NATURE - is it all there is?
Naturalism would say yes.
The way nature works is a better way to describe what we mean by natural law than the words natural law. The way or the law if you like is unreasoning, unintelligent, unconscious, and unmoral. Nature may be dependable but that does not mean it knows what it is doing or that somebody who knows set it up. All chaos has some order by accident.
Evidence for spirit, God or the soul or free will (when understood as the
supernatural power to choose good and evil without being programmed) is good for
nothing because you simply cannot have evidence that nonsense is true. It is
incoherent. You might say you have evidence. It is your interpretation at work
not the evidence.
Opposition to naturalism is more about wanting to make out we have a
supernatural aspect to our nature maybe a soul or something than about miracles
or anything else. It is selfish and though God will be declared an important
part of belief the real motive is to try and think you are better than matter
and more than matter. Opponents of naturalism typically claim that because love
and thoughts etc seem non-physical that proves they are non-physical or have
nothing material about them. The argument is, "The supernatural exists because
it seems to." That is the fundamental assumption behind belief in souls and God
and magic and miracles. It is irrational. The argument can only be right if it
is magically correct for it makes no rational sense. Its being right would be
the biggest miracle of all and the one necessary miracle and foundation of the
other miracles. It is the foundational miracle - the miracle without which there
can be no miracles. It needs to be right otherwise miracles have no point. There
is no point in rivers and oceans if water cannot exist.
Though we insist on saying there is more to us than biology in practice we treat love and other things as chemical reactions. You do not tell a person in the grip of a depressive illness who is not responding to counseling to love others more. You tell them to get chemicals in the form of drugs. Religion makes a lot out of us being more than chemicals but it makes too much out of it. In practice, it is not very important if love is spiritual but it is important if it is chemical.
It is only a small step to naturalism for we are nearly all and always naturalist anyway. We may as well take the step.
Though we insist on saying there is more to us than biology in practice we treat love and other things as chemical reactions. You do not tell a person in the grip of a depressive illness who is not responding to counseling to love others more. You tell them to get chemicals in the form of drugs. Religion makes a lot out of us being more than chemicals but it makes too much out of it. In practice, it is not very important if love is spiritual but it is important if it is chemical.
Deny God and nature becomes the new God and as people and animals are part of nature that means it can be said to have a caring aspect for their caring is part of nature.
