For many years I was a naturalist – in belief if not in name. Naturalism is like the evolved cousin of materialism. Materialism states that all there is in the world is matter, and everything is utterly and exhaustively explainable in terms of matter. There are severe logical issues with this belief, and most former-materialists jettisoned this belief in favor of a slightly more tenable and vague notion of “naturalism”.
Naturalism still accounts for all things in terms of the whole universe (i.e. all of nature), but she allows for things like “energy” which is not strictly material. However, if naturalism is true, then ultimately all things that occur are ultimately entirely reducible to the workings of the system.
This would seem to be problematic for some beliefs, like that of freewill. It set’s up an utterly entirely deterministic universe whereby all things that occur had to occur. That, though demonstrative of our point, is not in and of itself our point.
The point is that if everything is utterly explainable by the system simply “working itself out” in whatever fashion it happens to, then all of my beliefs are utterly irrational; they are caused and not arrived at by any actual act of reason.
http://gotjustice.wordpress.com/2007/09/04/the-incompatibility-of-naturalism-and-reason-or-proof-of-the-supernatural/
I'd like to underscore:
if naturalism is true, then ultimately all things that occur are ultimately entirely reducible to the workings of the system.
The point is that if everything is utterly explainable by the system simply “working itself out” in whatever fashion it happens to, then all of my beliefs are utterly irrational; they are caused and not arrived at by any actual act of reason.