The first belief has 5 names commonly used interchangeably. These are: ontological naturalism, naturalism, ontological physicalism, physicalism, and materialism. Though some defenders of this position may bicker about differences between physicalism and materialism, we will, for the purpose of this video, consider all these names to speak of the same thing. For the remainder of this video, I will use the term naturalism exclusively for the sake of consistency.
Now, for those who may not be familiar with naturalism as a philosophical position, I will briefly elaborate. Naturalism, is the metaphysical assertion that all that exists is physical, or in other words, all that exists is material. To put it another way, there do not exist any entities which cannot ultimately be reduced to physical qualities. Now, what exactly we mean by physical is beyond the scope of this video. Though it may feel intuitive to object to this metaphysical claim by stating that energy is not itself physical, we must not take a naïve definition for the word physical. Indeed, energy and all other articles of modern science are accounted for under the term physical as defended by naturalism.
In fact, scientism, namely, the belief that only that which emerges from the natural sciences can be considered articles of knowledge, is nothing more than a reaffirmation of naturalism. After all, if all that exists is physical, and the natural sciences are the best tool for interrogating the physical, then in fact it is obvious that only that which comes from the natural sciences could be considered knowledge.
However, let us not distract ourselves with scientism. Naturalism, in asserting that all that exists is physical, necessarily eliminates the possibility that those things typically considered non-physical exist. Things like the soul and God, definitionally, cannot exist in a reality that is composed only of the physical as both the soul, and God, are defined as non-physical things.
Now, I very seldom encounter people, who call themselves atheists, who make the strong ontological claim that God does not exist. Of those that do make this strong claim, few ever put forward a positive argument for the lack of existence of God. The assertion is that the burden of proof falls onto the theist to demonstrate the existence of God. Though it is true that the burden of proof falls onto the theist to prove the positive claim that God exists, the absence of such a proof does not entail God does not exist.
The burden of proof falls onto the atheist to put forward a positive argument for the absence of the existence of God. If neither side can put forward a positive proof, then one must suspend judgement as proof would not exist for either position. A common objection of the atheist is to assert that it is impossible to demonstrate the absence of the existence of something. This is false. Here is a simple 2-premise naturalistic argument that can be used to such effect.
1. All that exists is physical.
2. God is not physical.
3. Therefore, God does not exist.
As most atheists gravitate towards a naturalistic metaphysical position, this simple argument works very well for them and is coherent both with the concept ‘atheist’ and their other beliefs. Now, the first premise in the argument, namely; “All that exists is physical” is merely the main thesis of naturalism itself. Whether or not this premise is true is a different story, but again, that is not the point of this video. The argument for the non-existence of God that I have put forward is at minimum valid. The force of the argument is contained in the logical impossibility of God under a naturalistic metaphysical position.
Now, earlier I said that there were two beliefs that are commonly held in conjunction by many in the MGTOW community. However, I would like to say that that these two beliefs are held simultaneously by a great deal of people in general. The first belief we said was the metaphysical assertion of naturalism.
I re-uploaded the video without the music and fixed the audio so it comes through to both channels instead of 1. Apologies for the hiccup, I am still working out the kinks with this new format.
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