Naturalism (a.k.a "anti-super-naturalism") DEBUNKED:

[mclinkin94]

There is a growing trend in modern society for people to be naturalists. Naturalism is the belief that the natural world is all there is and that there is nothing beyond the natural world. This viewpoint leaves no room for God nor anything outside of the natural realm. My major point here is that belief in naturalism is unjustified!

Naturalism uses a tool known as science. It is actually like a form of scientism which states that the world is governed by only natural laws and that there is nothing beyond the natural (observable/detectable/verifiable) universe.

It is unreasonable to say that things could exist beyond the natural world. This is because we cannot know about such things as we can only observe/detect/measure/verify ONLY things that exist in the natural world. If there is something that we cannot observe/measure/verify/detect, then we wouldn't be able to perceive it. So if it is possible that there are things that we cannot perceive, how can we deny the existence of those things?

Science requires the use of things that we could experiment on/test. Science is all about detectability / observability / verifiability. Now the question is, what if there is something that we cannot measure/observe/verify/detect? Science cannot answer if such things exist so it cannot be determined that such things exist as per naturalistic explanation because the nature of the entity is not within the scope of science/naturalism.

To restate, science deals with things we can observe/measure/verify/detect. If something is timeless/space-less/transcendent and it created space-time (and matter and energy), then it cannot be observed/measured/verified/detected! Things we can observe/measure/verify/detect are only things that exist in the Universe.  God by definition is the creator of the universe, space, time, matter and energy! This means that he is not composed of such things and that he is outside of the universe (transcendent). God exists outside of the universe and the scope of science includes only things that exist in the universe therefore God's existence is beyond science's scope.

The premises could go like this:

1.) The scope of Science/naturalism includes only things we can detect, observe, measure, or verify
2.) We cannot detect, observe, measure, or verify things outside of space-time (matter, energy, time)
3.) Therefore things outside of space-time are not within the scope of naturalism


Premise 1 and premise 2 are universally agreed by all scientists and philosophers. So the conclusion follows, therefore there is no good reason to support naturalism.

With this in mind, we cannot discover anything outside of naturalism's scope. So it is no surprise that we cannot discover God. It is because God is outside the natural world. He created the natural world. How can we observe God is he is outside of space-time and all we can observe have to exist within space-time?

An analogy to the belief in Naturalism would be that of a deep sea fish. Imagine a blind deep sea fish state that "nothing exists beyond the deep ocean, the deep ocean is all there is". The fish is clearly wrong as we do exist beyond the deep sea. not only that, the Fish's belief is unjustified. How could it state that nothing exists beyond the deep ocean if it cannot observe things outside of the deep sea. Just as the deep sea fish is unjustified, we are unjustified in stating that nothing exists beyond the universe. How can we state that if we cannot observe anything beyond the universe (space-time, matter, energy), they do not exist?? The deep sea fish is unjustified in its belief and atheists/naturalists need to understand that their belief is just as unjustified. They need to make more rational and modest claims about reality and the world.

Conclusion: Naturalism and Anti-super-naturalism is an unjustified position.

This should also defeat the idiotic claim that "God doesn't exist because we don't have physical evidence for God". Of course we don't have physical evidence for God. We can't, he is outside of space-time therefore outside the scope of science. We can't measure anything beyond space-time/matter/energy.

It is no surprise that we get naturalistic explanations for the natural world and that we don't get naturalistic explanations of the super-naturalistic world.

[mclinkin94]

To summarize the whole thing concisely in one statement:

One is unjustified in denying the supernatural based upon the inability to know, and upon the inability to access any falsifying data

[gandalf the white]

only animals dont have religions and thats a fact

[mclinkin94]

This topic is the MOST important topic in the atheism/theism worldviews.

Once you can get atheists to accept the rational position and accept the possibility that the world we observe may not be the whole world or the real world, you can give them an edge of allowing them to reach the right path. Earlier, I have stated that naturalism is unjustified and presented reasons why.

Here is another argument to show that naturalism is unjustified.

1.) If the human mind and senses are limited, they cannot understand/sense every aspect of the world
2.) The human mind and senses are limited
3.) Therefore the human mind and senses cannot understand/sense every aspect of the world.

In order for the atheist to debunk this argument, he must disagree with either premise #1 or #2. If not the conclusion follows. Now premise one is obvious. If a mind is limited, then its function is limited. Just as a limited calculator will make limited calculations. Premise 2 is supported by science completely and there are senses in which we do not posses. So the conclusion follows, there are aspects of the world we don't and can't understand.

Now the naturalist asserts that the natural world is all there is because of a lack of evidence for the supernatural world. The problem is there is a lack of evidence because there CANNOT be evidence of something we can't observe. Remember the deep sea fish analogy.  The blind deep sea fish does not have evidence that beings exist outside the deep sea and that is because the blind deep sea fish CANNOT have such evidence. In that case, the deep sea fish would be unjustified in stating that the deep sea is all there is just as the naturalist is unjustified in stating the natural world is all there is. What we find is that the deep sea fish was not only unjustified in its beliefs but is WRONG. Just as wrong as the naturalist may be.

The naturalist/atheist expects physics to discover everything about reality. But as I have shown earlier, physics and science are limited in scope. That is to say that physics cannot tell us what is beyond the universe. As we go back in time, physics stops at the beginning of the universe. So, of course, physics, which operates only within the universe, knows nothing of things outside of the universe. Just because physics is unable to tell us what is beyond the universe and that we cannot leave our universe to observe what is beyond, does NOT mean that there is no beyond. Just because the deep sea fish cannot leave the deep sea, does not mean there is no beyond.

I will continue with future arguments against naturalism.

[The Canadian Atheist]

You have come a long way Mclinkin.

I'm impressed.

I'd give it at least a year and a half before you're an atheist.

[mclinkin94]

You have come a long way Mclinkin.

I'm impressed.

I'd give it at least a year and a half before you're an atheist.

LOL, did you not read what I wrote?

 I want to hear your arguments supporting your belief system.

I'm wondering which premise(s) you deny and why you believe that there can't be things we don't observe given the limitation of the human mind and the fact we can't leave our universe and observe what is beyond.

You should be making more modest claims and say that it is possible or even probable (given the human limitation) that there exists things in which we don't and cannot observe--something like, let's say a transcendent cause of the universe (a.k.a God)? Indeed, if the deep sea fish was more modest in its claims, it would be justified and correct as there is a world beyond the deep sea. In fact, there is a world beyond the word beyond the deep sea   :D
----

Let's do a thought experiment:

Let's say there is a force like dark energy that has no effect on anything we can measure. We can only detect dark energy because its effect on gravity. Let's say this force exists but it has no effect on anything in space/time/matter/energy. Would we be able to measure it or determine it exists?? NO! Would we know that it exists, NO!!
Should we deny that it exists? NO! We should make more modest claims.
-----

Further question: Why are you an atheist? What are the reasons supporting your view.

[mclinkin94]

Hello everyone again. I promised that I would be updating this post and systematically giving evidence against naturalism!

I have read a blog post by Michio Kaku here: http://mkaku.org/home/articles/hyperspace-and-a-theory-of-everything/. I invite you to read it.

It is very interesting as Dr. Kaku used an analogy similar to my deep sea fish analogy!

Dr. Kaku states:

"When I was a child, I used to visit the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco. I would spend hours fascinated by the carp, who lived in a very shallow pond just inches beneath the lily pads, just beneath my fingers, totally oblivious to the universe above them.

I would ask myself a question only a child could ask: what would it be like to be a carp? What a strange world it would be! I imagined that the pond would be an entire universe, one that is two-dimensional in space. The carp would only be able to swim forwards and backwards, and left and right. But I imagined that the concept of “up”, beyond the lily pads, would be totally alien to them. Any carp scientist daring to talk about “hyperspace”, i.e. the third dimension “above” the pond, would immediately be labelled a crank. I wondered what would happen if I could reach down and grab a carp scientist and lift it up into hyperspace. I thought what a wondrous story the scientist would tell the others! The carp would babble on about unbelievable new laws of physics: beings who could move without fins. Beings who could breathe without gills. Beings who could emit sounds without bubbles. I then wondered: how would a carp scientist know about our existence? One day it rained, and I saw the rain drops forming gentle ripples on the surface of the pond.

Then I understood

The carp could see rippling shadows on the surface of the pond. The third dimension would be invisible to them, but vibrations in the third dimensions would be clearly visible. These ripples might even be felt by the carp, who would invent a silly concept to describe this, called “force.” They might even give these “forces” cute names, such as light and gravity. We would laugh at them, because, of course, we know there is no “force” at all, just the rippling of the water.

Today, many physicists believe that we are the carp swimming in our tiny pond, blissfully unaware of invisible, unseen uni- verses hovering just above us in hyperspace. We spend our life in three spatial dimensions, confident that what we can see with our telescopes is all there is, ignorant of the possibility of 10 dimensional hyperspace. Although these higher dimensions are invisible, their “ripples” can clearly be seen and felt. We call these ripples gravity and light. The theory of hyperspace, however, languished for many decades for lack of any physical proof or application. But the theory, once considered the province of eccentrics and mystics, is being revived for a simple reason: it may hold the key to the greatest theory of all time, the “theory of everything.”

For more, please visit his article in the above link.

I am glad that we have a brilliant open minded physicist! If only many others would follow in his footsteps and not claim that reality is only what humans are able to observe. That there could be more to reality than we can comprehend given our mental limitation and our confinement in the universe.

Dr. Kaku uses an analogy that explains how a shallow water fish can have evidence of the world beyond the shallow water--By little clues that hint to it (rain drops, picking up the fish etc. etc.. )

I take it further and say how would a blind deep sea fish have evidence of the world beyond the deep sea if it cannot leave the deep sea or observe anything in the darkness of the deep sea! It wouldn't so it shouldn't assert that nothing exists beyond the deep sea simply because if something DID exist beyond the deep sea, the fish wouldn't know about it!

The whole idea behind this post is to give you a scientific perspective that there may exist things beyond our detection. Dr. Kaku provided one example.

[mclinkin94]

Hello again everyone. This is another post in the nice line of Naturalism defeaters.

In my previous posts, I have shown that the belief in naturalism is unjustified. In this post, I will show that the belief in naturalism is self-defeating!

When a belief is self-defeating, it is outright false. So THIS is the post where naturalism will be officially debunked. Once a belief is shown to be self-defeating, it is debunked.

What is a self defeating belief?

A self defeating belief is (as the name implies) a belief that defeats itself. Take this sentence for example:

"There are no true sentences".

If I say there are no true sentences, then my sentence itself cannot be true which means that there ARE true sentences!

I will show that naturalism has the same feature in being self-defeating or "shoots itself in the foot".

Evolutionary argument that defeats naturalism:

Many people think that biological evolution and naturalism are compatible. They think that evolution is a pillar on the temple of naturalism (as Alvin Plantinga states). That is not true at all and they do conflict with each other. It is amazing as to how many people can maintain a belief in both naturalism and evolution, yet, not know about the philosophical implications of their belief.

What I am saying is that is it not sensible to believe in BOTH evolution and naturalism. The major argument here is about the reliability of our cognitive faculties (our logic, our knowledge, memory, our intuition etc.)!

The theory of evolution states that the traits that improve the overall fitness of a population survive, while the traits that don't get lost and not reproduced in the population. Naturalistic evolution is not concerned with giving us the cognition to tell us what is true, rather naturalistic evolution is concerned with giving us the cognition to survive. In other words, all the information we get of reality is nothing more than survival information!

If our beliefs are simply the result of selective advantage of randomly achieved traits, that means that our beliefs don't aim at truth, but aim at survival! So how do we know that everything that we believe is really true, if is just something that helps you survive!

To restate, blind evolution only passes on traits that help a species survive and is not concerned with preserving traits that tell a species what is actually true about life! If naturalism is true and we are products of natural selection of random traits, then EVERYTHING we know is only for survival and not what is actually real! So if naturalism is true, then our beliefs about logic, science and rationality are nothing more than chemical reactions in the brain that is aimed at survival rather than telling us the truth.

Now I have heard some argue that knowing what is true about the world is most beneficial for survival. This is not necessarily true. Here is an example, mild paranoia is better for survival but it doesn't represent a true picture of reality. Those who are paranoid are suspecting that people around them are trying to hurt them, this isn't true in most cases, yet it helps the paranoid people survive at times of danger. So the argument that knowing whatt is true is beneficial for survival holds no water. So if naturalism is true, then everything you believe is just survival information rather than an accurate assessment of reality!

So given this evolutionary argument, naturalism shoots itself in the foot or defeats itself. If naturalism is true, then everything we believe is nothing more than beliefs that help in survival, including beliefs about naturalism! So if Naturalism is true, then the belief in naturalism is just something we believe because it helps with survival.   In other words, if naturalism is true then naturalism is false. Just like if the sentence that "there are no true sentences" is true, it means that that sentence is false! This is how naturalism shoots itself in the foot/defeats itself.

Theistic evolution is the only way to go:

The theist (more specially-The Muslim , as there is much Quranic evidence detailing the controlled evolutionary stages of creation), on the other hand, can rationally accept theism and evolution. We trust that evolution was not just a blind, random series of events, but rather a controlled series of events led by God that would lead to humans developing the cognition necessary to fulfill our purpose in life (to rationally believe and worship God).

In order for naturalists to  rationally maintain their position, they must not believe in the current biological evolution theory! When you deny the biological evolution theory, you are going against a ton of evidence and that also makes your naturalism very ill-supported. Most naturalists that I know BELIEVE in the theory of evolution! Unfortunately, they did not think this through and they failed to see the deep philosophical implications of their belief system.

With this, I say that naturalism is therefore debunked. ***Evolution disproves naturalism***.

Here are a few videos that make the same argument against naturalism. I highly recommend the first one! The next 2 are great, but all is summarized in the first one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4QFsKevTXs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ5RPn6nlwo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r34AIo-xBh8&index=2&list=LLIQLP9vDP95J7-5g0W5WejA