The Religious Method:
1. Make something up.
2. Hope really really hard that it is true.
3. Kill those who disagree with you.
@
Wild Fox
The "non-religious" method as combined with methodological naturalism.
#1: Solve the problems of objective reality and solipsism by axiomatically assume that we can in general trust our senses. I.e. that objective reality is as it appears to us. And then forget that this is without evidence and acts as if it is fact.
#2. Axiomatically assume that objective reality and thus the universe is natural/physical/material and then forget that this is without evidence and acts as if it is a fact.
#3. Demand evidence for the fact any belief that objective reality is different than the axiomatic assumption that objective reality is natural. In effect only the assumption that objective reality is natural in any discourse
#4. Act in general under the assumption that it can't make sense to do #2 differently and claim that it can only be that #2 is rational and objectively useful for all humans, though it is irrational and subjective. None of the assumptions can be done rationally and objective, because then they wouldn't be assumptions.
#5. Claim that these 2 assumptions can't be questioned and act in effect as they are dogma and articles of faith. They really, really can't be questioned, because it really doesn't subjectively make sense to question them, because reality must make sense. That reality must make sense, is the core dogmatic and religious belief, that can't be doubted. That would be to doubt that there is a limited to the ability of rationality and we can't do that.
#6. In effect claim an universal we for all humans and authority over words like reality, evidence, rationality, objective, facts, truth and so on.
So you 2. Another option is to treat the everyday world as a combination of objective/natural/physical and subjective/cultural/mental and that there is no single methodology that works on all of the world. Not religion, not science, not philosophy and that in effect we can't avoid this:
Cognitive Relativism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
"...
3. The definition of relativism
There is no general agreed upon definition of cognitive relativism. Here is how it has been described by a few major theorists:
- “Reason is whatever the norms of the local culture believe it to be”. (Hilary Putnam, Realism and Reason: Philosophical Papers, Volume 3 (Cambridge, 1983), p. 235.)
- “The choice between competing theories is arbitrary, since there is no such thing as objective truth.” (Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies, Vol. II (London, 1963), p. 369f.)
- “There is no unique truth, no unique objective reality” (Ernest Gellner, Relativism and the Social Sciences (Cambridge, 1985), p. 84.)
- “There is no substantive overarching framework in which radically different and alternative schemes are commensurable” (Richard Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism (Philadelphia, 1985), pp. 11-12.)
- “There is nothing to be said about either truth or rationality apart from descriptions of the familiar procedures of justification which a given society—ours—uses in one area of enquiry” (Richard Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism and Truth: Philosophical Papers, Volume 1 (Cambridge, 1991), p. 23.)
Without doubt, this lack of consensus about exactly what relativism asserts is one reason for the unsatisfactory character of much of the debate about its coherence and plausibility. Another reason is that very few philosophers are willing to apply the label “relativist” to themselves. Even Richard Rorty, who is widely regarded as one of the most articulate defenders of relativism, prefers to describe himself as a “pragmatist”, an “ironist” and an “ethnocentrist”.
Nevertheless, a reasonable definition of relativism may be constructed: one that describes the fundamental outlook of thinkers like Rorty, Kuhn, or Foucault while raising the hackles of their critics in the right way.
Cognitive relativism consists of two claims:
(1) The truth-value of any statement is always relative to some particular standpoint;
(2) No standpoint is metaphysically privileged over all others.
..."
So in effect as religious I am "post-modern" and don't use evidence in defense of my religious beliefs. I just do in effect, how it works in practice for the everyday world we apparently are all a part of. I believe in God and ignore the "non-religious" religious believers in Naturalism, when they demand evidence.
In historical terms we in the Western culture aren't done with debating the limits of rationality and truth. That debate started over 2400 years ago and most people still treat rationality as the world must make positive sense and "add up".
So for limited cognitive relativism I just do this:
"Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are, of the things that are not, that they are not." Protagoras.
That is the ongoing battle: The limit of all those words like truth, proof, evidence, rationality, objectively and justified reasoning. Now it has in effect never been about religion or not. It is always about controlling the words, we use to make sense of the world and that is not limited to religion.
Regards
Mikkel
