Atheists: What is the rational basis for materialism and naturalism?

What makes you think that an atheist can tell you the rational explanation of another set of beliefs.

You are making an ASSumption. Get my drift?

If you want to know the rational basis for those beliefs, then find people who base their beliefs in materialism or naturalism and address your question to them.

Or maybe I should ask you the rational basis for Scientology or Judaism or Mormonism? You may try to answer, but your answer would be worthless unless you believed in these things. But they are all religions and so by your logic you should be to completely explain them!

and supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted.

- The very definition of "supernatural" that which is not natural, explains everything. It does not exist in the natural world. If it did or could be explained by the natural processes, then it would be natural not supernatural.

However, most of you use science as a reason not to believe in things such as God, angels, demons, magic, souls, and other such immaterial concepts.

- The operative word is "believe" that which has no proof or evidence. We "believe" the sun will come up tomorrow, but we have evidence that it is a good bet. All of those things may be "probable" but there is no evidence. So I can "believe" in them, but that is mostly a wasted effort, unless I try and prove them, but in 10,000 years no one has done that yet.

What is the rational basis behind restricting the scope of reality to what can be detected scientifically?

- People who think, specifically scientists in this case, do not restrict their scope, but please suggest some scientific process or a natural process or ANY process that could prove any aspect of it. Just "believing" takes all of about 30 seconds a day or a week and then it is nothing but the "natural" world. You think that since we do not proseltyze about it that we entirely forgo all aspects of it. No, but it takes as much effort to "believe" that as it does Santa.

By definition, science only deals with natural, material phenomena.

- That is all it can deal with.

If there were anything immaterial or supernatural in reality, science still could not detect or measure it even in theory.

- If there were anything "supernatural" in "reality" then it would not be supernatural, it would be part of the natural reality. You are in a continuous loop.

It seems that supernaturalism and parallel material/spiritual reality are equally viable as coherent philosophical systems.

- And now the operative word is "philosophical" which has nothing to do with science. Some centuries back one of the paramount philosophical questions was - how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. There was never any "scientific" discussion a to whether angels even existed, that was taken for granted. There was never any discussion as to whether they were material or not, so if they weren't then them dancing on the head of a pin would be a moot point. And there was never any real discussion as to how big they might actually be, thus ALL of it was philosophical. Many scientist do discuss religion and the supernatural "philosophically" but since it is "supernatural" it has nothing to do with science.

So my question, again, is this: why materialism and naturalism?

- Because outside of philosophy/imagination, it doesn't exist.

I don't know. I am not interested in science. I am an atheist because there is no evidence for gods. I disbelieve in anything supernatural for the same reason. Maybe gods and angels and demons and magic exist and vampires, mermaids and fairies but I can't believe in everything ever claimed to exist simply because there is no evidence against them. I'd have to believe in 30,000 gods even before I get to the rest of the supernatural claims. There has to be some method of discernment and I go with evidence. I'll believe in anything supernatural as soon as there is some evidence of it.

Science could detect any of those things which are claimed to affect the material world though. Gods for example. They are often said to have made the world, interact with it, talk to people, answer prayers and perform miracles. These are scientific claims and could be observed, measured and proved if they actually happened. Magic too - that is defined as 'the art that purports to control or forecast natural events, effects, or forces by invoking the supernatural' - this could easily be confirmed by scientific means if someone were able to do it.

Souls are a bit different. If you are using the term metaphorically to mean a person's 'self' 'consciousness' or 'conscience' or 'artistic ability' then this is one thing. If you mean it literally, these are again scientific claims and all these things have been proved to be products of the brain.

Science (limited to natural explanations) works: latex paint, cell phones, men on the moon, etc.

The supernatural only exists as a belief, and does not actually do anything. My believing in ghosts, unicorns, spirits, or astral travel does not actually do anything. I can't make predictions, I can't count in it working, I cannot even give an expected value, e.g., you could expect a given medicine to work 75% of the time.

Sometimes faith, believing in the unproved (or wrong) has a benefit:

If I believe that when I make a sales pitch the listener is actually believing what I say, then I will feel more confident, and thus have more success.

And, it could be the case that you feel better if you believe that a sound you hear in the night is your grandmother's spirit.

In any case, the supernatural, religious, and magic are not real.

And, humans are capable of believing in things that are not true - that is a characteristic of humans. You have that characteristic, atheists not so much.

Well God, angels, demons, magic, souls, etc. aren't strictly immaterial because they supposedly interact with matter. If matter's modifications are included in "materialsm", and these things modify matter, then they are included. If they modify matter then there should be material evidence and this puts them within the realm of science. No different than electromagnetic fields or photons. Anything that we have found no evidence for however, there's no reason to assume it exists.

If you proposed something strictly immaterial that does not interact with matter at all, and is thus totally undetectable, and outside the range of science, then obviously I'd think you just made it up because there would be no way you to have detected it.

The rationale is simple, until evidence is presented to support a claim, we should reject said claim. The longer that a claim goes without being supported by evidence, the less we have to accept the claim. The longer you roll a six-sided dice without a resulting 7, the less you accept the possibility of rolling a 7. Sure, if you accept supernatural explanations you could hold onto the belief that one day a 7 could result, but why hold such a belief when all the available evidence suggests that it simply is not possible.

Because if no-one made up the supernatural nonsense no-one would believe in it.

If I make up something today does that mean we ought to give credit to it based on the fact that I just made it up and there's no proof it doesn't exist (how could there be). The only difference between me making something up and other religions and superstitions is more people believe in them and they have been around longer, but I don't think they have anymore credibility then something I make up today.

Look at Mormonism and Scientology, they were very clearly (and easily proven to be) made up by con artists. And yet lots of people now consider them FACT. But most of us rational people, after a little research dismiss then for the nonsense they are. The research is very easy to do, especially today with all the information freely available. The reason religion has lasted as long as it has is by controlling information. That and fear mongering, indoctrination, lying etc. But they can no longer control the information. The problem is a lot of theists aren't willing to test their religion/faith. And that there's so many theist websites either spreading blatant lies, which the theist believes because they want to, or sowing just enough doubt on science to give them enough defiance to stick to their faith.

The truth however is that with just a little bit of research into any and all religions it's very easy to prove that they are false/made up.

That is of course different to proving that there isn't a creator which cannot be proven or unproven. But as I said, why give any credibility to stuff that someone made up, however long ago they made it up?

" why? What is the rational basis behind restricting the scope of reality to what can be detected scientifically?"

Because that is what we have evidence for. Start supplying evidence of the supernatural, and opinions may change, but until then don't expect people to buy into the "immaterial concepts" with no justification.

"Naturalism and materialism appear to be baseless assumptions, as far as I have ever heard."

Good for you for having an opinion. You want a cookie?

"Materialism: the doctrine..."

Wow, getting the definition wrong when only two words into it. Now that's talent.

To answer your question, what reason is there to believe that anything other than the material world exists? Everything in human history has only ever revealed the physical reality we live in. There's absolutely no evidence to support anything else and as such no reason to just make stuff up about it (which is what has been done with supernatural myths, including religions).

The real question is: Why would anyone believe in something for which there was no indication or evidence of in the first place?

In philosophy there is also IDEALISM which is the opposite of materialism. It asserts that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial.

Quantum physics has pointed out that matter is merely an ILLUSION our brain creates. The building blocks of matter like electrons tend to behave like particles ONLY when observed by a conscious mind. Otherwise they are simply waves of infinite possibilities.

I mean even science nowadays admits that matter is mainly not solid but just empty void and not as ''material'' as once thought. Some scientists have even suggested that -like the Matrix movie- the entire Universe we are living in is just a computer simulation or a hologram...i.e. IMMATERIAL and it only feels material to the ones who live in it = us! Watch this: https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0oG7jihvd5Sa...

However, jumping into conclusions related to the existence of a God from these scientific data is a bit far-fetched.