Why I’m No Longer a Naturalist (And Now a Pyrrhonist)
Reflections on my journey through Naturalism.
From 2024 to 2025, I had the distinct pleasure of serving as Executive Director of the Spiritual Naturalist Society (SNS). It’s an experience I’m truly grateful for. Before joining the SNS Council, and later becoming Director, I faced a great deal of imposter syndrome that held me back from my longing to write about philosophy (mostly due to feeling “unqualified” to talk about these things). It wasn’t until Gregory Gronbacher, a PhD in Social Philosophy and the SNS Director at the time (someone evidently “qualified”) encouraged me to join the SNS writing team—that I finally felt empowered to start putting my thoughts out there.
Working with the Council was a fascinatingly unique experience. It was like joining the Avengers, had they been a team of intellectual hippies, Buddhists, Pagans, Pantheists, and Humanists—all with the same strange niche interests that I had. I consider them to be among the most kind, mature, and interesting people I’ve ever met, therefore it would be quite unfortunate not to mention these exceptional figures:
Daniel Strain, Humanist-Buddhist-Stoic, founder of SNS, and writer at The Beacon Hand.
Rick Heller, author of Secular Meditation and leader of the meditation group at the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard.
Thomas Schenk, retired research administrator and one of the most (if not the most) prolific writers at SNS.
Tony Wolf, Cultural Fighting Styles Designer for the Lord of the Rings trilogy (my all-time favorite films), author of the popular Suffraijistu trilogy (among other novels), and martial arts documentarian—who last year published the first volume of his fascinating Poetic Faiths anthology.
James Jarrett, Humanist Chaplain, Celebrant and blogger at Becoming Human.
Leigh Anderson, retired aerospace industry professional with degrees in Computer Programming and Cultural Anthropology. I never had the pleasure of having a conversation with Leigh other than over email, though I came to enjoy her articles.
Kyle Kampa, Newsletter Editor at SNS, who like Leigh, I only spoke with over email. I always appreciated how diligent and punctual he was with reminding me to send my monthly newsletter statement, and with sending our monthly newsletters out.
Edwin Everly, our Communications Moderator who I also never got a chance to meet, but kept our Facebook page active.
Daniel Lev, psycho-spiritual guide with a B.A. in Sociology from Yale who is currently pursuing his Masters in Counseling at Loyola University in New Orleans. Daniel is the new Executive Director at SNS and I was delighted to pass the torch to him when I left.
Gregory Gronbacher, whom I’ve already mentioned. An unmistakable polymath, Gregory has built well-established careers as a Real Estate Advisor, Digital Copywriter & Editor, AI Philosophy & Ethics Consultant, University Professor, and Author. As noted, he was also the SNS Director that preceded me. I also found his articles to be quite insightful.
I very much enjoyed collaborating with these individuals, and I often wished I knew more people in my life like them. I would periodically think about how nice it would be if I had more in-person connections in my life that I could talk about Spiritual Naturalism (SN) with, especially on a day-to-day basis. Interestingly, I feel the same way now about Pyrrhonism.
Leaving the New Age
I first encountered SN after abandoning my supernatural New Age beliefs. This was just after my college years, a period I jokingly look back on as my “hippie-dippie phase”. In this chapter of my life, I explored a smorgasbord of spiritual paths, immersing myself in bhakti yoga, Vedanta, psychonautics, ceremonial magic, and neopaganism, among others. Strangely, I find this period of my life to be fairly Pyrrhonian—not so unaligned with the Zetetic (seeking) approach to Pyrrhonist practice. Though I had assented to many dogmas during this period, my quest orientation to spirituality and religion allowed me to change and revise my beliefs the more I searched. Inevitably, this shattered my supernatural beliefs—receiving their final blow after watching Dr Susan Blackmore’s lectures on Out-of-Body experiences.
Dr Blackmore was once a New Age hippie just like me, who held a strong conviction in favor of a supernatural world. Fascinatingly, it was a decade of research as a Parapsychologist that caused her beliefs to unravel. Gradually, she became a Naturalist, though she typically calls herself a “skeptic” (in the scientific, not Pyrrhonian sense of the word). Despite her “skeptical” inclinations, Blackmore still saw a baby in the spiritual bathwater, and openly welcomed SN in her foreword to the first book in the SNS Anthology Series.
Dr Blackmore’s story resonated with me deeply, and is in large part why I became not just a Naturalist, but a Spiritual Naturalist. Yet, there was a deeper impulse underlying this transition, and surprisingly, it’s the same question that eventually brought me to Pyrrhonism: the question of how to build a nondogmatic world.
The New (Naturalist) Age
One of the most frequently discussed motifs in the New Age movement is the notion of “awakening”. New Agers often exchange stories about their awakening experiences, and the events that led up to it. But what are they waking up from exactly? Often, they explain this quite colorfully: as an awakening from “the matrix”. Though vague, this is typically described as our social conditioning, but other times as a sort of metaphysical prison constructed by our institutions. Pyrrhonists, on the other hand, find the notion of awakening dogmatic, as this word implies that a hidden truth (if not the truth) has been realized. Yet, of the countless other New Agers I came across, most appeared to describe themselves as nondogmatic. Verily, I often thought of myself this way. But my understanding of dogmatism was quite deviant from the Pyrrhonian use of the term.
New Agers typically seem to use the word “dogma” to designate beliefs based on unsupported assumptions. Though Pyrrhonists agree that assumptions are dogmatic, they appear to have identified significantly more unsupported assumptions than the New Agers. Contrastingly, New Agers seem to have mostly identified social norms, religious doctrines, and confidence in institutions as dogmatic.
The narrative that “humanity is waking up” appears to reside at the core of the New Age movement.1 Though this carries significant supernatural dogmas along with it, the collective awakening of humanity also implies an end to the dogmas that are perceived as keeping humanity “asleep”. Not only do New Agers view these dogmas as delusional, they also consider them to be the root of all major problems in the world.2 Because of this, those who have awakened are also called to participate in the global process to help humanity wake up. This seems to be why the New Age is often perceived by its members as a movement, and not a mere subculture.
Following this framework then, it’s (hopefully) not too difficult to see how the hippie calling to “awaken” humanity still resonated with me, even when I became a Naturalist. The narrative that there was the truth that “I woke up to”, and the dogmas that “I woke up from”—still remained. What changed was my conception of the truth, as well as the dogmas I considered most threatening. New Ageism was then replaced with Naturalism, while my distrust toward institutions was replaced with distrust toward supernaturalism.3
And this is what ultimately drew me to SN. Naturalism on its own seemed cold, boring, and Nihilistic. Nothing about it seemed cool nor attractive, other than that it was the truth (or so I thought). Conversely, Spiritual Naturalism brought warmth, wonder, and meaning to Naturalism. It transformed Naturalism into a philosophy that people wouldn’t be repulsed by (and therefore closed off to). In my SNS article, Spirituality for Skeptics, I summarized how Spiritual Naturalism:
“...is not merely a worldview—it’s a growing movement, a subculture that seeks to maximize human flourishing through reason and evidence. If developed successfully, this subculture will compete against the dogmatism and nihilism that have dominated our public discourse for far too long.”
We’ll return to the above quote in a bit (it’s problematic). For now, I want to share how Spiritual Naturalism had eventually brought me to Pyrrhonism.
The Humble Approach to Knowledge
Aside from the call to “awaken” humanity, my Zetetic “quest orientation” to spirituality also remained with me after leaving the New Age, and I continued to apply this orientation as I explored Spiritual Naturalism as a philosophy of life. One tendency I gradually started to notice was how Naturalists disagree on what exactly constitutes “Naturalism”. For instance, the section defining the meaning of “Naturalism” in The Routledge Handbook of Religious Naturalism opens with: “There is no single, agreed-upon meaning of ‘naturalism.’”
So if there’s no agreed-upon definition, how could I determine the correct approach to Naturalism? At this point, I had not yet been aware of the Problem of the Criterion, but I was beginning to take skepticism more seriously—despite being a dogmatic scientific skeptic at the time. By then, Pyrrhonism had already been on my radar; I decided it was time to dive deeper.
To my convenience, SNS founder Daniel Strain had already published several articles discussing Pyrrhonism, which you can check out below:
It seemed to me that Strain’s outlook on Naturalism was profoundly influenced by Pyrrhonian ideas. I’ve come to suspect that his depiction of SN as a “humble approach to knowledge” is largely (at least in part) due to this. I decided after reading Daniel’s articles that if I wanted my Naturalism to have a solid foundation, Pyrrhonism was well worth exploring.
I started with Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism by Adrian Kuzminski. I admit I only listened to an AI audio of the book via Speechify, a practice I regularly underwent to impatiently rush through books—which I don’t recommend and no longer do.4 The parts I picked up were quite helpful though in shaping my understanding of how Pyrrhonism was less dogmatic than Academic Skepticism, in addition to the distinction between evident and non-evident claims. But in retrospect, I wouldn’t say I carefully read the text.
The first book on Pyrrhonism that I carefully read was Pyrrho’s Way: The Ancient Greek Version of Buddhism by Doug Bates. It would be an understatement to say this book changed my life. Bates’ outline of Pyrrhonism was clear, accessible, and persuasive. By the moment I reached the last page, it was apparent that my epistemological approach to philosophy had become fully Pyrrhonian.
But could I reconcile Pyrrhonism with Naturalism? Strain seemed to think so when I told him I became a Pyrrhonist. Emeritus Council Member B.T. Newberg on the other hand, had a very different take:
“The Pyrrhonists were decidedly not naturalistic. Why? Like today’s atheists and agnostics, they did not hesitate to point out the dubiousness of theological dogma, so wouldn’t that make them naturalistic? In fact, the answer is no. Pyrrhonists questioned all beliefs, including naturalistic ones. Strictly speaking, they were no more naturalists than theists. They would have rejected both positions as overly dogmatic.
Naturalists today may not consider their philosophy dogmatic, but ancient Pyrrhonists would have disagreed. Surely they would have looked askance at the elaborate scientific theories accepted by naturalists, such as general relativity or quantum mechanics, which often go beyond what is immediately apparent to the senses. It is commonplace, for example, for scientists to operate on the basis of theoretical constructs long before they are demonstrated by observation. Atoms, for example, have been a staple of science since Gassendi, but were not directly observed till recent years via quantum microscopy. For this the Pyrrhonist would have no patience. Though the naturalist may object that such theories are only taken as provisionally true, contingent on evidence, it is hard to imagine a Pyrrhonist brooking such objections. It was precisely this notion of provisional truth which they found unacceptably dogmatic in the Academics.”
Unable to reconcile these perspectives, I went to other Pyrrhonists for answers. I was fortunate enough to get in touch with Bates, who kindly shared his initial impressions with me after taking a look at the SNS definition of “Spiritual Naturalism”:
SNS: “Spiritual Naturalism sees the universe as one natural and sacred whole – as is the rationality and the science through which nature is revealed.”
Bates: “Except as by definition the universe is natural and whole, I’m not sure what this claim amounts to. “Sacred” is about what people think; it’s not something that exists by nature. As for rationality and science, they don’t seem whole or sacred to me.”
SNS: “It advocates principles and practices that have compassion as their foundation,”
Bates: “I’m not sure what “foundation” means here. It sounds like some sort of first principle, or a dogmatic belief.”
SNS: “Naturalists’ conception of reality consists of the natural world as outlined by the latest scientific understanding. “
Bates: “Scientific understanding is constantly changing. This does not seem to be a secure foundation.”
Bates’ response confirmed my suspicions. I could no longer in good faith call myself a Naturalist.
Naturalist Eudaimonia?
Despite our epistemological differences, I still recommend checking out Spiritual Naturalism, and the SNS Website. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in there, a great deal of which I still consider useful. I would say I now view SN in the same vein that Doug Bates depicts Stoicism: as a philosophy that you can take and leave from.
Like Stoicism, SN is rich with useful practices and advice that can be helpful, even inspiring.5 What should be left behind includes the dogmas associated with Naturalism—particularly the dogma that we can come to knowledge through science. As it turned out, this belief led me to become profoundly miserable.
My assent into dogmatic despair began with my introduction to Michael Dowd, a Naturalist Christian Minister and self-described “Ecotheologian”. Now I by no means wish to disparage Dowd—he seems to have lived a deeply selfless life: living on the road with his wife Connie Barlow, and traveling across the U.S. to preach “The Gospel of Evolution” to secular and religious congregations. These efforts appear to have achieved tremendous success, building bridges between theists and atheists. Tragically, Michael Dowd passed away just a few years ago from a heart attack, leaving behind an inspiring humanitarian legacy.
Proclaiming “Reality” to be his God, Dowd’s Naturalism led him to the dogma that we can come to knowledge through science. So when he read the sociologist William Catton’s book Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, he became a Doomer, concluding that climate change, ecological overshoot, and biodiversity loss would inevitably lead to societal collapse.
At the time, I counted Dowd among my greatest influences. I was particularly drawn to his ability to win over supernaturalist audiences, which spoke to my interest in strategies to “awaken” humanity from supernaturalism. So when I encountered Dowd’s “Post Doom” prophecy and started watching his video talks on the subject, I took my first sips of the Doomer Kool-Aid—before swiftly draining the glass.
This filled me with an unfathomable misery.
How was I to go to work each day, “knowing” that the end is near? What’s the purpose of aspiring toward anything if societal collapse is imminent? I frequently ruminated over how the best parts of my life were behind me—that it will only go downhill from here. I found myself reluctantly agreeing to my then-girlfriend’s perpetual requests to watch post-apocalyptic films and shows, tuning in to fictional scenes that would certainly happen to me.
I scored alarmingly high for depression during my visit to the psychiatrist’s office, where I was prescribed antidepressants for the first time in my life. Sure, there were other contributing factors to my depression at the time—notably my ongoing breakup with the aforementioned girlfriend and working under a boss who treated me like a commodity. But those were just chapters in the story: Doomerism was the entire narrative.
I ironically look back on this era of my life with humor, and it is largely Pyrrhonism that I attribute to helping me escape the Doomer mental prison. First, I was relieved to learn that climate scientists widely disagree on the probability of societal collapse, and after becoming acquainted with the previously mentioned Problem of the Criterion, I conceded that I could not determine which of them (if any) had found the truth.
Pyrrhonism also introduced me to another fundamental problem in philosophy: The Problem of Induction (first advanced in the West by the Pyrrhonists). I was then confronted with new questions: How can we know what will happen, following an incomplete sample of generalized observations? Why aren’t we taking unpredictable black swan events into account? How can we say we know what the future will be like, based on past observations? How can we say any of this without relying on assumptions? I could not answer these questions, so I resorted to suspending judgment.6
This returns me to my problematic quote from earlier, when I said SN “seeks to maximize human flourishing through reason and evidence”. When I reflect on my misadventures through the Doomer landscape, it seems my Naturalism had conflictingly minimized the potential for any flourishing in my life. To ancient Pyrrhonists, the term for “human flourishing” was Eudaimonia, a concept almost universally agreed to be the goal of life among classical Western philosophers. Remarkably, it was Pyrrhonism that produced results in my life far more conducive to Eudaimonia than I ever imagined could be achieved through Naturalism. Besides Doomerism, Pyrrhonist practice has also brought me freedom from Pessimism, Nihilism, and most anxiety over the future. Pyrrhonism has also helped me judge less, and though I still catch myself making dogmatic judgments—Pyrrhonist practice seems to make the judgment quickly dissolve.
Despite the benefits, I’ve found no reason to think I should only rely on Pyrrhonist methods to improve my life. Pyrrhonism is not a panacea. Indeed, Sextus Empiricus tells us in his Outlines:
“We do not suppose, of course, that the Skeptic is wholly untroubled, but we do say that he is troubled only by things unavoidable.”
So despite being a Pyrrhonist, I still listen to my doctor. I go to therapy. I take medications for my ADHD and social phobia. I get vaccinated. I don’t need to believe in Naturalism to do any of these things. I simply do them because they’re useful.
And spiritual practices can be useful too. I find it funny now that despite being more skeptical than I was as a Naturalist, I’m finding the “spiritual” side of Spiritual Naturalism to be the only part worth keeping. So would I still consider myself “spiritual”? Will I continue calling myself a “spiritual skeptic”? Probably not.
Retiring From Spirit-Talk
This returns me one last time to the question of building a nondogmatic world. One of my last articles for SNS was a defense of spirit-talk directed against the polemics of the late Tom Flynn. Flynn was a Secular Humanist who advocated for a Nihilistic approach to Naturalism—an approach I feared would scare people away. In opposition, I argued that promoting Spiritual Naturalism was the best way to combat dogmatism:
“Where I think Flynn ultimately misses however, is that in order for skepticism to better compete against dogmatism, it must existentially and aesthetically appeal to people. Spiritual Naturalism helps skepticism meet this goal without detracting from it or watering it down, allowing skeptical activists to meet supernaturalists halfway, and thus more effectively get their message across. Verily, I would make the case that spiritual language can make skepticism far more rich, colorful, and meaningful in ways that secular or nihilistic approaches to skepticism cannot.”
Of course, I’m referring to scientific skepticism here, but considering my skepticism has now become fully Pyrrhonian, might it still make sense to use spiritual language to make Pyrrhonism look more attractive?
Not really.
Why? Because Pyrrhonism doesn’t suffer from the same problems that Naturalism does.
Look at Stoicism. Visit any book store and chances are, the philosophy section will have shelves filled with titles by Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Ryan Holiday. Search “Stoicism” on social media, and you’ll discover an abundant feed of viral videos with millions of views. Of course, Stoicism does have an innate theological component, and there are those (such as Spiritual Naturalists) who dress up Stoicism in a spiritual aesthetic. But it seems that Stoicism largely (and most effectively) attracts people without being parasitic on religion or spirituality. Instead of positioning itself as a “spiritual path”, it appears to get its popular appeal by positioning itself as a system of self-help.
I find that Pyrrhonism possesses aesthetic characteristics similar to the ones that have benefitted contemporary Stoicism. After all, it too is a system of self-help. It also has appeal as a path to inner peace, in addition to the benefit of not being Nihilistic (though if framed the wrong way it can come across like this). Though it lacks popularity, I suspect this is because most people have yet to recognize what Pyrrhonism is precisely about, or how it could benefit us. It might help to share how Pyrrhonism speaks to a variety of highly relevant concerns—including the rise of extremism, polarization, and the mental health crisis. People want solutions to these issues, and it so happens that the Pyrrhonists have a cure.
Of course, there are ways to talk about Pyrrhonism that seem to attract people, and there are ways that appear to repulse people.7 I’m just starting out on this project, so there will likely be some trial and error as I search for ways to most effectively share the cure by argument with others.
I’m also relatively new to Pyrrhonism, having walked the path for less than a year. I’d say because of this, I only intend to write about Pyrrhonism as an explorer—but it doesn’t seem it will ever be something I become an “expert” in either. Indeed, Sextus dispels the notion that we can distinguish between a skilled and unskilled person in his Outlines and in Against the Ethicists. So I have no intention then of ever going beyond the Zetetic approach to Pyrrhonism. I also want to add that I’m completely open to critiques from other Pyrrhonists who have been on the path longer than I. So if I say anything that misrepresents or contradicts Pyrrhonist ideas, please feel free to correct me. My intention here is to start a dialogue that gets people talking about Pyrrhonism—not to speak with authority on the topic.
Despite my avoidance of spirit-talk, I might talk about Pyrrhonism as my “spiritual path” in the case that I find myself among New Age adherents. or receive an invitation to participate in New Age activities—such as yoga classes or drum circles. Indeed, Pyrrhonists are not at all against participating in religious activities as a matter of following social customs. In such a case, I would be using the word “spirituality” to designate a way of life instead of a belief system. It seems though that this use of language would only resonate with the New Age crowd, so as for my direction for Cure by Argument, I intend to refrain from calling myself “spiritual”.
Uncertainty, Not Dispute
After stepping down from my role as Director and leaving SNS, I received a video from the new Director, Daniel Lev. It was a heartfelt thank you message from all the SNS staff. I was beyond touched, and I hope they all know I give them my very best.
It’s for reasons such as these that I hope this article won’t in any way be read as polemical. My intention here is really to share my experience and process of becoming a Pyrrhonist, and to reflect on my journey through Spiritual Naturalism with gratitude—without burning any bridges.
I’ll give Spiritual Naturalists the benefit of my uncertainty. Perhaps the universe is truly natural in the sense of being material. Perhaps there is a way to precisely define Naturalism, so as to distinguish it from supernaturalism. In this case then, Spiritual Naturalism might make more sense. But I don’t know of any way to determine whether this is the case. Thus, unable to settle the matter, I’ve come to suspend judgment.
Alternatively, this is sometimes described as “raising the consciousness of humanity”, “raising global consciousness”, “raising universal consciousness”, or simply “raising consciousness”.
Sometimes they might make a metaphysical claim instead, such that “low energy” or “low vibration” are at the root of our problems, though these are typically assumed by New Agers to correspond to the dogmas they’re opposed to.
I’ve chosen not to capitalize “supernaturalism”, despite doing so for “Naturalism”. My reason for this is because “Naturalism” is a position in philosophy that people generally identify with. Contrastingly, “supernaturalism” doesn’t seem to correspond to any established philosophy I’m aware of. It appears to be a term used only by Naturalists to distinguish their philosophy from supernatural beliefs.
I think audiobooks are fine, just not for studying philosophy. I personally find that I absorb little whenever I listen to philosophy audiobooks, though I typically don’t face this problem with books that are less complex.
It’s helpful to add here that Spiritual Naturalists consider Stoicism to be a tradition of SN.
By suspending judgment on Doomerism, I’m not implying that Pyrrhonists are unable to respond to environmental concerns. As Katja Vogt has pointed out, a Pyrrhonist can for instance, reduce their use of plastic following the appearance of large amounts of plastic in the oceans and the food chain.
The link is to a video from Carneades.org, a Pyrrhonist YouTuber and to his credit, my favorite YouTube channel. I highly recommend watching his videos, though when I tried talking to people about Pyrrhonism using the language he uses (aka “a Pyrrhonist doubts everything”, “a Pyrrhonist has no beliefs”), I got visceral responses. It appears this use of language portrays Pyrrhonism as Nihilistic, even though Nihilism is a dogma to Pyrrhonists. I’ve since adopted the language Doug Bates uses, and it seems following this that people have become far more receptive to Pyrrhonist ideas in my conversations.
