But if a person wants to take naturalism seriously, just remember it requires the denial of things like thought, intentionality and self. None of these can exist if naturalism is true.
No, all naturalism says is that you first look at natural causes when trying to explain an observation. That is not a new idea. St. Augustine saw Genesis as being an allegory as did John Calvin and St. Francis. They all acknowledged natural causes for observations. A volcano erupted in Japan yesterday, are you going to look for supernatural causes? Did the Japanese hikers somehow bring on the wrath of the volcano spirit because of their lack of reverence?
It seems like you’re speaking of naturalism as defined in lay terms. But the presumption of lay naturalism is generally consistent with the view of metaphysical naturalism, which says that all of reality is reducible to natural explanation.
For this reason, the most honest among metaphysical naturalists admit that thought, intentionality and self are not explainable by natural causes and therefore they are not part of reality. They don’t exist.