Supernaturalists identify--misidentify, I believe--the immaterial world of the human mind, which obviously exists and is part of nature, with the transcendental world of their supernatural beliefs. This practice is so pervasive that I must briefly discuss it here. Let us name and classify the three philosophical worlds and their elements: First, the material or physical world of nature that includes matter and energy; second, the immaterial world of nature that includes mind, ideas, values, imagination, logical relationships, etc.; and third, the transcendental world of supernature that includes gods, spirits, souls, etc. Belief in the first two worlds with denial of the independence of the second constitutes materialism, belief in worlds one and two without necessary denial of the independence of the second constitutes naturalism, while belief in all three worlds constitutes supernaturalism. While the identification of brain with conscious mind is relatively easy, supernaturalists invoke this third world and identify--misidentify, in my analysis--conscious mind with soul. Similarly, naturalists identify brain with imagination and emotion, but supernaturalists misidentify imagination and emotion as transcendence. Similarly, brain is self is misidentified as spirit; brain is dreams (or psychosis) is misidentified as revelation; brain is imagined all-loving, all-powerful authority figure is misidentified as a deity; unexplained natural phenomena are mysteries misidentified as miracles; wrongful acts are immoral acts are misidentified as sins, and so forth. In short, supernaturalists are exploiting the uncertainty and ignorance of science regarding the second world of immaterial elements to create and justify their belief in a third world of supernature. Supernaturalists would object to this analysis, I am sure, but it explains to me why they continue to harbor their beliefs despite centuries of being unable to demonstrate even the slightest bit of empirical evidence or formulating a single unrefuted valid reason. They think they have evidence and valid reasons, to be sure, but I think they are misinterpreting elements of a perfectly natural but non-material second world to sustain their mistaken belief in a supernatural third world.
Oh my, are you identifying me as a "supernaturalist," Patrick? Hey, I'm the one who keeps yelling about how pre-analytical (metaphysical) notions [e.g., metaphysical naturalism, theism, scientific materialism, et al.] have no place in science!!!
And yet I know how difficult it is to completely omit all "self-elements" from any human endeavor. In the case of science, an ultimate question is whether the universe is "causally closed" (e.g., uncreated, eternal) or "causally open" (e.g., having a created or designed beginning). Probably every person alive who bothers to think about scientific questions is persuaded in one of those ways or the other. But it seems to me that questions of ultimate cause(s) are not proper subjects for science, for science has no method by which it can experimentally test or falsify hypotheses on such questions.
Still, one's view, whichever it may be, in many cases gets loaded into our thinking quite unconsciously: This is part of what I mean by the term "pre-analytical notion."
Recently, a friend of mine, a working scientist, informed me that he didn't "believe" in the Big Bang. He argues for a "causally-closed cosmos," an eternal universe that had no beginning in a Big Bang or "creation event." Myself, I tend to think this concept is not correct, given the cosmic microwave background radiation, and also the studies conducted by Penrose and Hawking in the late '70s, in which they concluded that a Big Bang was "highly probable" as the event that "began" the Universe in space and time. Of course, Penrose and Hawking did mention two caveats: This high probability was conditioned on all known physical laws, and relativity theory.
But despite my own personal "preference," I wouldn't say my friend is wrong -- or foolish, or stupid, or crazy, or -- heaven forfend! -- "New Age."
To me, reading the scientific literature is like panning for gold: There's a lot of "dross" in the pan; but often enough, there's gold there, too -- and not just iron pyrite; i.e., "fool's gold." It pays to discrimate carefully.
Meanwhile, I am looking forward to hearing the elaboration of my brilliant friend's theory. Truly, I try to be open-minded. It's amazing the new things you can learn about that way.
Thanks for the link to a most interesting site, Patrick!