I hear a great deal from atheists about what they percieve to be inconsistencies in theism, but now I want to point out two apparent inconsistencies in naturalism.
First let me try to define natural and supernatural. Natural is anything contained within the system: laws, matter, energy, all causes and effects. Supernatural is anything not contained in the system. Furthermore, naturalists seem to not believe that any natural thing (e.g. forming of a star, law of gravity, biogenesis) is the result of a conscious desire and/or rational thought while those who believe in the supernatural believe that consciousness and reason can be found "outside the system" of nature.
INCONSISTENCY #1: rational thought
The naturalist places a great emphasis on his ability to reason. One consequence of naturalism is that free-will is an illusion. Every thought must be the result of an irrational physical cause, which can, in theory, be traced into the sub-rational quantum soup or the big bang. This means that reason must also be an illusion. The naturalist's decision to think rationally was inevitable as were his conclusions and both were ultimately the result of irrational causes, therefore the pure naturalist must acknowledge that his reasoning would be correct or truthful only by an irrational roll of the cosmic dice.
However, in my experience, I can't recall a naturalist who did not believe his reasoning was pointing him in the right direction (towards truth) (If you deny that there is any such thing as truth, I ask you to deny the fact that you exist.)
So... The naturalist who believes his reason to be pointing in the right direction has also indirectly acknowledged that the great chain of natural irrational causes has resulted in an arrow pointing towards truth because his own thoughts are simply the final events in this chain. Therefore all the 'irrational' natural causes leading up to one rational thought cease to be irrational if they have the discovery of truth as their end. Therefore, the naturalist who believes his reason to be good must admit that he is only a small part of a greater rational process.
Inconsistency #2: the Theory of Everything
The naturalist believes everything in the universe is self-contained in a system. IOW, there is a law and equation and probability curve that can explain everything in the universe. The theory that links all of these things together mathematically is called the Theory of Everything, and I have heard some naturalists express hope that this theory will be found in this century.
Now, if this theory is to explain everything, it must also explain itself. This seems to me to be impossible because it would be circular (I've already discussed this before). So there are only two options: either something came from nothing or every system is a part of a bigger system of natural laws ad infinitum (It's turtles all the way down so to speak). The first is obviously unacceptable to a naturalist because this would be a supernatural act. That leaves the second. Now, I don't know about the second one (would like to hear alternative opinions), but it doesn't sit well with me that an infinite could produce a single quantifiable truth. The fact that I exist is dependant upon an infinite number of things. And if reality is essentially infinite, then a single quantum truth seems infinitely small and meaningless to the point of non-existance (but I guess in Calculus we add up a bunch of infinitely small pieces and get a quantifiable sum)... so I don't know.
At any rate, naturalists who believe there exists such a thing as a "Theory of Everything", seem to be inconsistent within their own belief system. Either everything is the result of a supernatural act or the theory that describes our universe is describing only an infinitely small piece of reality. Furthermore, with an infinite reality, I don't see any reason to believe that there cannot be a consciousness or rational thinker that desired our universe to be the way it is.
Thanks if you made it this far. (I spose this would be belong to the Is It Science? forum)
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