Question by Citizen Of The Cosmos: Are you a metaphysical naturalist?
“Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy concerned with what exists including what has been discovered by science, thus metaphysical naturalism refers to a belief about the totality of what exists, excluding by definition gods, spirits, and any other supernatural beings, objects, or forces. It is a belief that nature is all that exists and assumes that observable events in nature are explained only by natural causes. Supernatural causes are not possible.
This particular definition rests in an ambiguity caused by the use of the term “supernatural” by Richard Carrier and other apologists for naturalism whereby this word indicates non-materially reducible entities (spiritual substances) rather than the traditional meaning (where a spiritual substance, if created, is encompassed within the natural world, though being a spiritual or immaterial substance).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysical_naturalism#Definition
Poo flinger: The highly satisfying answer is, “it depends.”
Best answer:
Answer by Warrior Poo Flinger got limed
I’m a Taoist. Does that count?
EDIT: Yes.
What do you think? Answer below!
I am what I am.
I am a Naturalist. I am not a Materialist. I also do not believe in spiritual things.
One good analogy for immaterial naturalism is a story. It can’t exist apart from a physical medium (such as a book, or however memories are stored in the brain), but it is not the physical medium itself. Such an abstract concept is immaterial, even though it depends on a material form for continued existence.
Not supernatural and not spiritual, but not material, either.
I like to get naked when I’m drunk. Does that count?
As I understand it, it’s just a fancy word for atheist, so yes, I am.
In the contexts I’ve heard it, it’s used to contrast against “methodological naturalist”, which is a fancy word for “scientist”.
Personally, though, I think the distinction between “methodological” and “metaphysical” naturalists isn’t much greater than the distinction between a “methodological heliocentrist” and a “metaphysical heliocentrist”, which in the sixteenth century, separated the “I think Copernicus was right” crowd, from the “I think Copernicus is wrong, but it is useful to assume it he was right when I calculate equations” crowd. The methodologicals seem silly, not in spite of but because of their political correctness.
No i’m not. I believe that social, and possibly other, forces act upon science and other discourses to exclude consideration of supernatural phenomena. For example, i’m a medical herbalist. Some of what i do can be explained by the placebo effect, by reflexes, psychosomatic processes, pharmacologically, nutritionally and in other ways within the realm of natural science or psychology. Others can be explained by supervenient processes. On many occasions, the simplest explanation is supernatural though. For instance, before it was banned i prescribed kava kava to a number of patients. I then found that every time women patients took kava kava, their fathers died within two weeks even when they were previously healthy, and i stopped giving them it as soon as i realised it happened. The same did not happen to men. The simplest explanation of this is supernatural. In Polynesia, there is a tabu against women taking kava kava, though it’s not explained, and i think this is why.
I also think responses to prayer are well-corroborated. Some people’s prayers are usually answered, and the description of what happens matches very accurately what they ask for. I think the best explanation for this is that religious communities have emergent psychic properties – again, a supernatural explanation.
There are likely to be lots of other similar phenomena. I think the scientific community tends to have closed minds about this, or for some reason they don’t experience these phenomena. They’re subject to statistical analysis and falsification, but they aren’t naturalistic. Therefore i’m not a metaphysical naturalist. I think there’s a political issue here of some kind.
No! … and mysticism shouts at that…. 😉
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((i rather deal with the occult.