I regularly argue against “god-language” when discussing non-theistic spirituality because it evokes the frame of a supernatural and paternalistic all-powerful being. It doesn’t matter if it is intended to be metaphorical, the frame will get evoked whether you want it to or not. The moment you say “God is love,” the average mind will instantly conjure up an objectively existing being—as well as any given conceptual frames regarding the religion through which that God was understood, such as the Catholic church. It doesn’t matter if you then say “this is a metaphor, don’t take it literally”; the frame will already be invoked and reinforced anyway, which will be used to then interpret what you have to say.

I now believe that using all religious language does the same thing, if to a lesser degree. Words like sacred, spirituality, faith, religion and so on will inescapably evoke a supernatural and/or traditionally religious frame in the mind of the average listener. Why is this bad? I argue that is it, in the aggregate, a bad thing because religious thinking often shuts down the critical faculty; it promotes credulity and wishful thinking. It dampens one’s appreciation for reality, as well as one’s curiosity about the natural world. Further, religious thinking often provokes an us-versus-them tribal mentality.

The challenge is to find new language and to create new frames that capture the beneficial elements of religion that are worth keeping. Ideas like community, inspiration, hope, morality, transcendence, wonder, justice, gratitude, comfort, and redemption need to be wrestled out of the dying grasp of religion. I’m happy to say that this project is already underway by people far more influential and intelligent than I. More and more people are reframing these ideas in ways that are secular and naturalistic. However, we’ve a long way to go…as of yet, there are no large-scale frames, which is something that will simply take time to form. And religion will not let go of these ideas willingly.

Ironically, traffic to the site has been increasing since I stopped posting regularly. Not sure why. But I’d like to take advantage of the increased readership by getting out some of ideas that have been stewing. So, stay tuned…

Whenever I hear these kinds of theological conjectures, I can’t help but picture God in critical condition and on intellectual life support. I can fully understand the effort, though…there was a time when I eagerly sought out similar theories to explain Tarot divination and magic spells. We have a powerful attachment to our beliefs.

And it isn’t enough to say that religion is necessary to address morals and purpose…after all, upon what authority can religion decide such things? If a religion calls upon God or revealed scripture as the source of purpose and morality, as many do, then it is reasonable to question the reliability of those sources. If religion does not call upon such sources, then we can ask, why look to religion at all? Do we really think that morality requires a belief in a god in order to carry sufficient weight in society?

Or can we have a religion without God? Without magic, angels, and souls? Can we? That’s a serious question. No matter how far science advances our understanding of reality, will humans have an irresistible urge to find God in the gaps of our knowledge? Will we always look for Someone Out There?

I don’t know the answer to those questions. I hope, though, that it is possible to transform religion itself, just as we’ve transformed our understanding of the world. Community, purpose, meaning, and well-being do not require religion, but religion can play a positive role in their advancement, especially if it becomes fully informed by science. As a parallel, the practice of medicine is not, in itself, a science, but it is fully grounded in science. Why cannot religion have a similar relationship? I think it can.

Mohammad

Well, today is Draw Mohammad Day, and I am adding my own depiction.

I am not doing this with the purpose of offense, although I imagine some people will be offended, including non-Muslims. Normally I go out of my way to avoid offending people. Courtesy is a cornerstone of civilization and it’s a value I try to uphold, even when people cut me off in traffic. But I am not avoiding it today because I think there is an important message behind today’s project (for two great takes on this, read Hemant Mehta and Greta Christina).

That message is that courtesy towards religious belief does not extend to across-the-board censorship, especially when that censorship is enforced by threat of violence.

The image of Mohammad in this post is serving the purpose of illustrating that Islamic law does not apply to me. Freedom of expression is a vital liberty for any healthy culture and I am not willing to cede ground to Islam, even when doing so causes offense. And the only genuine way to protest efforts to curb freedom of expression is to freely express, and this is what I’m doing.

I do not hate Muslims as a people although I think their belief system is grounded in primitive superstition that too often promotes brutality and social injustice. I know that this drawing is poking at sensitive spots and I am sincerely sorry if it causes distress. But in this case, I think that censorship is worse than offensiveness. At the same time, I do not think that this drawing causes harm…it does not promote or even suggest discrimination, violence, or bigotry. It’s just a drawing of a man wishing peace on all people, and that it might inspire deep offense should be cause to consider the reasonableness of religious laws.

I suspect a deeper issue at hand is the notion that religions should be immune from criticism and that believers should be protected from offense. One effect of this sensibility is that many people resist opening critiquing religious beliefs which thereby undermines our ability to promote reason and scientific knowledge. Some people criticize my own orientation quite vigorously, sometimes to the point where I get distressed—should I demand they cease? Can I reasonably suggest that they have overstepped their moral boundaries by offending me? Of course not. In that light, I believe that Muslims are wrong to enforce censorship on me, either through social rebuke on one end to violence on the other, and the best way to make that point is to defy their expectation. I do not wish to offend, but I am willing to do so to make this point.

Peace be upon you.

At a simple level, we can define the natural as that which mindlessly conforms to the fundamental laws that give rise to the cosmos. At this point in our scientific understanding, this means anything that fits within the model of matter/energy existing in space/time (as embodied in the Standard Model of Particle Physics). In order to be intellectually honest, we must admit that it is not impossible that we will discover something that will upset this model, say if we discover a substance that is not composed of the fundamental particles of normal matter. But even if we made such a discovery—as long as it could be shown that such a substance was an integrated component of the natural world—then the general definition of natural given above would stand.

It is also possible that our universe is only one such within a vast matrix of other universes, what is called the multiverse. If I understand what physicists are saying, then different universes can potentially have different laws (it’s even possible that there are distant parts of this universe that have variations on the laws we see). In such a case, the natural could be expanded to include that which mindlessly conforms to the laws that give rise to any given universe.

When we talk about what we mean by supernatural, we want to keep it reasonably consistent with how most people use the word and with common myths and superstitions. In that light, we can say that the supernatural is that which can interfere with the natural world but is not constrained by its laws. To be more precise, this definition is rooted in the following three propositions:

If the supernatural exists then:
(1) the natural and the supernatural are of two different orders regarding their underlying principles of existence, and
(2) the supernatural is unconstrained by our natural laws (i.e. those that underlie matter/energy in space/time), and
(3) the supernatural has the capability to cause physical changes by manipulating natural laws or bypassing them.

Let’s expand on these a bit more. If something exists or occurs—no matter how bizarre to our eyes—that is ultimately grounded in the same laws that give rise to our material universe, then it is a natural thing or occurrence. To the contrary, if a supernatural thing or event existed, that thing or event would not be reducible to our natural laws. It doesn’t matter if the underlying principles of its existence were, even in principle, explicable or inherently mysterious or even absent anything we would think of as fundamental laws—a supernatural thing would be utterly different than a natural thing from the bottom up.

The second point describes the basic freedom the supernatural has from what makes our universe possible. Whatever the properties of the supernatural thing or occurrence, it would not be constrained by our natural laws. For example, none of the four fundamental forces of our universe (strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravity) would play any role in the behavior of the supernatural. In pragmatic terms, this means that the supernatural cannot be (unwillingly) affected by any natural event, including human actions (except in the case of the mind itself being a supernatural construct…more on this below).

Finally, while the supernatural is exempt from natural laws, it has the ability to influence our material world, to cause changes within our physical system of matter-energy within space-time. For the sake of clear communication, we can choose to put supernatural interference into two categories: magic and miracles. Simply put, it is a matter of the intentional source: it is magic if the intentional agent is a human, human-like being (e.g. a fairy), or object (e.g. deck of tarot cards). A miracle has its source in a non-material mind, such as an angel or god. Although the final effects can take a wide variety of forms, they all share a fundamental similarity: a non-physical (matter-energy) causal agent, even if the event itself is physically normal (such as being made to fall in love via a spell; falling in love is perfectly natural, but the cause is not).

It might be the case that there are objects or events that appear to violate natural laws but in fact are perfectly natural. Absent scientific validity or plausibility, we call such a claim paranormal. A paranormal claim might be true, of course, although the current strength of the Standard Model requires that such claims provide extraordinary evidence. And even if true, it might be either natural or supernatural, depending on its features and what we learn about the fundamental properties of the universe.

One of the key sticking points in discussions like this is the issue of consciousness. Because it is unknown how the brain produces self-awareness, it is very common for it to be used as evidence for the supernatural, a typical construct being an immaterial soul. Despite our incomplete understanding of sentience and subjective experience, we have compelling evidence for the mind’s source in the material brain. But this essay is not intended to make such an argument, only to articulate a natural/supernatural distinction. As such, I propose that consciousness is natural if it is an emergent property of electrochemical processes in a brain; it is supernatural if it arises from conditions outside the infrastructure of matter-energy in space-time. Any other explanation that doesn’t fit these two must fall into the paranormal category, at least for now.

Based on this idea of consciousness, we can say that a supernatural agent is one that has a mind (of some kind) existing independently of a material brain. Any event that occurs due to a supernatural mind would itself be supernatural, even if it was otherwise completely indistinguishable from a natural object. And yes, that includes our entire universe—if the cosmos was created by a god, say, then the cosmos is a supernatural event. The only events that are natural are those that come about in mindless conformity to the laws that underlie the physical world.

The natural/supernatural dichotomy presented here is certainly not the only possible one. But this particular model has two benefits: it is grounded in our best explanations for reality and it makes metaphysical naturalism falsifiable. It also conforms to common conceptions of the supernatural. As a reminder, here is the basic outline of naturalism:

(1) only the world of nature is real
(2) nothing outside nature is necessary to account for its origin or ontological ground
(3) nature as a whole can be understood without appeal to any kind of intelligence or purposive agent
(4) all natural events are caused by other natural events in accordance with universal physical laws

Said in simpler terms, the essential claim of naturalism is that the natural is real and the supernatural is not. This brief essay has attempted to define what we mean when we say “supernatural” in such a way as to make the naturalist claim wrong. Of course, we do not think we are wrong and for very good reasons; but unless we allow for it to be falsified, we’ve simply rigged the game and created another dogma. If the supernatural is real, then so be it. But without a working definition, we also make claims to the supernatural too easy to make.

I hope this is not my final word on the matter…this is a philosophical exercise designed to bring greater precision to a physicalist naturalistic worldview, and as such should be amenable to improvement. With that in mind, I leave it here and invite feedback.

To start with, Carrier defines paranormal, which might be either natural or supernatural. He writes:

What makes something paranormal is the fact that it exists outside the domain of currently plausible science. As such, it could just be a natural phenomenon we don’t yet understand or haven’t yet seen. But it could also be something supernatural. Or an entirely bogus claim. We won’t know until we have enough evidence to make a determination. But either way, the category of “paranormal” can be applied to phenomena (hence the mere claim that something happens or exists can be paranormal) as well as explanations of that phenomena, i.e. paranormal hypotheses.

The key phrase there is plausible science. There are an infinite number of potential ideas that fall outside strict scientific understanding but that don’t meet the criteria for paranormality, because (depending on the state of scientific understanding when a claim is made) they might be plausible. Carrier offers two examples: alien abductions and fire that burns underwater. In the former, there is simply no scientifically plausible reason to conclude that alien abductions are happening—but that doesn’t mean it is impossible or even untrue; if enough evidence came to light, then it would be understood as a normal scientific fact. Until then, it is paranormal. The latter example is something that philosopher David Hume once said was impossible, so that any claim of underwater fire would have been to him a paranormal theory—one that we now know in practice to be absolutely true. To reiterate, based on this definition, paranormal claims can be either natural or supernatural; the defining characteristic is that they fall outside of scientific plausibility.

Now then, what makes something supernatural or natural? First, Carrier contends that these are metaphysical distinctions, not epistemological ones (i.e. they describe what things exist, not how we know they exist). This effectively rules out testability as a defining feature. That is a big deal because it is common to hear that the supernatural is, by definition, that which is not testable via scientific methods. The counterargument to this definition is simple—it is entirely possible that things exist (such as what might happen at a subatomic level) that, for whatever reason, are beyond our ability to test, but wouldn’t be thought of as supernatural (in any meaningful sense). At the same time, we can imagine supernatural forces or objects that could be scientifically examined, such as the Jedi Force or Harry Potter magic (to use Carrier’s examples).

So, in the most simple terms, Carrier defines naturalism as the view…

…that every mental thing is entirely caused by fundamentally nonmental things, and is entirely dependent on nonmental things for its existence. Therefore, “supernaturalism” means that at least some mental things cannot be reduced to nonmental things.

Within this scheme, beings such as gods, angels, demons, fairies, and so on, are supernatural insofar as they contain “any mental property or power that is not reducible to a nonmental mechanism.” This extends beyond beings as well—we can include substances and powers as well. Carrier gives some wonderful examples, such as a love potion that “knows” what love is, that it has been imbibed, and who the object of affection is; however, if the potion works entirely by the efforts of, say, a bizarre biochemical substance, no matter how strange, then it would be natural and not supernatural. Further, anything “that is the effect of a supernatural cause is a supernatural effect, even if the effect itself is not supernatural.” An example is when Gandalf causes normal wood to catch fire by speaking a magical incantation—the wood and the fire are fully natural in themselves, but their cause was supernatural, because the spoken words had a direct effect on the wood.

Naturalism understood in this way does not equate with scientism. This is because it is, in principle, possible to scientifically discover and test a supernatural being, substance, or effect, which would nevertheless remain supernatural. For this reason, it is entirely possible for science to negate metaphysical naturalism while maintaining scientific integrity. In such a world, the universe would indeed be dualistic, with natural and supernatural features—or we might even discover that the cosmos is entirely supernatural. It’s possible, although not probable.

Richard Carrier does not own the market on the definition of naturalism, of course, but he has done a superb job of articulating a coherent version of it. In fact, he has changed my mind on a key issue, that of real=natural. I have long held that if science were to discover, say, an immaterial soul, then that soul would become, by definition, natural. While I have held this opinion, I have also felt that it was somehow vacuous. If natural=real, then supernatural=unreal (or a subset of unreal), which is a trivial definition without much utility. Carrier has persuaded me to accept a conception of naturalism where the supernatural could, in principle, be real and yet not natural (although naturalism, as a worldview, would be thus disproved).

Of course, we have yet to discover any evidence of the supernatural whatsoever, and with the profound success of naturalism to date in regards to understanding reality, it is perfectly feasible and rational to adopt naturalism as a worldview. Yes, naturalism has not been “proven”; no one seriously claims otherwise—it is simply the best explanation for what we see in the universe. As Carrier writes elsewhere: “Every (I repeat: every) phenomenon we have been able to explore in the requisite detail has turned up naturalistic, without a single exception so far, in over three hundred years of concerted scientific investigation, by millions of experts, engaging the best methods imaginable, and with nearly unlimited resources.”

A person’s moral judgments can be changed almost instantly by delivering a magnetic pulse to an area of the brain near the right ear…

That is a finding reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study, by neuroscientist Liane Young and colleagues, showed that manipulating a specific part of the brain (the right temporoparietal junction) with a magnet can change how someone morally judges a situation. Mature humans have the inborn sense to “know” that a person who intends harm, even when no harm is done, is more “bad” than someone who accidentally causes harm without intention. In this experiment, the pulse literally switched this mechanism in normal human participants, so that when judging a story, they found greater fault with the person who did unintentional harm.

Harvard psychologist Joshua Greene told NPR, “Moral judgment is just a brain process… That’s precisely why it’s possible for these researchers to influence it using electromagnetic pulses on the surface of the brain… If something as complex as morality has a mechanical explanation, it will be hard to argue that people have, or need, a soul.”

This is quite an astounding thing. It certainly puts a large dent in the claim that morality derives from a non-brain source, such as God or a soul. Of course, evolutionary psychology is making great strides in explaining how morality developed via natural selection, but it is this kind of experiment that illustrates evolutionary theories so vividly. As with every other branch of study, science continues to naturalize the brain and human functioning; we are moral creatures because we have evolved to be.

This is also a bit frightening. The study suggests that our moral reasoning is something not completely under our conscious control. This makes perfect sense, since it can be reasonably argued that nothing about being human is completely under conscious control. But there is something about moral judgment that strikes deeper. Our ability to think in terms of right and wrong, and then to act on those judgments even when it involves self-sacrifice, is one of our core traits that allows us to think of ourselves as noble. As being more than “mere animals”. Our brains have developed the useful cognitive illusion that everything we think and do is grounded in free choice. Obviously this is not the case, even when it comes to fundamental ideas about morality.

None of this lessens our obligation to act as moral agents. What it does do is demand that we inquire further in order to gain more insight into how we work. It also means that we will be well-served to think clearly and critically about our own personal ethics, and not to take any moral assumption as a given. And, you know, not to stand too close to big magnets…

Magic, in the context of woo, is a power or process that can subvert, bypass, or operate contrary to the laws of nature as understood by modern science. Woo magic can take on many forms, ranging from the mythological (e.g. guardian angels, ghosts) to the pseudo-medical (e.g. homeopathy, chiropracty). It can be external (such as in astrology) or internal (including the belief in souls or that thought alone can manipulate the physical universe). Whatever form it takes, in all cases woo magic involves some force interacting with the material universe in a way that cannot be explained by physics (although some woo theorists will try to use physics to justify their beliefs; quantum mechanics is their favorite go-to model).

A great deal of woo magic is described using models that might be impressive in scope and complexity, but they always turn out to be operationally vague or resistant to critical examination (for instance, the ability to create and test predictions). Definitions are fuzzy, causal explanations are obscure or missing altogether, and areas of ignorance are too often treated as fact. This is all dealt with by accepting a very different measure of evidence—subjective experience and anecdotal accounts are given priority over objective, transparent, replicable research. But make no mistake—if any such research were to one day support any given brand of woo, its advocates would accept it loudly and with pride.

While woo is certainly plentiful in organized religions (especially the granddaddy of woo—belief in a personal god), it has a quality that allows people to feel autonomous. Woo is not dependent on dogma or cultural traditions, so anyone can adopt their own unique form of woo (which generally falls within the realm of New Age). In many cases, woosters attach themselves to a guru or two—such as Deepok Chopra, Rhonda Byrne, or Ken Wilbur—or to an organization of some kind—such as the Esalen Institute, a pseudoscience center, or one of the many occult-based orders. But because woo is not grounded in reality or logic, woosters can mix and match woo-elements to create any stew of woo that catches their fancy.

It must be stated that there are things that might resemble woo but aren’t. There is a long list of accepted scientific theories that were once on the woo list, such as plate tectonics. As another example, the therapeutic practice of mindfulness, which originated from yoga, was long considered to be woo in the field of psychology, but is now accepted as a mainstream treatment that is demonstratively effective. The difference between woo and not-yet-mainstream science is not always clear, but it is possible to look at the underlying assumptions for clues: while plate tectonics has been well established as fact, the idea would have originally been pure woo if it was assumed that the plates floated on whipped cream and were pulled around by gnomes. The point here is that just because an hypothesis about what we observe might be based on woo doesn’t mean that something isn’t really going on, so be careful not to assign the label of woo prematurely.

One of the unfortunate misunderstandings of woo is the false notion that it includes emotional states. It doesn’t. Positive or profound feelings grounded in experience are not woo. The delight that comes from connectivity, art, meditation, discovery, or play is not woo. Such emotional experiences might not be your thing but that doesn’t make it woo. If someone says, “I just sat watching the stars for hours and was overcome by a deep sense of peace, like I was connected to the entire universe,” is not woo. But it would be if that person then goes on to say, “…and that made me appreciate that I must have a special destiny in this cosmos that God created.”

Despite the irrational nature of woo, one possible reason for its ubiquity is its ability to bestow a sense of specialness. Woo can give color and sparkle to an otherwise mundane life; for many, a world without woo is not a world worth living in. It is not clear why so many people, including very intelligent folks, feel this way and are therefore susceptible to woo. It probably comes down to the same things that formal religion thrives upon—existential anxiety, the need for a sense of agency and purpose, and the drive to be connected in a meaningful way to something larger than one’s own self. Woo allows one to (apparently) bypass the unending frustrations of reality by imagining access to control and insight not easily attainable in every-day life, which can lead to increased health, power, happiness, and personal worth.

Compared to science and other formal disciplines, woo “logic” is relatively easy to grasp, and this becomes ever more true as our knowledge of the world grows ever more complex and strange. This is perhaps woo’s essential allure—its ability to provide a sense of understanding without the need for empirical or intellectual rigor. But the cost is substantial. Woo inhibits curiosity and critical thinking; it dulls the majesty and splendor of the natural world as it really is; it promotes social factions that manifest pointless yet frequently damaging in/out rules; it is a standard required for political service so that public servants either lie about their worldview or (much more often) actually allow their irrational beliefs to influence their decisions. This is why our world would be, on the whole, a better place without woo.

The cosmos really is an exhilarating, magnificent, beautiful place. True, understanding it to the degree that science currently allows, even on a lay level, takes substantial effort. But doing so is incredibly liberating. It honestly is. Letting go of woo means peeling away the gauze that blurs interpretations of events. It means losing fear of divine judgment or supernatural threats. It means that one can adopt ethical guidelines that are rational and pro-social. It opens the eyes to the wonder of reality in a way that woo cannot.

Naturalists (including religious naturalists) come in two primary flavors: literal and poetic. Literal naturalists articulate their understanding of nature using literal terms (eg. “Creativity is an amazing universal process”). A poetic naturalist might apply an extra layer of symbol on top of the more literal understanding (e.g. “God is my name for the universal process of creativity”). Both are naturalists insofar as they affirm the four basic principles of naturalism:

(1) only the matter/energy world of nature is real
(2) nothing outside nature is necessary to account for its origin or ontological ground (a theoretical multiverse is included within the definition of nature)
(3) nature as a whole can be understood without appeal to any kind of intelligence or purposive agent
(4) all natural events are caused by other natural events in accordance with universal physical laws

Of course, these two categories don’t have hard boundaries. A literalist might not use the word God to describe nature, but she could certainly look to other symbols when expressing sublime concepts or transcendent experiences. These words are just general descriptions—there is no need to apply the literalist or poetic label to any given naturalist. Making the distinction is simply a way of helping us understand that a person who employs traditional religious language can still be a genuine naturalist.

A close cousin to naturalism is paranaturalism. The prefix para- is being used here to denote two meanings, beyond and beside. As such, a paranaturalist might affirm the basic story of the Epic of Evolution, or large chunks of it, but also accepts constructs that are not supported by evidence (e.g. “God is the source of creativity”). For example, someone who believes that consciousness arises from an immaterial soul or that magic ritual can cause change at a distance does not accept naturalist principle #4. Another paranaturalist might think that the “Universe” has a plan for him or that human evolution was guided, both violating principle #3. Or another might deny principle #1 by believing that she can consciously visit astral planes or that spirits reside in a nearby dimension. A deist is a paranaturalist because of #1-3. They might all agree with a great deal of what science has to say about nature, but they aren’t naturalists, religious or otherwise.

The final category is antinaturalism, which explicitly denies most or all of the four naturalist principles. An antinaturalist doesn’t have to be a stereotypical Evangelical Christian; it is anyone who understands the world in a way fundamentally opposed to naturalism. An antinaturalist can even be an atheist in the strict sense of disbelief in a god (Scientology qualifies here).

Antinaturalism is a more useful construct than supernaturalism because it references more than specific non-naturalist beliefs. Antinaturalism dictates how the world is interpreted, how behavior is guided, and how meaning is constructed. As such, it is a fully-formed worldview.

The difference between a paranaturalist and an antinaturalist is often one of degree, since both accept constructs that violate naturalism. Perhaps one useful difference is that paranaturalists generally want their non-naturalistic beliefs to be natural. Paranaturalists often look to pseudoscience for validation of their beliefs; they might give credence to, say, parapsychology, paranormal investigation (i.e. ghost hunting), or Ufology. Intelligent Design advocates might fall somewhere in the middle—they believe that their hypothesis is scientifically valid, but the underlying precepts are clearly non-natural. Antinaturalists, on the other hand, reject the method of science altogether. They will outright deny even the most validated of scientific theories—such as natural selection, basic astrophysics, or even geology—when they contradict their religious beliefs.

To summarize, there are two brands of naturalists—literal and poetic—and two kinds of anaturalists—paranaturalists and antinaturalists. The difference between the naturalist and anaturalist categories is based on fidelity to the basic principles of naturalism. The difference between the two in each category is not so straightforward and will frequently be a matter of degree. But by adopting such terms, we can begin to reframe the conversation away from theism as the standard to naturalism being the standard. This is long past due.