Naturalism and Naturalness: A Naturalist's Perspective

This chapter is an invited contribution to a book on the naturalness of theistic belief. I start by considering ordinary usage of the term 'natural'. I then clarify how I shall use the terms 'naturalism', 'theism', 'worldview' and 'big picture'. I consider the demographic spread of commitment to theistic big pictures and naturalistic big pictures. I consider the distribution of happiness over those committed to theistic big pictures and naturalistic big pictures. I consider the distribution of reasons over those committed to theistic big pictures and naturalistic big pictures. I consider whether intuitive considerations favour one kind of big picture over the other. As it often the case, I draw somewhat irenic conclusions from these considerations.