rational naturalism is impossible!

[Rational AKD]

I'm with you to this degree: using the mind, which is posited to be PART of the universe, to establish what is true in the whole universe, fails. A subset cannot encompass a set.

If I thought you were working toward an agnostic position, I'd be on board. However, I know that you're attempting to undermine rational or objective views of the universe in order to make room for intuition or purely philosophical views; basically, you're driving a wedge into physicalism to make room for a God-of-the-gaps argument.

With this process I cannot agree. Tearing down objective gnosticism to make room for another, inferior kind of gnosticism fails. "Anything is possible, and we don't know what it true, therefore let's consider the God idea" fails epically.

I am showing that according to logic, naturalism entails the denial of reason itself, which in turn leads us to a view of solipsism since we can't reason what is true and what is false. I have not once made a God of the gaps argument here. is this what you do? when you don't like a conclusion you accuse you opponent of a fallacy of no relevancy to what they're actually saying? if only you could be a little more honest.

The argument is absurd.

We can see that it is rational by observation, by cause and effect.

Science works, bitch.

we can only interpret what we observe using reasoning skills, which is what the entailments of naturalism put into question. once you even partly doubt your reasoning skills, it's game over. you now can't determine which reasoning skills are compromised, which means all of them are in question, which means reality itself is in question since you can't use reason to conclude your senses are indicators of truth.

Fail!

There could be some sort of explanation for consciousness beyond our current understanding. Maybe these "souls" are yet to be discovered. Once they are, we will be able to study them and eventually explain them. You know what they will be then?

you seem to forget what the argument is about, which is amazing since it's not only in the title, but in almost every post I've made so far. this is not an argument against atheism. if you want to believe in supernatural atheism, go ahead. this is an argument against naturalism.

a philosophical viewpoint according to which everything arises from natural properties and causes, and supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted.

the definition of naturalism excludes beliefs in the supernatural and spiritual. nice try.

Fail!

Evolution has no goals. There can be random mutations that have nothing to do with survivability.

really? lets look at another definition then.

the process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring. The theory of its action was first fully expounded by Charles Darwin and is now believed to be the main process that brings about evolution.

that's 2 strikes now. but even if I were to give you the point that "evolution has no goals" that would merely show there is no goal of evolution to give us senses that are indicators of actual truth, and the conclusion of the argument would remain the same.

Thinking rationally and determining what is real has much to do with survivability.

no it doesn't. studies have shown that mild paranoia is actually better for survival than perceiving actual truth.

Nonsensical solipsism.

exactly, once we deny our senses it inevitably leads to solipsism.

I have no problem conceding that rationality cannot support itself. So lets just throw that sucker out. However, why should that reflect more poorly on naturalism than on whacko superstition? What reason do you think you have for embracing the supernatural?

you are correct. this argument doesn't make a case for the supernatural. it doesn't even show that naturalism itself is false. all it does is points out the impossibility of the rational belief in naturalism. you may say that is some evidence for the supernatural indirectly, by saying if you do think your cognitive faculties are reliable, this can only necessarily be the case if a supernatural explanation is invoked since a rational natural explanation can't be attained. but i'm not really trying to go that route. so then, what is my goal with this argument? it's to try and show what is truly rational and see if anyone here is willing to accept it. it's to test the people here and see if they are truly willing to follow the truth wherever it leads, or that they are simply stuck in the ideas they prefer.

You look for internal consistency.

consistency doesn't necessarily indicate truth. you can be consistently wrong and still end up being wrong.

For example, in "A Beautiful Mind", Nash was able to determine his best friend and his daughter were imaginary because "she never gets older".

that's testing whether you see a hallucination. that's a very different concept to what i'm arguing for. his reasoning skills remained in tact in the movie, but if his reasoning skills were compromised then he wouldn't be able to reason which ones are and aren't because the reason he bases those conclusions could likewise be compromised.

But is it rational for the theist or anyone else to believe a personal god created them with their cognitive functioning wired correctly?

the problem with naturalism is according to our current logic, naturalism would entail the inaccuracy of some of our reasoning skills. theism, on the other hand, can reason how our reasoning skills can be entirely accurate indicators of truth. and if someone believed in a God who only wanted us to see truth, they could thus have the possibility of rationally believing in theism which is impossible for naturalism.

Do theists suppose that God just screwed up when wiring the brains of atheists?

there's a difference between having accurate reasoning skills and having accurate beliefs. all people have the possibility of finding what is true, but that doesn't mean all people find it. whereas, if any of our reasoning skills were compromised we would be incapable of finding the truth at all.

Without a certain minimal amount of truth present in your beliefs, you would not be able to behave in a way beneficial to survival.

you miss the point. not all truth is necessary for survival, and in fact mild paranoia is better for survival than actual truth. if any of our reasoning skills are compromised, we would be unable to determine which ones. if that is the case, there can be no confidence in any of our reasoning skills because for all we know they are just as likely to be true as they are to be false since we can't reason which is more likely.

Also, not necessary.

true, it is possible they would be accurate for survival. but again, with some uncertainty of our reasoning skills we can't reason if they in fact are.

Wow, you are about one step away from presuppositional apologetics here, and as a consequence, one step away from making me vomit.

this argument has nothing to do with that. it's simply an argument against rational belief in naturalism.

For one, you can check your reasoning against the reasoning and experiences of other people.

again, testing with other people doesn't show anything other than consistency which doesn't necessarily mean accuracy. bennyboy already covered this objection in post #6.

Then why should I care?

you don't have to care. you just can't possibly rationalize belief in naturalism.

The reason naturalism works is because even under the solipsistic world you're envisioning, the natural world is the only one that acts upon us. We're subject to its laws, our senses seem to correspond to its attributes, our experiences, for the most part, roughly match up. Yes, there could be a bunch of woo out there that's possible, but if it has no intrusions into the physical world then its indistinguishable from something that doesn't exist, and if its presence has even the smallest iota of effect, then it is a part of the natural world too and thus explainable in a naturalistic framework.

you miss the point. naturalism entails that some of our senses are corrupted to better act in a survival manner. this means we can't be sure which senses are accurate and which are not. that in turn means we can't be any more sure naturalism is true than 50/50. this means, as the title says, rational naturalism is impossible!