Well, Bob, I read your OP, and found it fascinating, because these subjects are long-standing interests of mine, and so I decided to craft a thoughtful post sorting out the various metaphysical stances underpinning our views of the world. And you blithely dismiss it as a splurge.
Not that it will do any good, because it seems, like so many here, you are determined to be antagonistic, but I will try to clarify my position for you, since you so baldly misrepresented it and I should like your mutilating of my alleged splurge not to stand uncontested.
I did not try to contest Kastrup’s charge of question begging because I agree with him, up to a point. This is the reason I offered a distinction between metaphysical naturalism and methodological naturalism. Methodological naturalism is, well, science, or the practices of science. Metaphysical naturalism represents one possible philosophical assumption that underpins the practice of science.
To the extent that Kastrup says that science, qua science, begs the question for metaphysical naturalism, I think he’s wrong. I pointed out — honestly, did you even read what I wrote? — that practicing scientists can be, and many are, either naturalists, idealists, or supernaturalists. How did you over look that key point I made?
If Kastrup is saying that metaphysical naturalism is question-begging, of course he is correct. But my point in noting the irony of Kastrup writing “materialism is baloney” is that now HE is the one doing the question-begging, in favor of his particular flavor of idealism, because ALL metaphysical stances beg the question in the sense that they rely on assumptions that cannot be proved, and hence all are logically circular.
Metaphysical naturalism begs the question by assuming without proving that all of reality is a causally closed regime of matter and energy, and that minds supervene on brains.
Metaphysical idealism begs the question by assuming without proving that reality consists entirely of mental states, and that brains supervene on minds.
Metaphysical supernaturalism begs the question by assuming without proving that reality — matter and energy and minds — are grounded by God and a supernatural realm.
I think that one should be AGNOSTIC about which metaphysical stance is true (and there are others I haven’t mentioned). I, an atheist, am actually an agnostic atheist, because there is a difference between gnosis and belief.
But again, when Kastrup declares “materialism is baloney” he abandons agnosticism and then becomes guilty of the very question-begging that he decries.
Now to the extent he is complaining that some scientists or science popularizers go around telling the general public that there is no god and the material world is all that there is, and so on, yes, I agree with the complaint! These scientists have stepped outside their field, which is science or some branch of science, and ventured into philosophy, for which most scientists seem to be spectacularly ill-equipped. In fact, a great many scientists hold philosophy in total contempt, and couldn’t give a flying eff at the moon about it. All they are concerned with are the results of their experiments, and that is as it should be.
As a matter of fact, I have a good deal of sympathy for idealism, because I happen to think there are some good reasons for thinking it more likely to be true than either materialism of supernaturalism. But I don’t know if it is true, or which is true, and neither do you and neither does Kastrup.