Can Consciousness Best Be Explained by God's Existence?

[Whateverist]

There is a very big difference between ontological and methodological naturalism. Methodological naturalism has proven enormously useful for understanding the natural world. It only makes sense that if you want to study natural things you focus exclusively on natural causes and effects. You would have everyone take a leap of faith, and it is exactly that, and ignore the parts of reality that don’t fit neatly into the self-imposed limits of your own bias.

I accept this criticism but am unmoved by it. I take it as definitional that everything in the physical world including the consciousness which arises from these brains of ours, occurs naturally. Subjective states are natural. If the woods were filled with gods I'd expect a natural account of them as well. I can conceive of nothing beyond the natural. To say that a thing is natural is one and the same with saying it is real or exists.

And no I cannot falsify this. It isn't a theory. It is simply what I mean by the words I use. If there is a way that something can exist and yet be incompatible with the rest of what is .. please enlighten me. What exists is what is natural. I see no alternative.

Your position is that everything true must be subject to empirical testing. Apply that to your own philosophy. The fact of the matter is that ontological naturalism doesn’t have any explanatory power. There is no way to falsify your stance.

That isn't really a sincere criticism if you yourself don't require falsifiability of your own approach. Or, if you contend that you do so, how exactly does one test the notion of god or disembodied consciousness?

Any philosophy that leaves half of reality on the table, the inner world of subjective experience, is a failed philosophy.

But of course to say that natural accounts are not yet adequate is not in itself a point in favor of theological accounts. To explain one mystery in terms of another is no explanation at all. "Explanation" is an enterprise of the natural world. "Faith" in the unexplainable is no explanation at all, it is an alternative to explanations.