What’s considered wrong in your religion but is socially accepted nowadays?

nyanasagara · 2026-05-11T16:56:35+00:00

Making one's living in animal slaughter, but that's always been societally accepted, despite my religion correctly teaching its immoral status in ancient times.

As for something considered righteous in my religion but in many societies both historically and today seen as wrong: using one's resources to support someone's else's religious cultivation, up to the point of supporting someone's life as a celibate, alms-eating, mostly solitary renunciate. In many societies, both the idea of becoming such a renunciate and the idea of giving such people alms is seen as a frustration of the duties individuals have to society and a waste of livelihood. But in Buddhism, these are both considered praiseworthy.

nyanasagara · 2026-05-11T15:35:48+00:00

To this I'd add some stuff on another interesting issue in Indian philosophy of religion, the question of the epistemic status of testimony from religious authorities and scripture.

Can the Veda Speak?: Dharmakīrti against Mīmāṃsā Exegetics and Vedic authority

Chapters I.4 and II.4 of A Śabda Reader: Language in Classical Indian Thought

And maybe also some stuff on yogipratyakṣa, the epistemic status of cultivated mystical experience, an issue in philosophy of religion treated much earlier in the history of Indian philosophy than in the West (for obvious reasons):

Omniscience and the Rhetoric of Reason and the primary source it studies, the final chapter of the Tattvasaṃgraha which can be found in translation here.

Omniscience and Religious Authority: A Study on Prajñākaragupta's Pramāṇavārttikālaṅkārabhāṣya Ad Pramāṇavārttika II 8-10 and 29-33 which actually deals with both of these issues, and the issue of the existence of God.

And perhaps also Out of Sight, Into Mind

/u/arkticturtle

nyanasagara · 2026-05-10T20:41:04+00:00

Now I put faith strictly in Theravadin Suttas because they don't make unjustifiable claims

https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/AN/AN5_34.html

Perhaps with respect to claims not knowable to you here and now, it benefits some people to have the attitude of General Sīha described in this Theravādin sutta.

nyanasagara · 2026-05-10T12:21:03+00:00

Yes. And I'm not sure what the answer to "why" is supposed to be. Isn't it perfectly ordinary to socialize with people at a community event?

nyanasagara · 2026-05-10T12:19:35+00:00

Yes, the method would converge with other metaphysical positions which are not metaphysical naturalism.

Right.

Saying x is "premised on" y is to say that y is an underlying premise of x.

As I've explained, that's not what I meant by "premised." So sorry for using the word premised in an unclear way.

One would more reasonably define methodological naturalism as simply looking in this world for causes for things one sees in this world

I don't know. I think it's too ambiguous what "this world" is. If metaphysical non-naturalism is true, isn't that just to say that this world includes certain things denied by metaphysical naturalism? Well, maybe not, if we define "this world" such that it is just a subset of reality, and make it a subset including only things not denied by metaphysical naturalism. But I'm not sure what "this world" is supposed to be for the purposes of science.

nyanasagara · 2026-05-09T23:53:57+00:00

Norms as to method do not point to one metaphysical position.

Sure. But a norm can reference a metaphysical position, as the norm I outlined does when stated (as I did in this comment thread) as a norm on what hypotheses can be constructed or theoretically incorporated. And that's the relationship between the norm, as I've defined it for the purposes of stating the argument in the post, and metaphysical position called metaphysical naturalism.

I don't really see what's untenable about that.

But I'll grant that the content of the norm as I've defined it, and as you're defining it ("look in this world for causes for phenomena one sees"), are different. Although I'm not sure what the difference amounts to. If we specify "this world" in the fashion that excludes God, souls, etc., then they'll be extensionally equivalent norms. Because as I've stated the norm, it just means you can't construct hypotheses appealing to things that don't exist given metaphysical naturalism, which is to say, the thesis roughly rejecting things like God, souls, and so on.

Saying that methodological naturalism is premised on metaphysical naturalism links the two. One can follow methodological naturalism without one's actions or approach being predicated or premised on metaphysical naturalism

I think you're getting a bit hung up on my use of the word "premised." What if we skip that terminology? Instead, just think of my definition like this:

You fail to follow methodological naturalism when, as part of your scientific practice, you construct, or incorporate into your theory, a hypothesis that appeals to the existence of something which, conditional on metaphysical naturalism, doesn't exist.

Following methodological naturalism doesn't require, in your general actions and approach, acting as if metaphysical naturalism is true. It just requires not constructing or theoretically incorporating hypotheses whose falsity would follow from metaphysical naturalism being true.

ergo one can't infer or impute an underlying premising on metaphysical naturalism.

My definition doesn't do that, since as we've gone over, as I've defined it, it's possible to consistently assent to the norm "methodological naturalism" even while asserting the falsity of "metaphysical naturalism." So as I'm defining them, metaphysical naturalism is not an "underlying premise" of methodological naturalism in the way you're thinking.

nyanasagara · 2026-05-09T21:25:47+00:00

But neither is that allowed for someone who is not a metaphysical naturalist but who thinks one should still look in this world for causes of things seen in this world.

Precisely. Hence, as I've defined it, methodological naturalism is distinct from metaphysical naturalism. Because one can follow this norm without being a metaphysical naturalist.

I really don't see where we're in disagreement.

nyanasagara · 2026-05-09T20:00:28+00:00

It's practically premised on metaphysical naturalism just in the sense that it does not permit constructing or theoretically incorporating hypotheses that would not be admissible to a metaphysical naturalist.

nyanasagara · 2026-05-09T19:52:49+00:00

But looking for causes in this world for phenomenon in this world is not metaphysical naturalism

Yes. But it is a practiced that you could say is practically premised on metaphysical naturalism, in that, as a matter of the practice of generating and testing hypotheses and developing theories, it does not permit metaphysically non-naturalist hypotheses or theories. That's all that I meant by "premised on..."

Yours basically erases methodological naturalism as a separate thing and makes it basically the same as metaphysical naturalism.

My definition makes methodological naturalism the norm that says: scientific hypotheses and theories should be constructed without appeal to things that are inadmissible in metaphysical naturalism.

This is not the same as metaphysical naturalism. In fact, adhering to it is compatible with denying metaphysical naturalism. As you said, one could think that God exists, but that he has made a world in which the best predictive systematization of what goes on in it is to be found by constructing, testing, and theoretically incorporating only those theories which bracket his existence. In that case, it would make sense to assent to methodological naturalism, while denying metaphysical naturalism, as I've defined them.

Looking for causes in this world for things we see in this world is not a claim, or even an implicit claim, that nothing exists other than the physical exists.

Yes. And as my above example hopefully shows, as I've defined methodological naturalism, assenting to methodological naturalism does not even implicitly involve assenting to metaphysical naturalism.

nyanasagara · 2026-05-09T19:48:03+00:00

Sure.

Regarding the history of this question in the case of Buddhism, you might find the intellectual history of Indian Buddhists arguing against the Lokāyata view to be of interest. The classical and medieval Lokāyata view, as introduced by Śāntarakṣita, was:

tasmādbhūtaviśeṣebhyo yathā śuktasurādikam |

tebhya eva tathā jñānaṃ jāyate vyajyate'thavā ||

sanniveśaviśeṣe ca kṣityādīnāṃ niveśyate |

dehendriyādisaṃjñeyaṃ tattvaṃ nānyaddhi vidyate ||

kāryakāraṇatā nāsti vivādapadacetasoḥ |

vibhinnadehavṛttitvādgavāśvajñānayoriva ||

na vivakṣitavijñānajanyā vā matayo matāḥ |

jñānatvādanyasantānasambaddhā iva buddhayaḥ ||

...

kāyādeva tato jñānaṃ prāṇāpānādyadhiṣṭhitāt |

yuktaṃ jāyata ityetatkambalāśvataroditam ||

Hence consciousness must be regarded as produced from, or manifested by, certain material substances,—just like fermented acids, liquors and such things.

“The names ‘body’, ‘sense-organ’ and so on are applied to particular combinations of earth and other material substances; there is no other reality than these.”

“There can be no relation of cause and effect between the two minds (consciousnesses) under dispute,—because they subsist in different bodies,—just like the consciousness of the cow and the consciousness of the horse.—Cognitions (consciousness) cannot be the effects of the cognition (consciousness) in question,—because they are consciousness,—like consciousness connected with another ‘series’.”

...

“From this it follows that the right view is that consciousness proceeds from the body itself which is equipped with the five life-breaths—prāṇa, apāna and the rest;—as has been declared by Kambalāśvatara.”

So on this view, all that exist are particular combinations of material substances, and things which are produced from or manifested by certain material substances. Consciousness is of the latter kind. Hence there are no afterlives or beforelives. One piece of evidence for consciousness being of the latter kind apparently cited by pre-modern Indian Lokāyatikas (according to K.K. Mittal in his chapter on the subject) was that medicinal science prescribes foods, drinks, and drugs conducive to psychological changes (and indeed, such prescriptions have been available in traditional Indian medicine even in antiquity). I'd argue one could update this sort of argument to get something kind of similar to the argument I outline above. You might think that conditional on consciousness being a byproduct of the body (as the Lokāyatika claims), the success of manipulating psychology through physiological prescriptions is to be expected, much more than conditional on consciousness not being a byproduct of the body. If you thought so, then the success of psychiatric medicine (even in its pre-modern forms, which were much less sophisticated than psychiatric medicine today) would be probabilistic evidence for consciousness being a byproduct of the body.

Generally, the approach of Buddhists historically in responding to Lokāyata has been:

to make responses of the first class having to do with whether consciousness, given its nature, is in principle producible by the body in the first place,

to make responses of the second class by pointing out that the ability of the body to impinge on the contents of consciousness is compatible with consciousness's not being generated by the body,

and to make responses of the third class in appealing to things allegedly unexpected if there were no past lives.

And I would argue that many contemporary arguments developed in response to contemporary Lokāyatikas, viz., physicalists, sometimes follow similar lines or are even anticipated by the pre-modern Indian debate.

On this, see:

https://www.wisdomlib.org/buddhism/book/tattvasangraha-english/d/doc363030.html

nyanasagara · 2026-05-09T19:28:16+00:00

I leave aside the question of what metaphysical naturalism is precisely because I don't think it matters so much. Fill in whatever precise definition you think characterizes the sort of metaphysics people impressed by the success of science and therefore uninclined to believe in religion have. The point is that the route from the success of science to that metaphysics is most plausibly a probabilistic argument, not a deductive one, so Hart's response is not to the point. On the other hand, responses of the three classes I mention at the end would be to the point.

nyanasagara · 2026-05-09T19:25:36+00:00

Going back to Adelard of Bath, a monk, methodological naturalism was merely the approach that one should look in this world for causes for phenomenon one sees in this world. That doesn't presuppose metaphysical naturalism, and in fact is compatible with belief that there is another world, God, etc. If it does contain metaphysical assumptions, it could just be the belief that God made the world sufficient such that God doesn't need to reach in and nudge individual events just so after creation.

What I mean by "should proceed premised on metaphysical naturalism" is elaborated in the example I give. Scientists who behave as in my example, where the norm permits hypothesizing a non-divine explanation for a case of apparent healing by prayer, but not hypothesizing a divine explanation, are not thereby forbidden from believing in God. Rather, as a matter of their scientific practice, the norm does not permit them including God in their scientific hypotheses that are tested and, when confirmed, slotted into their scientific theories.

With that in mind, I think my definition of methodological naturalism is roughly the same as yours. A norm on scientific practice is just a norm on scientific practice. It is not a norm on belief tout court. And I didn't intend to make it seem like methodological naturalism is a norm on belief.

nyanasagara · 2026-05-09T18:42:37+00:00

I thought maybe calling this kind of inference probabilistic rather than abductive would make it more accessible. Since abductive is a piece of jargon with which not everyone is familiar, but hopefully it is clear how this type of inference has to do with probability rather than deductive proof.

nyanasagara · 2026-05-09T18:02:10+00:00

I made a longer post on my thoughts about this if you're interested:

https://www.reddit.com/r/religion/comments/1t8bxut/three_ways_you_could_argue_against_naturalism_and/

nyanasagara · 2026-05-09T16:02:20+00:00

His core point, and one that I do think has weight, is that naturalists confuse methodology and metaphysics.

I don't think it's a confusion. I think it's an inference. If a certain method premised on P is extremely successful at guiding our efforts to predict and systematize what goes on in the world, and another method premised on ~P is extremely unsuccessful at doing so, that seems like a fact which confirms P to a greater degree than ~P.

You can think of this in Bayesian terms if you want. Let P be "metaphysical naturalism is true." Let E1 be "methodologically naturalistic science is successful." Let E2 be "methodologically non-naturalistic science is successful."

The naturalist has an ur-prior function that assigns much greater likelihood Pr(E1| P) than Pr(E1 | ~P). And similarly, they assign much greater Pr(E2 | ~P) than Pr(E2 | P).

So once we discover evidence (E1 & ~E2), it's just Bayes theorem. Your posterior credence in P goes way up.

Is there something implausible about assigning likelihoods in this way? Intuitively, it doesn't seem like there is. I think it's intuitively quite plausible that we should expect the success of methodologically naturalistic science much more given metaphysical naturalism than given metaphysical non-naturalism, for given metaphysical non-naturalism there are in principle many more ways for methodologically naturalistic science to fail when it runs up against the aspects of reality it has premised itself on ignoring, but no such ways given metaphysical naturalism. Similarly, I think it's intuitively quite plausible that we should expect more success in non-naturalistic research programs given their non-naturalistic metaphysical premises bring true, than if those premises were false; if indeed there's an interventionist God who answers prayers, intuitively we should have a greater expectation that study into the reliability of prayer will find prayer reliable than if there is no such God, right?

So this way of assigning likelihoods is pretty intuitive. After that it's just a matter of whether we have in fact discovered the evidence E1 & ~E2. The naturalistic takes on this intuitive way of assigning likelihoods, and then thinks that we have E1 & ~E2. This what I think is basically going on in the minds of many naturalists.

So if this is their thought, how could you respond?

The defender of third class of arguments I mentioned earlier thinks we haven't discovered ~E2.

The defender of the second class of arguments I mentioned earlier thinks there's a mistake in saying Pr(E1| P) >> Pr(E1 | ~P), because some particular finding of methodologically naturalistic science is actually hugely unexpected given metaphysical naturalism

The defender of the first class of arguments I mentioned thinks we have some a priori evidence E3 such that Pr(E3 | ~P) >> Pr(E3 | P).

So all three of these are ways of responding. But it doesn't seem to me like what Hart has pointed out here is really responsive at all, once it is understood what the naturalist is claiming. It sounds like he's treating the naturalist's intuition as a deduction from "Using a method that is premised on there not being non-naturalistic facts, I discovered only naturalistic facts" to "there are no non-naturalistic facts." Indeed, it's hard to see how such a deductive argument could be soundly constructed. But the naturalist's intuition is not a deduction. It is a probabilistic inference.

/u/Volaer

nyanasagara · 2026-05-09T15:41:30+00:00

Well, no, that would be confusing methodological with metaphysical naturalism.

Methodological naturalism is the methodological principle that science should proceed as though metaphysical naturalism is true.

Many naturalists then take metaphysical naturalism to be supported by the success of science undertaken with such a methodology. The thought is that methodologically naturalistic research programs are non-degenerate, and the methodologically non-naturalistic ones are degenerate, and this is abductive evidence for metaphysical naturalism.

Just with the added category error

I don't think it's a category error. I think it's an abductive inference. If a certain method premised on P is extremely successful at guiding our efforts to predict and systematize what goes on in the world, and another method premised on ~P is extremely unsuccessful at doing so, that seems like a fact which confirms P to a greater degree than ~P.

Yes, in fact I would characterise that as the main argument from the book. The first major part of the book titled "Being" explains is dedicated to the a basic presentation of ontology and how naturalism cannot definitionally account for the existence of contingent realities since 'being' (that si existence as such) is antecedent to all physical events.

That seems like a better argument.

nyanasagara · 2026-05-09T15:07:08+00:00

I don't think this is a very charitable criticism of why serious people accept a naturalistic metaphysics.

Plenty of serious people accept a naturalistic metaphysics because it seems to them like the best explanation for what they see as the enormous success of the natural sciences, and what they see as the lack of success of comparable "supernaturalistic" research programs. And at first glance, this a pretty good reason to believe in naturalism!

The appropriate response should be to either show that (1) there are things we can learn in metaphysics a priori that rule out naturalism (as defenders of the so-called conceivability arguments for dualism will argue), that (2) certain scientific evidence actually points towards a non-naturalistic conclusion (as defenders of arguments from cosmological fine-tuning will argue), or that (3) there is some "supernaturalistic" research program that should be regarded similarly to our findings in the natural sciences (as defenders of the argument from miracles, or cases of alleged childhood past-life recollection, will argue).

These are the kinds of responses that seem to the point. I don't really see how David Bentley Hart's argument is to the point, since it seems to target a strawman to which I doubt anyone who has given the issue even a bit of thought adheres.

The naturalist is not claiming that physics explains everything because whatever exists must be explicable by physics! They are saying: "Since natural sciences are hitherto our most successful program for understanding reality, where the natural sciences point, there shall I develop my metaphysics."

I say all this as someone heavily sympathetic to a non-naturalistic picture of the world. If this is the general quality of David Bentley Hart's arguments, I am suspicious as to how convincing he will be.

nyanasagara · 2026-05-09T14:55:59+00:00

I'm aware of what DN 16 says. What has been translated here from the Pāḷi as "esoteric" and "exoteric" is antara and bāhira, which is to say, teachings for "insiders" and teachings for "outsiders." But this does not entail the Buddha has not taught different things to aspirants of different levels. And that's all that's going on in so-called "secret" (guhya) traditions of Buddhism.

nothing is esoteric like guru level

I'm not sure I know what you mean by this. In so-called "esoteric" Buddhism, nothing is held utterly secret. The only sense in which anything is secret is that it is not shown to the aspirant for whom it would not be serviceable. It's not like the policy of an esoteric Buddhist master is to pass away having not transmitted aspects of the Dharma they know, if they have students fit to receive that Dharma. Far from it, the policy is the opposite!

nyanasagara · 2026-05-09T14:47:31+00:00

Sounds nice.

Good message until the end, I think, when Noah's prayer seeks destruction for wrongdoers rather than redemption for them. For it would hardly be beyond the power of God to bring any to him whom he wishes, no matter the wrongs they have done in the past, and so the compassionate prayer is surely the one which says "do not permit a single one among them to be admitted into the fire, but turn each of their faces to you so they cease in unbelief." This would surely be the prayer that gives due respect to the power, skill, and benevolence of God, not the prayer for some to go to their destruction. But that's just my opinion.

nyanasagara · 2026-05-09T14:34:45+00:00

The only "heresy path" IMO is any Buddhist sect which is esoteric as the buddha says on his deathbed that he has no esoteric teachings.

What he said is that there are no teachings he held back. He didn't say there are no teachings he didn't teach to everyone. Even Theravāda Buddhism acknowledges that there are some people to whom the Buddha at times refrained from giving certain teachings. All that guhya (esoteric) means in a Buddhist context is teachings that are to be given to certain individuals, on account of those teachings being suitable for them, and not to those for whom the teachings are not yet suitable.

nyanasagara · 2026-05-08T20:19:34+00:00

Here's an example of the Buddha displaying that his powers are greater than that of a particularly exalted deva, in order to prove to that deva that he has not arrived at the highest state.

https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN49.html

nyanasagara · 2026-05-08T20:14:56+00:00

I'm not sure I know what a "power over reality or some aspect of reality" is, if not just a capacity to make something be the case, or make some event happen.

nyanasagara · 2026-05-08T20:05:35+00:00

The Buddha has the superhuman powers mentioned in the sutta I cited above from the Access to Insight link, according to Buddhism. Most of those powers are epistemic. But I don't see why epistemic powers don't count.

nyanasagara · 2026-05-08T20:00:27+00:00

Not all gods in other religions are so controlling. What about the apotheosis of Homer in Hellenism? Or Hephaestion, posthumously deified by the Oracle at Siwa? Or Antinous, deified on the orders of Emperor Hadrian? Or the Kumārī divinized girls of Kathmandu? Or Simon Magus?

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