but I do not make that claim with absolute certainty.
Methodological naturalism - the supernatural can not be appealed to when trying to explain the natural world. For good reasons: it's unfalsifiable, correlation does not imply causation, it is basically an argument from ignorance.
This is how the scientific method operates.
I am a methodological naturalist.
Philosophical naturalism - the claim that the natural is all that exists.
This is a claim that requires demonstration.
Since I do not make the claim, that the natural realm is all that exists, I am not a philosophical naturalist. I am unconvinced that there is anything beyond the natural world, but I do not make that claim with absolute certainty.
Methodological naturalism - the supernatural can not be appealed to when trying to explain the natural world. For good reasons: it's unfalsifiable, correlation does not imply causation, it is basically an argument from ignorance.
This is how the scientific method operates.
I am a methodological naturalist.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
