Question

If one is not able to come up with a reason to believe anything supernatural, should one "by default" assume naturalism to be true? Or should one remain completely agnostic?

If I see a person hitting a baseball, should I by default assume that that’s all that happened, or should I stay completely agnostic with respect to other hypotheses such as a demon possessing that person and causing him to hit the baseball?
If so, does that also make atheism the null hypothesis? If one is not able to find evidence that god exists, should one by default assume he doesn’t?

Answer 1

The default position, in the absence of evidence, is usually agnosticism. However, some argue that if there is no reason to believe in the supernatural, it is rational to assume naturalism. Atheism is not necessarily the same as naturalism.

Step-by-step explanation:

When it comes to beliefs about the supernatural, there are different approaches one can take. The default position, in the absence of evidence, is usually agnosticism, which is the belief that it is not possible to know whether or not supernatural entities exist.

However, some people argue that if there is no reason to believe in the supernatural, it is rational to assume naturalism, which is the belief that everything can be explained by natural causes. It is important to note that atheism, which is the belief that there is no god, is not necessarily the same as naturalism.

Atheism can be seen as a null hypothesis, but it is not the default assumption.