Naturalism is the philosophical concept that only natural processes are real. At its core it represents a complete philosophical denial of anything supernatural. This by its very nature excludes God from the picture, at best relegating Him to working behind the scenes. It fundamentally excludes anything that would not have happened from an atheistic perspective. It really leaves no place for God, and it turns out that that is the whole purpose behind it.
There's a common misunderstanding about the concept of the supernatural, it is equating the supernatural with anything that is unexplained by science. This approach relegates the idea of the supernatural just being a result of ignorance but that is not what is inherent in the word or the concept. The word “supernatural’ essentially means above or beyond natural. This does not mean it cannot be explained but rather that the explanation is above or beyond standard natural laws. Naturalists love the idea of supernatural explanations simply being a label for what cannot yet be explained by natural processes because of the keyword yet. Such a simplistic view of the supernatural allows for the possibility that it could be pushed aside by science coming to the rescue and explaining what cannot now be explained. However, if the supernatural is simply seen as an explanation that is above or beyond standard natural laws not only does this problem go away but it opens the door to the possibility of supernatural explanations that can be scientifically tested.
Those that insist on an absolutely naturalistic approach to science use the God of the gaps type of supernatural as a way of justifying restricting science to naturalistic explanations. They use this approach to insist that supernatural explanations cannot be tested. That is because if your idea of the supernatural is that it simply fills a gap in our knowledge, then by definition it cannot produce testable predictions.
By demanding the exclusion of the supernatural from science, it also excludes God from being a possible scientific explanation, in fact, they completely exclude God. Consequently trying to include Him is seen as completely artificial encouraging the God of the gaps view of the supernatural. Ultimately this demonstrates why naturalism has to be considered fundamentally atheistic. That is that any effort to include God is completely artificial, and unwelcomed. Now we are attacked even when we can show God as an intelligent designer is the best possible explanation.
The ultimate indication of the atheistic nature of naturalism is the reaction to both creation science and intelligent design. Not only do we have examples of science by a lawsuit in these cases, but vicious attacks if the notion of design or creator shows up in a scientific paper. In one case it resulted in the editor losing his job because he published an intelligent design paper that passed peer review. In another case, the journal was saved by the editors retracting the paper despite the fact that in this case, the references were translation errors from Chinese.
The simple fact of the matter is that the entire idea of demanding naturalism in science is about keeping God out of the picture. The entire concept of naturalism because it by definition excludes any possibility of supernatural causes including God, it results in naturalistic explanations being forced on the data whether or not such an interpretation is even rational because it is the only option allowed by nationalism. Naturalism may not cause a problem as long as you are actually dealing with natural phenomena but the moment you step into topics such as origins it stands in the way of the proper evaluation of the data, by demanding natural explanations regardless of what the evidence indicates. There can be no other conclusion that naturalism is a 100% atheistic philosophy that is actually a hindrance to scientific research.
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