Vlad,
One thing at a time. Leprechauns have an appearence which is empirically observable. They have a habitat Ireland. Therefore not only should we see them but Chris, Michaela and Bill should be able to do a naturewatch on them.
And various supernatural, non-material characteristics too. Just like your claim “god”. Either way though, let’s say you set up your hide, have your binoculars at hand and enough cheese and pickle sandwiches to last for, ooh, ages and you look and look and look and look. And then you look some more. And not once does a leprechaun appear. Then what?
Your mistake here is to think that somehow positing “god” as non-material (while ignoring the presumably material bits he’d need to cure little Timmy of his rickets or to give brain cancer to babies) and leprechauns as material (while ignoring their ability to flit in and out of the material world at will) is relevant. If neither of the ever showed up no matter how hard you looked then epistemically they’d still be the same category of claim.
What you seem dimly to be edging toward here but can’t quite articulate is that, if you could look with the appropriate instruments in every possible place for an infinite amount of time then conceptually at least you’d know whether god/leprechauns had shown up while in their physical manifestations. The problem with that though is that there is no way to look in every possible place for an infinite amount of time, so who can say that either hadn’t popped up at some place or time you’d missed?
It gets worse. Posit god/leprechauns in their non-material modes (whatever that would mean) and then you’d only have moved from “conceptual but impossible means of verification” to “not even a conceptual mans of verification”. And that doesn’t help you either.
So there we have it: your god and my leprechauns are epistemically identical claims no matter how much you twist in the wind about that. If you still think I’m wrong about though, then why not finally tells us what steps someone presented with the two claims should do to distinguish the truth value of one from the other.
After all, I’ve done it for you re the relative values of truth claims about jumping out of the window vs taking the lift. Why can’t you do it for me re god vs leprechauns?
If however you say there is no distinction between Leprechauns and theism…
As claims of fact re their supposed existence, epistemically that’s right.
… then that must be true also of the following philosophies or world views Humanism, secularism, materialism, naturalism, empiricism, scientism, physicalism.
Why on earth would you think that? These matters all concern ways of thinking about the world, not claims of the objective existence of something. Good grief but you’re out of your depth here
Consistent exercise of any of these constitutes a world view whether you claim them to be true is neither here nor there. If you think they are probably true that is quite enough.
See above.
If you have argued from any or all these viewpoints and offered that as refutation then to single out theism as worthy of the Leprechaun treatment is not only humbug it is special pleading.
Not even close.
So how IS naturalism different from Leprechauns?
Er, the former is a methodology or a process and the latter is a factual claim about the existence of something. Obviously.
Perhaps if you went away for a bit, gave your head a wobble and then tried again?
