Philosophical naturalism is the idea that supernatural things do not exist. Now, it's certainly possible to take an agnostic stance and say that we don't know if supernatural things exist, but we're not accepting that they do without some evidence. This is certainly a reasonable and even intellectually honest stance to take. That's not what this thread is about.
This thread is about the pejorative that theists and other woo pushers throw around to try and shield their views from scrutiny. When someone starts making wild, nonfalsifiable claims, it is quite reasonable to ask them to back those claims. It is also reasonable not to accept raw assertion or more nonfalsifiable claims as evidence. So, to protect themselves from being asked hard (reasonable) questions, they throw the label naturalism (or materialism or sciencism) around to discredit the person asking those pesky questions. The advanced apologists even have philosophical arguments proving naturalism to be self-refuting, or otherwise incorrect (in the same way that philosophy can prove that we can't really "know anything", and that induction is impossible).
Now, that's annoying (boy, is it), but what gets even more annoying is the weird, special pedestal that religion/woo gets put on when making these claims. Whether they're telling you that "God exists outside of the material world", or pushing NOMA, or smugly saying "there are plenty of things science can't explain", they're all effectively saying that they don't want science looking at what they're talking about. Yet, they never bring that up anywhere else! You never see one of them
I think anyone who uses the term naturalism (or materialism or sciencism) as a form of rhetoric needs to have this pointed out to them.
This thread is about the pejorative that theists and other woo pushers throw around to try and shield their views from scrutiny. When someone starts making wild, nonfalsifiable claims, it is quite reasonable to ask them to back those claims. It is also reasonable not to accept raw assertion or more nonfalsifiable claims as evidence. So, to protect themselves from being asked hard (reasonable) questions, they throw the label naturalism (or materialism or sciencism) around to discredit the person asking those pesky questions. The advanced apologists even have philosophical arguments proving naturalism to be self-refuting, or otherwise incorrect (in the same way that philosophy can prove that we can't really "know anything", and that induction is impossible).
Now, that's annoying (boy, is it), but what gets even more annoying is the weird, special pedestal that religion/woo gets put on when making these claims. Whether they're telling you that "God exists outside of the material world", or pushing NOMA, or smugly saying "there are plenty of things science can't explain", they're all effectively saying that they don't want science looking at what they're talking about. Yet, they never bring that up anywhere else! You never see one of them
- telling the mechanic that they don't need to replace their brakes because they work in mysterious ways.
- walking out in front of a car because maybe it's a ghost car.
- remaining in a burning building because they read that some dudes survived in a furnace, once.
- walking through a gun fight because their guardian angel will protect them from bullets.
I think anyone who uses the term naturalism (or materialism or sciencism) as a form of rhetoric needs to have this pointed out to them.
