Straw Man argument

Originally posted by vistesd
What does 'natural' mean in this context? Is it running proxy for the term 'physical'? If consciousness is a non-physical property, does that entail that it is super-natural?

No, I did not mean physicalist. (Question: are physicalist and materialist synonymous?) In Advaita Vedanta, is the Brahman “supernatural?” Is the Tao?

That is, is tology here. The question being, then, does the term “spiritual” have any proper place anymore?

'Physicalism' and 'Materialism' mean the same thing, as far as the vast majority of working philsophers are concerned. Many prefer 'physicalism' because it denotes the ontological commitments of the view without distracting value-laden or continental connotations. Brahman, the Tao, anami, or whatever, all refer to the real. If that means they are natural, so be it. I have no position on the use of the term 'spiritual'. I'd need to know what folk take the referent of the term to be before I'd formulate a view. If 'spiritual' means, for instance, that one is interested in exploring the nature of the real, or the nature of human consciousness, or in the nature of a flourishing human life, then these all seem like legitimate uses of the term.

Originally posted by bbarr
'Physicalism' and 'Materialism' mean the same thing, as far as the vast majority of working philsophers are concerned. Many prefer 'physicalism' because it denotes the ontological commitments of the view without distracting value-laden or continental connotations. Brahman, the Tao, anami, or whatever, all refer to the real. If that means they are natur ...[text shortened]... in the nature of a flourishing human life, then these all seem like legitimate uses of the term.

If 'spiritual' means, for instance, that one is interested in exploring the nature of the real, or the nature of human consciousness, or in the nature of a flourishing human life, then these all seem like legitimate uses of the term.

Understood, but I’m not sure that isn’t a big “If.” I guess it goes to what you said to me once before about the normative nature of language.

Question for my own clarification: You used the term “the real,” which I take as broader than “natural.” Would you elaborate a bit?

Originally posted by KneverKnight
A strawman might argue against a Bible believer something like :
You base your argument on your belief in the Bible, yet the Bible condones[insert hideous crime here]
Therefore, you are wrong.

This kind of argument would fall more into the distraction fallacies, or perhaps some sort of appeal to emotion, not really a straw man as nothing that is said is false, only unconnected to the conclusion.