The following video features five “questions for the atheist.” Each is based on a common fallacy or misconception on the part of theists. Let’s take a look at the arguments made, and where they fail. This was originally intended to be one post, but each of the five sections turned out to be long enough for its own post.
5. Can nature generate complex organisms when previously there was none?
Yes. Through evolution. Yet again, he drags in an irrelevant topic (evolution versus creationism) into the discussion.
The speaker asks “where else does [the development of life] take place in our universe.” The answer is potentially in many places, since very little of the actual universe has been observed to this detail. But he misses the fact that in most of the universe, the conditions simply are not right for the development of life in the first place, much less complex life, much less intelligent life. So the “contingencies” (in his words) are not there.
He makes the fantastic declaration that the atheist believes that “nature is blind; everything else is designed intelligently.” Everything else? Nature is everything else! Almost everything in existence is nature, and only a few things (relatively speaking) are man-made. He finds it amazing that undirected, uncoordinated processes can occur in nature, but I find it amazing that he even says this. Is he not aware of a myriad number of such processes, the most important being the undirected, uncoordinated joining and organization of protons, neutrons, electrons and atoms? Clearly, undirected processes in nature are not only possible, they are the norm and they have been occurring continuously for eons.
Indeed, when it comes to the development of life from inanimate matter, given what we know about the natural, uncoordinated processes of the world, it is entirely expected–not surprising–that it should arise through an undirected process. It is, however, surprising and ludicrous and even disturbing from the perspective of a creationist, which is why they so often make this argument from outrage.
“So what you’re saying is, time and chance, plus something coming out of nothing, morality evolving–and then suddenly we’re here.”
No, no and no. Wrong on all 3 counts. As I mentioned previously, evolution is not about “time and chance.” No one believes that “something came from nothing” (except the theists, of course, who believe that God created the world ex nihilo, ”out of nothing”). And clearly humans did not “suddenly appear”–it took millions of years. The notion of things “suddenly appearing” is yet another common misconception and straw man used by creationists to make evolution seem ludicrous. All it really does is show their total ignorance of the theory and the argument.
Atheism, secularism and evolution remain safe after this speaker has finished.
The following video features five “questions for the atheist.” Each is based on a common fallacy or misconception on the part of theists. Let’s take a look at the arguments made, and where they fail. This was originally intended to be one post, but each of the five sections turned out to be long enough for its own post.
4. How did morals evolve?
This is a bit of an odd question, since the speaker has already addressed the issue of morality previously. He makes the mistake of saying that self-consciousness or self-awareness played a role in the evolution of morals. They did not. The process of natural selection and random change did. In other words, people thousands of years ago did not need to know what evolution was in order to evolve morals; they simply had to respond to the changes in their environment and species–including the consequences of their actions–and adjust their behavior, their culture, their priorities and values accordingly. That’s it.
His argument is as ridiculous as saying that a bird ancestor had to consciously think about what would be the best way to travel long distances in order to develop wings. Proto-birds did not need governmental councils and reams of scientific research in order to “figure out” that wings were beneficial. They just had to act and respond to changes in their environment and in their species. And the same goes for early humans.
He gives an example of cave men killing each other and feeling guilt. Why would he feel guilt, when killing the opposition is good for his survival? Yet again, he (like many creationists and intelligent designers) unknowingly gives away the game by demonstrating his lack of understanding of the theory of evolution and how it applies to morals.
Killing a foreigner was indeed good for the survival of the clan or tribe, and therefore for the individual, but killing a fellow member of the tribe was bad for the tribe and for that individual. That is why the earliest forms of codified morality (demonstrated wonderfully in the Old Testament, for example) praised the killing and conquest of foreigners, while nevertheless condemning the killing of fellow in-group members. “Love thy neighbor” really meant “love your fellow Jew, but be willing and eager to kill anyone who stands in the Jews’ way.”
The following video features five “questions for the atheist.” Each is based on a common fallacy or misconception on the part of theists. Let’s take a look at the arguments made, and where they fail. This was originally intended to be one post, but each of the five sections turned out to be long enough for its own post.
3. Where do you get your morals from?
Yet another tired old argument for theism–the moral argument–which I have dealt with before, specifically in regard to secular moral absolutes. His first major point is meaningless because it is based on subjectivity and outrage: “This is all that morality ends up being!”
The description he gives of the development of a moral tendency or moral behavior, according to the evolutionary model, is essentially correct. He makes the interesting point that morality at its core speaks to the future, and not the past–prescription, and not description. This is true, and it speaks directly to the is-ought problem as elucidated by philosopher David Hume. That is, one cannot logically deduce an “ought” from an “is.”
This means, unfortunately for the speaker, that even his own theistic morality is not supported by logic: just because God tells him to do something, it does not logically follow that he should. He cannot derive an “ought” from an “is.” Thus, a God-based morality and a human-based morality are equal when it comes to the is-ought problem. However, there are nevertheless several key advantages for a human-based morality, one of which is that we know humans exist, but do not know if God exists. Other things equal, it is better to ground your morality in something you know exists than in something you don’t know exists.
It should also be mentioned that the moral issue, while very interesting, is not really relevant to the question of the veracity of atheism per se. It speaks to consequences of the truth, but not the truth itself.
The following video features five “questions for the atheist.” Each is based on a common fallacy or misconception on the part of theists. Let’s take a look at the arguments made, and where they fail. This was originally intended to be one post, but each of the five sections turned out to be long enough for its own post.
2. Why should there be something instead of nothing?
This is an ancient and very tired argument for God. It has come in many forms. One form of the argument might be “Why does anything exist?” to which the answer comes in the form of another question: why do you ask?
That is, why does one believe that nonexistence is even possible? After all, if one asks “why is there something, instead of nothing,” they must explain why they are assuming that it is even possible that nothing exist. What is the basis for that assumption? Could it be that they are assuming that whatever entity that created reality had a choice? In which case, are they not assuming the very thing they are trying to prove? Namely, that their Christian God exists?
He asks, in reference to the Big Bang, why should it have occurred? Again, why does he ask? He is assuming that there is some purpose inherent in the universe or in the creation of the universe. Why? THAT is the real interesting question.
He also brings up an old favorite of theists: that the earth seems “fine-tuned” for life. This is meaningless, because we know there is an incomprehensible amount of matter and energy in the universe that is not hospitable to life at all. By laws of probability, it only makes sense that, given the massive amount of matter and energy and the huge number of planets and stars in existence, at least one of them would give rise to life.
He says that life “bears the marks” of intelligent design. He calls this a fact; I call it his subjective intuition. Life does not seem intelligently designed to me.
He asserts that there is “moral order” and then asks why should it exist. Firstly, this “moral order” is a very slippery concept. If he means that all humans have some kind of common moral tendency, then he is correct. But if he is saying that the world has moral order inherent in it, as fundamental as the laws of physics, this is simply a traditional Christian belief, which in turn relies on the belief in a morality-giving God, and thus not supported by any evidence.
Secondly, and more importantly, the answer to the question is simple: evolution. If anything, the common moral tendency of humans across this planet is strong supporting evidence for evolution and natural selection as explanations for the development of humans.
The following video features five “questions for the atheist.” Each is based on a common fallacy or misconception on the part of theists. Let’s take a look at the arguments made, and where they fail. This was originally intended to be one post, but each of the five sections turned out to be long enough for its own post.
Before anything, the speaker refers to an “atheistic belief system” indicating he is already off on the wrong foot, before he has asked any of his questions. Atheism, properly defined, is not a belief system, but rather a belief. Atheism, if anything, is equivalent to theism in the sense that it defines a belief or an idea. Many argue that atheism is not even a belief, but rather simply the lack of a belief. Whichever it is, atheism clearly is not a “belief system,” and is therefore not comparable to belief systems such as Christianity, Islam, Marxism or Kantianism. This is a very common misconception on the part of religious people who argue against atheism.
Moving on, the speaker warns that his questions “must be answered well” and the answers must “not collide with reality as we see it.” It is fascinating to see a theist appeal to sense experience as a standard of knowledge, when many theists in other contexts question the legitimacy of sense experience as a reliable provider of knowledge, emphasizing instead extra-sensory or non-sensory knowledge. Perhaps the theist finds sense experience useful… except when he doesn’t. Nevertheless, with this initial warning, the pressure’s on.
1. The god of the gaps
Does not the atheist or secularist use chance in the exact same way that the Christian uses “God”? Instead of “God of the gaps” do we not have “chance of the gaps”? Just as the Christian uses God to explain away anything he can’t understand, does not the atheist use the same tactic, by using chance? This is probably the most interesting question of the five offered.
Firstly, it is important to note that even if this equivalency were true, all it would indicate would be that the neutral observer is swayed by neither theism nor atheism, and is thus not compelled to accept the theist narrative.
This use of the idea of “chance” would seem to be informed by the common theistic misconception of evolution as “time + chance.” The theory of evolution in particular seems to bother many traditionally-minded Christians, and they associate evolution with atheism, although there is no rational basis for doing so (except the stunning insight that they both disagree with the Bible; but then, perhaps belief in evolution leads to belief in Islam, too?).
“Chance” also plays a prominent role in theistic characterizations of atheist belief on the origin of the universe. What they evidently fail to grasp (and this perhaps related to the misconception of atheism as constituting a “belief system”) is that atheism does not even posit that reality had a beginning (it might be eternal).
In any case, the speaker misses a key point: we know that chance exists; we don’t know if God exists. Therefore, of the two, it is more reasonable to think that the origin of the universe and the origin of life owe to chance than it is to think that they owe to God. More fundamentally, at this point in human understanding, it is not reasonable to believe that reality had an origin or that it did not have an origin (that it is eternal)–because we simply cannot know. So the “chance versus intelligence” issue is moot to begin with. We don’t know whether reality had an origin, therefore questions about how it originated are meaningless.
The speaker says “Darwinism makes chance… a creative force in biology.” This demonstrates his lack of knowledge of the modern theory of evolution. There are 3 main things to remember on this point:
(1) No one believes in Darwinism anymore. Darwinism died with Darwin. Evolution as a theory has advanced and improved significantly in the many decades since Darwin’s time.
(2) Darwinism and evolution are COMPLETELY irrelevant as to the veracity of atheism, as mentioned above. Which means this whole topic does not even belong in this discussion.
(3) I’m not sure about Darwinism, but it is fairly well known (except in many creationist circles) that evolution does not “make chance a creative force,” because chance is only one component of evolution. The two major forces in evolution are (a) random mutation and (b) natural selection. Natural selection, by acting as a funnel guiding the randomness of the mutations, massively reduces the unlikelihood that any given advantageous development will occur in life forms. So when creationists argue that the likelihood of a given advantageous mutation developing is extremely low, they are making a straw man argument–they neglect the very non-random force of natural selection. But again, evolution is totally irrelevant to the veracity of atheism.
Ever since first studying Aristotle years ago, the quote has always stuck out at me: Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends. As someone who has had many discussions, arguments and debates with many people on many issues, online and off, the issue of the proper balance between love of human and love of truth to me is eternally relevant. How does one reckon with a person who refuses to accept argument or evidence? At what point does such a person no longer deserve our respect? It is tempting to say, simply, “when they show themselves to be unreasonable” but who among us has always been reasonable at all times? Unreasonableness is an inextricable part of the human condition, and is present in every human to some degree at some time. And yet it is our capacity to reason that sets us apart from lower life forms and allows us to achieve our highest levels of flourishing.
The Aristotelian sentiment points to possibly one of the most extraordinary leaps in human consciousness to ever occur: the radical notion that first loyalty belongs to an intangible thing–an idea–and not a person. From this groundbreaking intellectual development arose the commitment to objective truth, the actual state of the world, separate and apart from the subjective experiences, desires and assumptions of people. And once humans could conceptualize a world outside of personhood, a reality existing of its own accord with or without any person to interact with it, human thinking and consciousness reached an authentically new level, and has never been the same. Whether or not this mindset actually originated with Aristotle himself or the Greek philosophers themselves (which I doubt), it nevertheless has been delivered to us in excellent form by those philosophers, and it remains one of their simplest, most profound and most important contributions to western thought.
To be sure, the concept of fidelity to something outside of humanity existed long before complex civilization arose, in Greece or anywhere else. The awesome power and huge uncertainty found in nature was enough to get the earliest humans worshipping and praying to forces beyond their control, and seeing human life in the context of the larger universe, rather than the other way around. From these animist origins came the polytheistic conception of “gods” with personalities and desires and consciousness. These gods were essentially intangible beings, immaterial creatures who could control the material world. And once humans acclimated themselves to bodiless personalities, the next step was to eliminate the personality, leaving only an intangible thing, the truth, devoid of personhood or human-like characteristics and attributes, and therefore qualitatively outside of humanity itself.
This remains an essential difference between the theist and the nontheist, to this day. Both can maintain fidelity to an objective thing, outside of humanity. But one has taken the leap beyond an anthropomorphized “god” who is still a person, and the other has not.
So my commitment to the truth remains intact, because it is the one thing that has not changed and will not change, is not tied to personhood and is therefore not tied to persons. While truth borrows nothing from humans, humans cannot thrive without it. Friends, personalities, leaders, followers, whims, emotions, life, death–all these things come and go. The truth remains. And that is why it should be honored above all else.
One of the most fascinating and perplexing phenomena in the modern world is the inability of so many leading “intellectuals” to understand the true causes of the myriad crises afflicting humanity. Explanations from the secularists and the modernists abound: macroeconomic policy, political instability, famine and disease… the list goes on. How is it that some of the most intelligent individuals cannot see the plain truth staring them square in the face? Perhaps this question is best answered with another question: can anyone who fails to truly accept God be called “intelligent”?
Anyone with the minutest common sense available to him will understand that when mankind turns away from God, God will turn away from mankind. This story has played itself out time after time down through the ages, and it continues to affect us today. We have a socialist who is not an American citizen in charge of the greatest nation mankind has ever known. Though blessed our great country may be, God has indeed chosen this time to test us as a people. Will we respond to the challenge? Will we fight the pernicious influence of Satan over rebellious children, over leaders who pray to false idols, over countless individuals who choose sexual immorality, socialist totalitarianism and the worship of money over the One Truth?
In order to triumph in this colossal battle, it is absolutely imperative that we grasp the depth of the crisis we find ourselves in. We must recognize the Baby Holocaust that has killed millions of the most innocent among us since 1973. We must pay attention to the dire straights that Israel finds herself in, diplomatically as well as militarily, if we are to stand for democracy and for the defense of the Holy Land and the Jewish state that rightfully deserves it, has a right to exist, and a right to defend herself in defiance of savage attackers who would stop at nothing to push every Jew into the Mediterranean. We must brace ourselves for the continuing struggle to uphold traditional, common-sense values in the face of advocates and activists for homosexual “marriage.”
And we should realize the march toward Big Government Nanny State Socialism that our nation risks should we continue down our current path, if it isn’t too late already to save the free market. Free market capitalism, coupled with ample supply side tax cuts, deregulation and privatization is the only economic order that has ever given us wealth, because it safeguards the freedom of private sector businesses to raise the standard of living for everyone. And it will continue to do so, if we give it the chance.
We must fight the “new conventional wisdom” that Islamic terrorism can be explained or understood through some ludicrous combination of poverty, American foreign policy and political development. When confronted with pure evil, the proper response is not to excuse it, not to explain it away, and certainly not to lay the blame at the feet of America, which has been the single greatest force for good in this world.
There is a God. He has a plan. When sinful humans, in their ignorance or arrogance, presume to question not only the legitimacy of these facts, but the very existence of the Almighty himself, we are indeed in dark times. The sneering ignorance of the modernist, the atheist, the skeptic, though astonishing to the believer, is not altogether unprecedented. And their lip service to “reason” and “rationality” makes their questioning of the most essential truths all the more laughable.
The First of April is the ideal time to make these urgent observations about our world and our God. Call Him Allah, God, Jesus, Yahweh, or Brahman—the awesome life-giving force is far too spectacular to be boxed into a human label. In spite of the diversity of spiritual experience, certain fundamental truths have survived the evolution of human religion: There is a God, and He has a plan. Let us pray that our political, economic and intellectual leaders will see the light of the Truth that is Him. That they might relinquish their false idols, and embrace the only thing that has ever given mankind progress, peace, justice or prosperity. We shall then rejoice in true freedom and flourishing, in this life, and in the next.
In this sixth and final part of the series on god, consider an extension of the problem seen in Part 5. If god is defined as a being not of this reality, then nothing in this reality can be brought as evidence in favor of it. The God believer has defined himself into a corner. Since humans are creatures of this reality, and we grew up and evolved within this reality, we are inherently incapable of knowing anything beyond this reality, which means that if god exists, we cannot know it. Therefore belief in god is unwarranted, and unjustifiable. If it is unjustifiable, that means it cannot be justified, which means it cannot be accepted.
Typically, if not always, the god believer must point to some evidence, argument or idea that originates or has its basis within this natural reality as justification for the existence of god (again, because this is the only kind of thing we humans can know or understand). This inevitably leads to circular logic in that god is justified by something in natural reality; and natural reality, the religious will argue, owes its existence to god.
For example, many offer the complexity of the universe as justification for an intelligent creator. Aside from the simple invalidity of this argument in its own right*, this approach prompts a question: One knows the universe is complex, but how does one know the universe even exists in the first place? The answer the religious will give is simply that the universe was created by god. And how, in turn, does one know that god exists? The answer was already given: the complexity of the universe. Circularity. This same kind of circularity applies to every argument for the existence of god, because every argument that can be created is based on evidence or observation rooted in this natural reality. There is not a single argument that can be proposed that is not rooted in natural reality.
It is important to note that this circularity occurs because the religious will never say “the universe exists” as a first assumption. The first assumption is always that god exists. From this, it follows that the universe exists. If one starts out by assuming that the universe exists, if one assumes this without evidence, on faith, then by definition one does not need god to explain the existence of the universe—one is already accepting the existence of the universe. For this reason, the religious should first assume that god exists, and from there it follows that the universe exists, because god created it.
So the bottom line is that god cannot be proven. The very notion of God, by definition, has ensured this. During the course of this series, we have seen why the idea of “God” is highly problematic, because of the idea of omnipotence, the definitional relationship between god and reality, the notion of the supernatural, and the logical and argumentative issues with “proving” God in the first place. There are many more issues with the idea of God that can be explored, but this series alone is reason enough not to believe. Now, after all this, I am still willing to say that there might be a divine. Just as I am willing to say that, somewhere in the universe, there might be a leprechaun, or a unicorn, or a Loch Ness monster. But that’s not very impressive company.
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*Because something is complex, it does not follow that (1) it was created, or (2) even if it was created, that it was created by an intelligence, and (3) in fact the universe originally was not complex, and subsequently became more complex on its own.
In Part 4 of this series, we saw that believing in natural reality is logically prior to and more fundamental than believing in the supernatural, contrary to what many religious thinkers argue. Further problems for the God believer arise when we take a closer look at the belief in the supernatural unto itself.
One major problem for those who would assume the existence of a reality beyond the one immediately perceptible to us is, why stop there? Why stop at a supernatural reality? Why not also assume the existence of a hyperreality? Or a megareality? Or an uberreality? Indeed, what is to stop us from assuming that an infinite number of ever-higher planes of existence exist, each one enveloping the previous one, like a cosmic chain of Russian dolls?
One begins to see the absurdity to which opening the door to non-natural reality leads us. And if one is to respond that, in fact, it is not absurd to assume such realities, then why does no one believe in them? Why is it only ever (1) natural reality alone, (2) supernatural reality plus natural reality, or (3) the two combined in some way? Why does no religion or belief system go on to imagine more realities and planes of existence? Perhaps it is because it violates some deep and profound intuitive idea that humans have about the nature of what exists. And that would be very telling, indeed.
One may respond that we see the evidence of just one level of supernatural reality, not of multiple planes of existence. The religious would then put forward various pieces of “evidence” that supposedly legitimate the belief in the supernatural. But this approach too raises a serious problem for the believer. The only evidence that one can offer in support of the supernatural is something that exists or occurs within natural reality. (For example, someone might cite a miraculous event as supporting evidence for the supernatural.)
But by definition, proving the supernatural is basically impossible, because “proof” only has meaning within a naturalistic frame, because all human knowledge comes in a naturalistic frame. Therefore proving the supernatural by pointing to the natural is logically untenable, if the supernatural is defined as the source of the natural. It leads to circular logic: the supernatural is proved by the natural (citing a miracle, for example); the natural is proved by the supernatural (god created the natural reality, etc); the supernatural is proved by the natural. Circular. Maybe the supernatural isn’t so “super,” after all.
Since God is not of natural reality, belief in God requires belief in a supernatural reality. Generally speaking, secularist and atheist people believe that only natural reality exists, while religious people believe that both natural reality and supernatural reality exist. So which should we believe? The basic problem with either belief is that there is no evidence that can be brought to bear. We cannot “prove” that natural reality exists, for example. So one way to answer this question is to simply ask, which is more logically fundamental? That is, which option does logic command us to accept? I submit that logic requires us to accept only natural reality, and that the acceptance of natural reality alone is the default position of the human condition.
This fact can be seen in the following thought experiment: Imagine there is no natural reality. Logically, can you do that? No, because in order to imagine that natural reality does not exist, you must exist. And if you exist, then natural reality must exist. Now, imagine there is no supernatural reality. Logically, can you do that? Yes, you can. Because whether there is or is not a supernatural reality, we can imagine that there is not a supernatural reality. But if there is no natural reality, we cannot imagine that there is not a natural reality. Therefore assuming that natural reality exists is prior to, and more fundamental, than assuming that supernatural reality exists.
The assumption of the nonexistence of supernatural reality may or may not be metaphysically or actually correct. But it is logically permissible. Logic does not prevent you from making that assumption, but it does prevent you from making the assumption that natural reality does not exist.
So we see that the natural (no pun intended) and default condition of the human mind is to assume that only natural reality exists. Everything after that fundamental, un-evidenced assumption must be justified. Therefore one is legitimate in asking for evidence of some kind for God, and for the supernatural. As we shall explore later in the series, such evidence is inherently impossible, because of the nature of these things.
Further Thoughts
Now the supernaturalist may retort: “in fact, if there is no supernatural reality then we cannot imagine anything either, because natural reality comes from a supernatural force.”
This argument fails for the following reason. The issue is not where this natural reality comes from, if it comes from anywhere. That is a metaphysical question. The issue is if it is logically possible to imagine that supernatural or natural reality does not exist. This is a logical question. Logically, it is inherently impossible for us to imagine that natural reality does not exist. And this is because we are natural beings that have evolved through natural processes within this natural reality—even the religious agree on this.
We are fundamentally incapable of imagining that this natural reality does not exist. Think about it. Imagine that reality does not exist. You can’t do it. It’s not possible. The closest anyone can come to that image is closing their eyes and picturing total darkness, but that too is obviously an image of this natural reality.
It is worth mentioning that if we did not have a naturalistic basis for explaining human thought (and therefore for the process of “assuming”) then there might be some wiggle room for the supernaturalist. But since we do, since we know that everything about human thought can be explained within a naturalistic framework, it follows that only natural reality is required to explain human thought. Therefore supernatural reality is not required. Therefore the assumption of natural reality is logically prior and more fundamental to explaining human thought.
So, to sum up, naturalism or materialism is the default condition of the human mind. Therefore the burden of proof is on the supernaturalist, not the naturalist, despite the fact that the naturalist cannot provide evidence for their assumption. Again, this burden of proof for the supernaturalist is an impossible burden to bear, as we shall see later in the series.
