Materialistic prejudice?

There's an immediate problem with number two. The "gifted people" often see very different spiritual realities from each other. How do you decide who's a seer or a prophet, and who has a neurological condition that produces hallucinations?

Yes, but I'm pointing out that there are inherent problems with that. Yes, but we may automatically be straying into the territory of that other thread because the differences in those religious and spiritual beliefs leads to different definitions of spiritual. I see what you mean, but my point is that people like yourself "and others that accept there is a spiritual world" won't just fail to agree on details, you'll fail to agree on the definition of spiritual. There's an underlying reason for this inevitable widespread disagreement on matters spiritual and religious.I think that the O.P. is more concerned with accusations of materialistic prejudice that are often made of the scientific establishment, and which those of us who defend methodological naturalism often experience here on EvC.I have the attitude of always looking for natural solutions to mysteries, and I could argue that everyone shares that attitude most of the time. If we see a mysterious damp patch on the floor, we tend to think of explanations like a leaking roof, or someone spilt something, or whatever, and not of acts of God, or that a poltergeist might be pissing there at night, or some other non-material explanation. This appears to be common sense, and the attitude certainly works to solve problems.I see science as just being a systematic extension to this common sense pragmatism, and therefore would argue that there's no irrational "materialistic prejudice" involved. What could be described as "materialistic prejudice" is itself evidence based. All the useful explanations for natural phenomena so far have been natural, so a tendency to look for natural explanations for things that have not yet been explained is...err...perfectly natural, and unbiased.

I swung round to your topic in the last section of my last post. I think we do have slight terminology problems if people like Beretta use the word "materialist" where many of us might prefer "naturalist".For example, from Wiki:

quote:

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Modern philosophical materialists extend the definition of matter to include other scientifically observable entities such as energy, forces, and the curvature of space. However philosophers such as Mary Midgley suggest that the concept of "matter" is elusive and poorly defined.

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Materialism - WikipediaBeretta is concerned about the apparent exclusion of his God from science, of course. The answer to such people is that science does not exclude Gods or Goddesses or anything else as possibilities, it merely looks for natural causes for natural phenomena because that's all it has ever found, and all that has ever proved useful. So, the increasingly dominant position of methodological naturalism in the modern world is due to observation and past experience, not to any philosophical bias.Bluejay, a participant in this thread and a professional practitioner of methodological naturalism who is also a believing Christian, might be a good person to explain to the Berettas of this world that one does not need to be a metaphysical naturalist to be a methodological naturalist.I've already tried to explain that to him on the thread that inspired this one, but I don't think he has replied yet.What we might see illustrated on this thread is that believers in specific Gods will not accept the Gods of others. The Berettas and Randmans of this world will not agree with the Bluejays, and probably not with each other.This discord could be explained if the many Gods believed in only exist in the heads of the individual believers.

Dictionary.com gives no less than 38 definitions! As we're discussing the spiritual, I'm using something akin to definition No. 8: "having a real or physical existence, as opposed to one that is spiritual, intellectual, fictitious, etc." Then there should be evidence that they exist outside your head, and I'm sure that you claim that there is. You're contradicting yourself with the way you use natural in that sentence. The quotes and the bracketed phrase sort of take away the contradiction. You may want ghosts and Allah to be described as natural phenomena, but conventional English language, which we should be using here, goes against you, and describes such things as supernatural. Some claim that such things cannot be studied by science, but I tend to the view (which you probably share) that they could be studied by science if there were any evidence for them.Where I expect we differ is that I don't think there is any evidence for them at this point in time but you presumably do.Which brings us neatly around to the topic. Do you agree with the claim that "mainstream science", which practises methodological naturalism, is operating a philosophical bias? If so, why, and what evidence is it ignoring? That would mean that Beretta is wrong in his view of methodological naturalists having a materialist bias, wouldn't it? The materialistic perspective and the naturalistic perspective are the same. Coincidences are coincidences by definition, and they happen in nature, and can be expected. In the sentence "the natural perspective is they signify some purpose", you are using the phrase "natural perspective" to mean something like "superstitious perspective".If you start to use the word "natural" for things magical or supernatural or spiritual, all you are doing is starting to invent your own language. That doesn't help if you're trying to define terms for the thread.