Faithful Naturalists

[liamconnor]

Here is a quote from a non-theists:

No sir. If natural explanations fail in explanatory power and scope, or are grossly guilty of ad hoc assumptions, then we continue to scratch our heads and keep up the work of finding out what happened.

The language suggests to me someone of faith: in fact, someone who has an unshakable faith that naturalism will win out: "I mean, it has to!" is the gist I get from the quote.

Does the above quote reflect faith, considering it assumes that non-existent explanations must still be better than a supernatural one? Is that not an example "hope for what is unseen"?

Is such a faith rational?

[Divine Insight]

Is such a faith rational?

I would call it faith in rationalism. After all, it has had an extremely successful history. Anytime we choose to pursue a natural (or rational) explanation over a spiritual or (irrational) it has always lead to the discovery of obvious truths. It has also lead to undeniable advancements in technological achievement.

A simple example would be that we could either have "faith" that some invisible God (or invisible demons) are the cause of disease. Or we could look into the matter for natural causes and find them, thus revealing the truth of the cause of diseases, as well as advancing us with potential prevention and/or cures from diseases.

Which makes more sense? To blindly retain an irrational superstitious belief, or to look into the matter and discover actual truth?

Mankind has clearly invented via superstition or philosophical guessing, many different ideas of the potential existence of invisible Gods. Many of them contain utter absurdities that have since demonstrated to be clearly false. The obvious example is that disease is caused by demonic possession. This particular example is clearly a claim of Christianity as their Christ cured diseases by supposedly casting out demons from people. Sure, you could now claim that this is just a "metaphor", by why would you know claim that this was just a metaphor? Because naturalistic investigations into the matter (i.e. science) has revealed the "truth".

Naturalistic explanations have a profound record of leading to truth and to very useful truths to boot. Our current technological advances in medicine, food production, shelter, even clothing, etc. would not exist had we continued to remain faithful to superstitious belief.

So naturalistic explanations have proven their worthiness. Superstitious, or spiritual explanations have been proven to be demonstrably false, as well as being useless.

Also, with so many religious superstitions how could anyone know which one might be true?

Should we believe that the Greek Gods who were living on Mt. Olympus simply left when humans became too inquisitive? And had simply erased all traces of their previous existence?

Should we believe that the Abrahamic God of the Jews created the earth in 7 days a mere 6 or 10 thousands years ago and was ultimately not pleased with his creation and drown out all but a handful of humans to try to rid his creation of sinful people? And then simply erased all the traces of this history by making it appear that the earth is actually 4.5 billion years old and that animals slowly evolved to higher and higher levels of complexity over those billions of years?

Clearly the Jewish superstitious God tales are false. Christianity and Islam merely add more absurdities to those original superstitions. Absurdities that are demonstrably false.

For example, Christianity has Jesus proclaiming that his followers shall be able to do greater works than he. Yet, this very same superstitious religion flat out refuses to allow that anyone has ever lived who has done greater works than Jesus. Not only that, but there aren't even historical rumors of any such people. So these kinds of superstitious tales simply have no merit. They have not only provided us with any obvious truths, but to the contrary they are clearly demonstrably false in what they claim.

Islam of course follows the same unproductive path as Judaism and Christianity proclaiming all manner of demonstrably superstitions but providing no obvious truths or worthwhile discoveries of the true nature of our reality. Science (or naturalism) has all these religions demonstrably beaten when it comes to the discovery of truth.

We then have other superstitious spiritual philosophies, such as pantheism, and the far eastern religions of Hinduism, Taoism, and Buddhism. While being far closer in their predictions to the discoveries of natural inquiry (i.e. Science) they are still just guesses that offer no demonstrable truths concerning many of their superstitious claims.

So Naturalists, simply have faith in rational thought. And this is because rational thought, and rational inquiry have lead to obvious truths that cannot be denied.

So why shouldn't we place our "faith" in the system of inquiry that has produced the most obvious, useful, and demonstrable truths?

And why should anyone cling to, or place faith in, ancient superstitions that are demonstrably false in what they claim?

Is belief in demonstrably false superstitious tales rational?

Can you answer this question?

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

I would call it faith in rationalism.

Since I am a rationalist, I would call it faith in a non-theistic world; a faith that takes as an assumption that there cannot be a deity beyond the universe, and therefore, nothing can interfere with the universe.

I call it a presupposition based not on reason but based on emotion, designed to relieve oneself of the obligation to investigate openly certain phenomenon.

(on a personal note: as soon as you start writing emotional pieces about your theological problems with the biblical god, I rush past them until I get to more objective arguments).

[Inigo Montoya]

[Replying to post 3 by liamconnor]



Since your ability to machine-gun out new topics is rivaled only by your ability to dodge questions and cherry pick, let me fill in some gaps to give context.

You stopped my quote at "No sir. If natural explanations fail in explanatory power and scope, or are grossly guilty of ad hoc assumptions, then we continue to scratch our heads and keep up the work of finding out what happened."

Immediately following I add " We don't suddenly allow that miracles are viable and toss them into the mix to explain away what we don't understand. What precedent would justify the sudden treatment of historical inquiries in such a way?"

Equally important, and further down I say "I'm asking on what grounds would I, or anyone, be justified in assigning (supernatural) agency a higher probability of occurring than something we're aware of actually existing."

[Divine Insight]

(on a personal note: as soon as you start writing emotional pieces about your theological problems with the biblical god, I rush past them until I get to more objective arguments).

That's your mistake. The points I make are not based on emotion, they are simply based on facts. However, these facts apparently give rise to emotions within you when you read them since you clearly perceive them in an emotional way.

I simply point out all the demonstrably false claims that are made in these superstitious tales. And apparently that act alone causes you to become emotional. For me it's just a statement of fact. No emotion required at my end.

Facts are facts. Diseases have natural causes, your favorite religion claims that diseases are caused by Gods or demonic possessions where the demons need to be cast out, and can even be cast into pigs.

Are you in denial that your religion makes these absurd and provably false claims?

The very person who you claim was resurrected had supposedly cast demons from humans into pigs.

What rational person would believe such obvious nonsense?

Do you believe that Jesus cast evil demons out of the bodies of humans and into the bodies of pigs?

We can't even claim that "casting out demons" is a metaphor for healing a disease. Clearly these superstitions are talking about actual demons that can be cast out of humans and into pigs.

Why be in denial of the obvious absurdities of these religious tales?

How is that being rational?

Dismissing the serious points I make under the pretense that they are based on nothing more than emotion is absolute nonsense.

[Bust Nak]

[Replying to post 1 by liamconnor]

If by "faith" you meant "assent to a proposition which, based on the evidence at hand, we find so overwhelmingly probable so as to exclude psychological doubt, but not incontrovertible so as exclude logical dispute" then sure, the quote reflect "faith."

[1213]

Here is a quote from a non-theists:

No sir. If natural explanations fail in explanatory power and scope, or are grossly guilty of ad hoc assumptions, then we continue to scratch our heads and keep up the work of finding out what happened.

The language suggests to me someone of faith: in fact, someone who has an unshakable faith that naturalism will win out: "I mean, it has to!" is the gist I get from the quote.

Does the above quote reflect faith, considering it assumes that non-existent explanations must still be better than a supernatural one? Is that not an example "hope for what is unseen"?

I think it is a sign of faith. And it is interesting how much people have faith, even though science has been wrong many times. It doesn’t matter, people still have faith.

But I believe that also science leads to God, if people are honest and willing to go all the way. Unfortunately, I don’t have much faith in people, that they would keep up till they come to God. Often it seems to be enough to get into place that they like and then keep it as the ultimate truth and then be lazy. Evolution theory is one example of that. If person likes that idea, he is not very willing to question it.

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 4 by Inigo Montoya]

These two quotes amount to the same thing:

You stopped my quote at "No sir. If natural explanations fail in explanatory power and scope, or are grossly guilty of ad hoc assumptions, then we continue to scratch our heads and keep up the work of finding out what happened."

Immediately following I add " We don't suddenly allow that miracles are viable and toss them into the mix to explain away what we don't understand. What precedent would justify the sudden treatment of historical inquiries in such a way?"

That is, we cannot give to a phemonenon a historically satisfying explanation; nonetheless, we know a priori that there is one, since we know, a priori that miracles are not possible.

As for a miraculous explanation, it does not 'explain it away', but explains the data.

Equally important, and further down I say "I'm asking on what grounds would I, or anyone, be justified in assigning (supernatural) agency a higher probability of occurring than something we're aware of actually existing."

Supernatural Probability is an oxymoron. The principle of probability operates only within the natural framework. Suppose our situation is this: up until the 1st c. AD no one has ever made a claim which anyone even remotely suggested was purely natural. Even so, is it rational to claim that, because such a supposed supernatural deity has never disrupted the normal behavior of nature, he therefore cannot, or will not, or even probably won't? It is basically like telling god, "because you have never done anything like this before, therefore you cannot". This to me is irrational; like telling a bachelor that because for 36 years he has never married, therefore he cannot marry. I know what I would say to such a response: 'watch me'.

The complaint that allowing supernatural explanations to have their say in every historical claim rests on a purely theoretical fear, i.e., that all events throughout history therefore can and should be explained by supernatural causes. This would certainly be troubling if all events, or even many events, were as complex as the situation which sparked Christianity. I have never found one. None of the major religions rest on such a complex history


P.S. was the snide remark really necessary?

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 5 by Divine Insight]

Demons and pigs:

First, I do not a priori rule out the existence of supernatural and hostile powers. I do not claim to know, if they existed, what interactions they could have with the human brain.

Second, I do not approach the Bible as a single book, which sinks or swims together: if the incident of the pigs was fabricated, that belief does not by itself create a ripple which destroys all the other claims. Each claim is to be studied on its own merit. That is how all historians operate. I have little interest in defending The Bible as GOD'S WORD.

Third, I am the type who likes to find explanations--for instance, how did this story of the demoniac occur? You obviously are satisfied with the facile answer "it was made up." I however, press on: Why was it made up? Why did it catch on so as to appear in three sources? Now, admittedly, I have very little to go on for this particular story: it may be that a crazy man gave his name as "Legion" and then asked to go into pigs; consequently the pigs acted erratically and everyone interpreted this as an exorcism. It may be that the man was actually demon possessed and that your worldview does not conform to reality. Maybe there was someone who had a very inventive faculty; maybe it started as a parable, but through transmission was set in a historical context. I don't know.

I have far more to go on with the resurrection.

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 6 by Bust Nak]


Based on evidence that a priori excludes miraculous explanations? Or based on evidence which has investigated miraculous claims and found satisfying historical explanations which have explanatory power and scope and are innocent of ad hoc assumptions?

In other words, is your "evidence" selected evidence?