08 JAN 2013 by ideonexus
Science Unites
One of the great advantages of the naturalist worldview is that it serves as a basis for bringing people together under a common set of ground rules. Knowledge in science is public, not private, because it must be submitted to others for verification or falsification. A naturalist believes that the empirical truth is waiting to be discovered, and that we can all agree on the empirical truth so long as we believe in a few important criteria. Science can exist in any culture and any nation. It ... 1 
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notesIf we all agree on an empirical worldview, then we have a common basis for understanding across nations and cultures.
08 JAN 2013 by ideonexus
Definition of a Naturalist
If people ask me about my worldview, I say that I am a naturalist. When most people hear that word, they think of someone who spends a lot of time outdoors watching birds and admiring landscapes—and I suppose that description applies to me. But I think of naturalism as a philosophy rather than a lifestyle. F a philosophical perspective, naturalists believe that the physical universe is the universe. In other words, there are no supernatural entities or forces acting on nature, because there... 1 notes
notesIt is a philosophical state of mind, grounded in empiricism, in addition to being one who appreciates nature.
10 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
Naturalism Improves Perception
Nature study also heightens our perceptive
abilities: we see, hear and smell more, and more
keenly, because of them. In the cities, our senses tend
to atrophy. The relentless commercial badgering of
signs, and the general dullness and ugliness of city
landscapes, push the urban walker into the safe
cocoon of his mind and further out of his senses.
Simply spending time out in pastoral or wild
landscapes counteracts this tendency. Spend a day in
the woods and you will begin to hear a bit more a...
1 Being attentive to nature heightens our senses because of the enjoyment we get from listening, seeing, smelling, and feeling it.
10 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
The Efforts and Rewards of Naturalism
One day I buried myself, prone, in the muck
of a muskrat house. While my clothes
absorbed local color, my eyes absorbed the
lore of the marsh. A hen redhead cruised by
with her convoy of ducklings, pink-billed
fluffs of greenish-golden down. A Virginia
rail nearly brushed my nose. The shadow of
a pelican sailed over a pool in which a
yellow-leg alighted with warbling whistle; it
occurred to me that whereas I write a poem
by dint of mighty cerebration, the yellow-leg
walks a better one just by...
1 This passage describes the lengths the naturalist will go to in order to witness nature's miracles.
01 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
Aristotle on Chance in Nature
There are some who make chance responsible for this cosmos and all worlds. For they say that by chance there came about a vortex and a motion of separating out and settling into this arrangement of the whole. And this itself is in fact mightily worth 30 wondering at. For they are saying that animals and plants neither are nor come to be by fortune, but that either nature or Intellect or some other such thing is the cause (for what comes into being from each seed is not whatever falls out, but... 1 notes
notesAn ancient perspective on the question of naturalism and creationism.
19 APR 2011 by ideonexus
Evolution from Inner-Philsophy to Natural Philosophy
There have always been two ways of looking for truth. One is to find concepts which are beyond challenge, because they are held by faith or by authority or the conviction that they are self-evident. This is the mystic submission to truth which the East has chosen, and which dominated the axiomatic thought of the scholars of the Middle Ages. So St. Thomas Aquinas holds that faith is a higher guide to truth than knowledge is: the master of medieval science puts science firmly into second place.... 1 notes
notesSummary of human culture moving from introspectively-revealed knowledge of the Dark Ages to the outward-viewing philosophy of naturalism.
