(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Naturalism [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-21 Welcome to the Street Prophets Coffee Hour cleverly hidden at the intersection of religion and politics. This is an open thread where we can share our thoughts and comments about the day. Many of today’s religions are based on the experiences of individuals who claim to have had mystical experiences in which a supernatural entity (often considered a god) has revealed particular insights (often called “truths”) about the nature andmeaning of the world. These religions are collectively known as revealed religions. There is, however, another approach to finding out the nature and meaning of the world which does not require mystical experiences or supernatural beings. This approach, called naturalism, begins by looking at the world, the physical world, not the imagined world of mythology. As a philosophy, naturalism rejects the concept of the supernatural and focuses on the material world. In his book Atheism: A Very Short Introduction, Julian Baggini defines naturalism as “a belief that there is only the natural world and not any supernatural one.” In an article in Free Inquiry, Judy Walker and Tom Flynn write: “Naturalism is the view that the world of everyday physical experience (essentially nature) is in some important sense all that there is, and that reliable knowledge is best obtained when we query nature using the scientific method. Naturalism asserts that supernatural entities such as God do not exist and warns that knowledge gained without appeal to the natural world and without impartial review by multiple observers is unreliable.” Thus, naturalism is atheistic in that it rejects the notion of a god or supernatural beings. Julian Baggini writes: “The atheist’s naturalism consists in the view that a human being is a biological animal rather than some kind of embodied spiritual soul, as many religious believers think.” With regard to the use of the scientific method, Scott Aikin, Thomas Dabay, and Robert Talissee, in an article in Free Inquiry, write: “Among philosophers, naturalism is generally taken to be the view that the sciences are in some sense authoritative over philosophy.” Scott Aikin, Thomas Dabay, and Robert Talissee also write: “Naturalism doesn’t set the evidence in advance—that’s why there are experiments and observations.” The idea of a natural religion was discussed by eighteenth century philosophers such as David Hume. Regarding Hume’s 1779 work, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Daniel Dennett, in his book Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life, writes: “Natural religion, in Hume’s day, meant a religion that was supported by the natural sciences, as opposed to a ‘revealed’ religion, which would depend on revelation—on mystical experience or some other uncheckable source of conviction.” While the philosophical origins of naturalism can be traced back to Greek philosophers such as Aristotle, John F. Post, in his entry on naturalism in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, points out that: “…the major impetus to naturalism in the last two centuries comes from advances in science and the growing explanatory power they signify.” Some scholars make a distinction between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism. Methodological naturalism relies upon the scientific method for a cumulative explanation of the natural world. In an article in Free Inquiry, Barbara Forrest writes: “Methodological naturalism does not disallow the logical possibility that the supernatural exists. To assert categorically that there is no dimension that transcends the natural order is to assert that human cognitive capabilities are sufficient to survey the whole of what there is; such a claim would amount to epistemological arrogance. But neither does methodological naturalism allow that mere logical possibility is sufficient warrant for the attribution of existence.” With regard to philosophical naturalism, Barbara Forrest writes: “Philosophical naturalism, rather than constructing a worldview from a priori ontological categories, constructs a worldview ordered by categories constructed from the ground up, so to speak, on the basis of empirically ascertained knowledge of nature; its categories are just as stable, or just as fluid, as scientific explanations themselves.” Naturalism is an approach to understanding the world which is atheistic (or at least agnostic) and scientific. It is also humanistic, and the Humanist Manifesto 2000 emphasizes the need for dependence on scientific naturalism which sees a commitment to advancing scientific inquiry as the path to verifiable knowledge. There are some philosophers who have attempted to insert the idea of a god into naturalism. In theological naturalism, there is an attempt to create or develop a naturalistic concept of a god (often called God, using the Judeo-Christian name). God is seen as a process of the natural world rather than a supernatural entity. Open Thread This is an open thread—all topics are welcome. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/21/2195170/-Naturalism?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/