Atheist VS Naturalist - the latter sounds more appealing to me...

[Gwaithmir]

I see no reason to mince words. I'm an atheist, and that's that. 

But you do have beliefs -- by which I mean things which you hold to be true about the world. And if you are a naturalist you have a metaphysical belief which can't be proved by science. 

Focusing instead on one particular belief you DON'T have -- your atheism -- means that your beliefs go unexpressed, unexplained, and possibly unexamined.

I am also a Secular Humanist, but those principles upon which Humanism are based are supported by reason and experience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism

[Belacqua]

But you do have beliefs -- by which I mean things which you hold to be true about the world. And if you are a naturalist you have a metaphysical belief which can't be proved by science. 

Focusing instead on one particular belief you DON'T have -- your atheism -- means that your beliefs go unexpressed, unexplained, and possibly unexamined.

I am also a Secular Humanist, but those principles upon which Humanism are based are supported by reason and experience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism

Thank you.

I did expect that you had some beliefs. The degree to which they are supported by reason and experience is something which can be explained and debated.

[sdelsolray]

In philosophy, naturalism is the idea or belief that only natural (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual) laws and forces operate in the universe.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism...losophy%29


Atheism describes people on RELIGION's terms (it owns most of the word, literally)....the only problem I can see with describing myself as a naturalist from here on out is that some people might think I go hang out at the beach butt naked...this could be quite witty though, thinking on, so no bad really! Thoughts?

I prefer to use "None of the above".

[Simon Moon]

I see no reason to mince words. I'm an atheist, and that's that. 

But you do have beliefs -- by which I mean things which you hold to be true about the world. And if you are a naturalist you have a metaphysical belief which can't be proved by science. 

EVERYONE has beliefs. Which like you say, is just the psychological state in shich one acceots a premise of proposition as being true.

It all depends on whether one is a philisophical naturalist, or a methodological naturalist.

Focusing instead on one particular belief you DON'T have -- your atheism -- means that your beliefs go unexpressed, unexplained, and possibly unexamined.

Why would one's lack of beliefs go unexpressed, unexplained, and possibly unexamined? I don't get why that would follow from the position of not being convinced that gods exist?

I can't speak for every atheist, but for me:

I express my lack of belief everytime someone makes some unsupported god claim.
I explain my lack of belief in gods, as being my state of mind as not being convinced that gods exist.
And I examine my lack of belief in gods every single time I come to a forum with theists making their god claims, or in real life whenever I discuss the existence of gods with friends or family.

One of my main goals in life, is to have the best epistemology as possible. I want to believe as many true things as possible, and disbelieve as many fasle things as possible. I think it is important to have my internal model of reality map as closely as possible to actual reality.

The best method ever devised to do that is, basing one's beliefs on: demonstrable and falsifiable evidence, reasoned argument, and valid and sound logic.

Not only will I believe all claims that meet those criteria, if someone is able to point out a belief I currently hold that does not hold up to those criteria, you know what I will do? I will stop believing it.

THe reason why I stopped believing in gods, is because theists continually fail to provide a case that meets those criteria.

[Belacqua]

Why would one's lack of beliefs go unexpressed, unexplained, and possibly unexamined? I don't get why that would follow from the position of not being convinced that gods exist?

I agree with you. The fact that a person lacks a belief in God is not a ticket to be excused from justifying ones beliefs. 

Other people on this forum have argued that since they lack a belief, they have nothing to explain or examine. I don't think this is true for thinking adults. 

One of my main goals in life, is to have the best epistemology as possible. I want to believe as many true things as possible, and disbelieve as many fasle things as possible. I think it is important to have my internal model of reality map as closely as possible to actual reality.

The best method ever devised to do that is, basing one's beliefs on: demonstrable and falsifiable evidence, reasoned argument, and valid and sound logic. 

Not only will I believe all claims that meet those criteria, if someone is able to point out a belief I currently hold that does not hold up to those criteria, you know what I will do? I will stop believing it.

THe reason why I stopped believing in gods, is because theists continually fail to provide a case that meets those criteria.

This all sounds very reasonable.

When you say that the claims made by religious people are unsupported or insufficiently proven, you do so with a clear and examined set of criteria for what supported and proven beliefs must consist of. 

You acknowledge your standards. You examine other people's claims according to those standards. As a thinking adult, you are aware that you have heard and actively rejected those claims, based on reasons.

Other people on this forum have claimed that they can reject the claims of religious people without any sort of criteria or reasons. Thus they don't have to make any argument or justification for their decision, because they deny that it is even a decision, or based on anything. 

I have only been arguing that thinking adult atheists have such criteria. And that those criteria are themselves things that can be discussed, challenged, debated, etc. I AM NOT saying that your criteria are bad -- in fact I think they are very reasonable. I am only saying that the rejection of other people's claims requires the use of such criteria.

[Rhizomorph13]

I don't believe that word, supernatural, is useful.

If ghosts exist they are natural. If God exists it would be natural because it would be encompassed by nature or the inception of nature which would make it natural.

[Belacqua]

I don't believe that word, supernatural, is useful.

If ghosts exist they are natural. If God exists it would be natural because it would be encompassed by nature or the inception of nature which would make it natural.

There are a number of Christians and other religious people who argue the same thing. 

Some say that God is nature itself. 

By far the smartest Christian I've ever corresponded with personally argued that God was natural.

One interesting tradition says that what we call nature is the part of God which is visible and knowable to us. But because we are animals with limited senses, who evolved for survival rather than full-spectrum truth, the parts that we can't know appear to be separate somehow. But this is due to illusions that come from our own limitations. 

Even the word "nature" turns out to be fairly hard to define, and has had a number of meanings over the years.

[The Grand Nudger]

Equating god with nature entails a list of commitments that aren't exactly conducive to christian belief. Your friend may be christian by faith - but they're putting forward an antithetical spinozan god.

If we shift the context of use to human perception and assert that there's a second category, unavailable to us, we'll still require two terms. One to refer to what we could perceive, and one to refer to what we can't.

[polymath257]

I prefer the term physicalist to the term naturalist. But then, I study physics.

The difficulty is that atheism doesn't imply physicalism, nor does the reverse implication hold (I have met physicalist theists--they just think deities are physical).

So, atheism is simply not having a belief in any deity.

Physicalism is thinking that everything is, ultimately, physical (and subject to natural laws).

And ethically, I am a Secular Humanist.

None of these positions implies any of the others.

[The Grand Nudger]

In the US, it's pretty rare to find a theist who isn't a secular humanist.