(March 12, 2013 at 8:32 am)Ben Davis Wrote:(March 12, 2013 at 2:06 am)Lion IRC Wrote: Naturalism. (Belief in supernatural events would be heretical. In fact, the acceptance of souls, angels, miracles, for example, would mean you were NOT an atheist.)Not all atheists are naturalists
I agree with everything you say here, Ben. On a personal note, I do embrace a form of naturalism. But I wouldn't consider belief in any of those things heretical. I only insist that if they exist they must be natural. I have no knowledge of them and suspect they are all fanciful rather than supernatural, but I don't kid myself into thinking I know that for certain. The category of 'supernatural' only arises if our conception of natural is not robust enough. Even the stuff of our imagination is natural. But just because we can imagine a thing does not mean it must have any independent existence.
I don't think anyone is irrational for suspecting/believing that some things which we can imagine are real. There are certainly things -the existence of other minds, values and so on- which I accept on faith as well.
Surely we all accept that "the real" and "the fanciful" are not empty sets. Is "the supernatural" a subset of one of these? I wonder into which category theists would place their own gods.
