Metaphysical Naturalism

The below quote is taken from another blog that I really enjoy looking at. It discussed many of the arguments surrounding God, but in particular discusses the implications of naturalism as a worldview, and what people who accept naturalism (and thus atheism) must believe. It's important to note that the implications of naturalism are some of the most convincing aspects towards belief in the supernatural (or God). Below is a quote from a leading philosophical naturalist Alex Rosenberg, where he fully understands the implications that naturalism has regarding our world-view. 

Really think about this. Many arguments for God are really the disbelief in what life without God, or the supernatural, would entail. People who ask to prove to them that there is a God are asking for the impossible, in the same way that it can't be proven there isn't a God. If the options are super-naturalism and naturalism, and we don't believe the result of naturalism to be correct, then we are left with accepting something more, namely the supernatural. Here is what Rosenberg has to say about the implications of naturalism:

 " It is of course obvious that introspection strongly suggests that the brain does store information propositionally, and that therefore it has beliefs and desire with “aboutness” or intentionality. A thoroughgoing naturalism must deny this, I allege. If beliefs are anything they are brain states—physical configurations of matter. But one configuration of matter cannot, in virtue just of its structure, composition, location, or causal relation, be “about” another configuration of matter in the way original intentionality requires (because it cant pass the referential opacity test). So, there are no beliefs"

I hope your able to see what happened there. Because naturalism is assumed from the onset to be true, we thus arrive at the conclusion that we have no beliefs, because a 'belief' cannot be a configuration of matter, no matter how elegantly arranged it is. Now what do you believe is the more likely conclusion, that we have no beliefs, no free will, and are completely caused by our environment and DNA, or that naturalism is false? If naturalism is true, the implications are tremendous. This means that we are completely 'caused' by nature, just like everything else, and we all have the illusion of free will, which has developed over thousands of years of evolution. To push this idea further on it's implications, quoting Richard Dawkins, renowned atheist biologist:

"But doesn't a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system make nonsense of the very idea of responsibility, whether diminished or not? Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused's physiology, heredity and environment. Don't judicial hearings to decide questions of blame or diminished responsibility make as little sense for a faulty man as for a Faulty car?"

The above is not just completely wrong, and stupid, in my opinion, but it's also dangerous. If our minds are completely determined by our environment and DNA, then we have no real blame for acting in the way we do. We are simply a product of our environment and DNA. Well what caused those? Well our environment is largely due to the actions of other people in how they interact with us, and our DNA from our parents, and their parents and so forth. So really, if we trace the cause of this all the way back, we are just as right saying, "The Big Bang made me do it," when confronted about a crime. Like the above quote mentions, we might as well just abolish the judicial system and punishment for our crimes. Dawkins goes on to say that he believes one day, we'll laugh about the fact that we used to punish those who committed crimes.

This is the type of backwards science that the assumption of naturalism produces, as seen with the multiverse. Since naturalism must be true, than the premises are worked to fit the conclusion (that naturalism is true). But shouldn't we follow the premises towards the conclusion they logically lead us towards, even if that be doubt (or rejection) of naturalism? The multiverse is only a theory because it attempts to explain away the supernatural (or highly unlikely) probability that our universe could contain life.

Even more, if naturalism is true, then we are a complete accident, and really nothing matters at all. It's easy to see why belief in God can seem illogical at times, picturing an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being who created everything, but the problem is without Him in the picture, things make even less sense. The following is a quote from Jime at Subversive Thinking, who I linked above:

"But if naturalism is true, which is the ultimate purpose of an objective moral order? Human beings are accidental by-products of evolution. No afterlife exists. No free will exists. The universe as a whole is going to dissapear in the future. No spiritual reason for the universe, or for our specific existence, exists at all. All is part of a mere accident of a purposeless and blind material evolution, in regards to which we have zero importance. What's the ultimate purpose of obeying the moral rules in a purely naturalistic universe? In such naturalistic universe, only utilitarian and pragmatic reasons could be offered to being moral (i.e. it is useful or strategically conventient to be moral), but not ultimate purpose or trascendent consequence exists for such behaviour. And no explanation exists for an objective (human mind-independent) existence of such moral order in a purely materialistic universe."