About Naturalism
Whether you are a believer or not, think of every statement you’ve heard or believed about God, and then try substituting the word “nature” for the word “God” in each statement. Do this over the space of a few weeks, and see what sort of meaning you can glean from this exercise. If you start to see a lot of interesting new meaning to both terms, then you are at least in part a Naturalist.
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My intent for this substack is to share ideas about a new religion that I tentatively call “Naturalism”. You won’t encounter a lot of fun graphics or glib humor on these pages. Instead, I aim to explore in a clear manner some interesting ideas regarding truth, faith, and especially ethics.
I would like to be especially clear that subscribing to this blog does not mean a person is a “believer” in Naturalism. It simply indicates a desire to learn more about it or engage in discussion on it. My goal is not to gain subscribers, but they are certainly welcome.
Naturalism is somewhat similar to past ideas of “God as nature” that have been expounded for centuries. In Naturalism, “God” and “nature” are understood to be equivalent. Although this equivalence is not a new concept, I believe Naturalism is uniquely adapted to the current ethical, spiritual, and intellectual needs in society.
I’ve been mentally sketching this faith for decades, but recent governmental responses to covid have been the immediate cause of my urge to put this faith into writing. I don’t have any grandiose ideas of Naturalist congregations spontaneously popping up in every city, but I do expect that what I am explaining here will gather more attention in coming years. Perhaps my putting these ideas into writing will put a name on a movement, one which I believe has been coalescing already for a long time.
Perhaps you are a Naturalist already, but don’t realize it. Naturalists would include many who now call themselves “spiritual but not religious”, who feel a lack of relevance in traditional organized religion. Naturalists would also include many who are advocates of science but see problems with not only honesty in modern science but also the application of science toward risky or destructive ends. Naturalists would furthermore include people who might call themselves “atheists” or “agnostics” but who still have a sense of awe for nature, and who are willing to consider a new understanding of God that is rooted in tangibility, an understanding that might not be very different from their current beliefs.
The term “Naturalism” might lead the reader to believe that it is an animistic nature worship, such as worship of trees, stones, or animals, but it is not. Naturalism is the consideration of the entirety of nature as God. Included in that entirely are humans themselves and the traditions that humans have already developed. Older, established religions have been part of the natural evolution of humans, and it is the nature of all evolution that new things spring from current things. Therefore, Naturalism derives its beliefs largely from current established religions.
Although Naturalism is not specifically Judeo-Christian or Buddhist, you will see that it derives partly from principles taken from those religions, as well as from others. I think people of any religious background can have great interest in reading much of what I’ll write about. Some might mistake Naturalism as a form of “non-woke Unitarianism” because it embraces science and the wisdom of world religions, but it is different from Unitarianism in a number of ways. Most notably, modern Unitarianism has a sort of “optional God” due to its inclusion of atheists, but in Naturalism there is a clear God-as-nature (or nature-as-God if you prefer to look at it that way). God can be thought of as either being a conscious entity, or a universal abstraction, whichever you prefer.
One key novelty in Naturalism is the moral concept of “right technology”, which is somewhat inspired by a Buddhist concept. Society is recently faced with development of technology that alters nature in unpredictable, reckless, and potentially destructive ways. Genetic engineering is a prime example of this. There is currently a lack of ethics regarding the development of such technology, and traditional religions are not filling this ethical void. Naturalism draws a distinction between unethical technology—which harms or alters the fundamentals of nature—and ethical “right technology”—which operates in better accordance with nature. Naturalism includes a recognition that society should not give carte blanche license to any new technological development.
I certainly invite constructive feedback in the comments, but I should also mention that this blog is probably not for the following types of people:
fundamentalist believers in any religion (those who take scripture as literal truth).
people who still hold to the beliefs that the covid virus was not lab-created, that the lockdowns and masks worked, and that the vaccines were “safe and effective”. In fact, such beliefs are a modern form of fundamentalist “scientism” because they take CDC or WHO proclamations on faith as truth, and ignore a wide body of research that contradicts these proclamations.
people whose careers are based on genetic engineering technology, unless they are questioning those career choices.
