Naturalism or bust

You may be correct, but that's really twisted.

What about the portion of the population which acts morally without believing in the supernatural. How do we fit in?

rosborne979 wrote:

You may be correct, but that's really twisted.

What about the portion of the population which acts morally without believing in the supernatural. How do we fit in?

It is not really a twist, that is how anthropology explains the supernatural.

Moral is used here as the "sense of correctness". In the social sense we are moral when we adhere to the expectations of the society we are a part of. As in most traditional societies it is assumed that these expectation are also the expectations of the supernatural.

You might want to look at this:

http://anthro.palomar.edu/religion/default.htm

Anthropology describes the world as people understand it. If the supernatural is an important component of a society's world view, than it is important to understand how that works. That understanding does not validate it. In fact it is the revers. Many religious people despise anthropology because it reveals the process by which they think about the world and exposes it to analysis. Things that are "moral" are just that and should not be questioned. See Gungasnake for an example.

JLNobody wrote:

I agree with Doktor completely. To me naturalism makes sense only as a corrective to the innane notion of the supernatural. Therefore both terms are ultimately unnecessary and meaningless. To me, then, "naturalism" refers to a worldview that, since the Enlightenment, is a repudiation of supernaturalism. And the latter is repudiated because it has no resonance whatsoever in experience.
If I encountered a phenomenon that neither I nor science could explain, I would simply assume our (temporary) condition of ignorance regarding that phenomenon; and that ignorance that would only be compounded by the invocation of the supernatural.

So, doesn't that mean that anyone who believs in God (an inherently supenatural concept) is irrational?

rosborne979 wrote:

So, doesn't that mean that anyone who believs in God (an inherently supenatural concept) is irrational?

Of course it does.

A frequent creationist tactic is to attack, not just evolution, but the very underpinnings of science itself. Specifically, some creationists - especially advocates of intelligent design - claim that a basic guiding principle of science known as naturalism is a product of bias and an unnecessary restriction, which if removed would allow scientists to reach conclusions to which they had previously blinded themselves.