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Scientific materialism


Metaphysical naturalism, also called ontological naturalism, philosophical naturalism, and scientific materialism is a philosophical worldview, which holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences. Methodological naturalism is a philosophical basis for science, for which metaphysical naturalism provides only one possible ontological foundation. Broadly, the corresponding theological perspective is religious naturalism or spiritual naturalism. More specifically, metaphysical naturalism rejects the supernatural concepts and explanations that are part of many religions.

According to Steven Schafersman, geologist and president of Texas Citizens for Science metaphysical naturalism is a philosophy that maintains that; 1. Nature encompasses all that exists throughout space and time; and 2. Nature (the universe or cosmos) consists only of natural elements, that is, of spatiotemporal physical substance—massenergy. Non-physical or quasi-physical substance, such as information, ideas, values, logic, mathematics, intellect, and other emergent phenomena, either supervene upon the physical or can be reduced to a physical account; and 3. Nature operates by the laws of physics and in principle, can be explained and understood by science and philosophy; and 4. the supernatural does not exist, i.e., only nature is real. Naturalism is therefore a metaphysical philosophy opposed primarily by Biblical creationism".


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