A theist misrepresenting atheism, science and philosophy.

I came across some older posts I put on this video a while ago. The posts seems to be hidden on the video, unless logged in as myself. Probably flagged down by someone or perhaps just a case of YT highjinks.
However I felt it may be worth recording the posts here, for my own reference.

7 min: A misrepresentation of atheism. "absolute denial...deliberate dogmatic denial of the existence of god." Well no. Nor does it mean denial of all supernatural things, although many who call themselves atheists do reject related claims that are supernatural. This however is in addition to atheism, not atheism. There are atheists that can believe in souls and afterlives or karma or whatever and still reject god claims. The idea of denial is also not dogmatic, but conditional on evidence for many atheists. Saying atheism is dogmatic is internally inconsistent, as it is the rejection of a claim not a claim in itself. A rejection of a claim cannot be dogmatic anymore than a bachelor can be married. Definitions of dogma include 'Dogma is a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.' & ' a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted' There is no tenets to atheism, no creed, no dogma and no authority to provide it. Only the base definition "a lack of belief in god" is required to be adhered to to be classed as an atheist. Just like not being married is required to be called a bachelor. IF that is considered dogmatic then all words are. Cosmological disproof - Way to misrepresent the argument on both sides. The first cause argument is a theological argument for god, not an atheist one, and all atheists do is query the premises of it, and the related arguments of design. 1. Not everything has a cause even in our universe. e.g.: Quantum fluctuations have no cause as far as anyone can tell. 2. Before this universe exists (and therefore time and space), we cannot know what way causation works because we do not know anything about that event yet. Therefore it is a compositional fallacy to use the first cause as a premise for god and it can also be argued that it is a god of the gaps argument. 3. "What created god" is not circular, it addresses the design argument which states that complex beings must need a designer more complex to exist (in opposition to nature creating complexity from simple beginnings or ex nihilo.) Since this is used by theists, they cannot then say that the ultimate designer does not need a designer. This is a special pleading fallacy. You basically make god a unique entity that breaks the rules of your own argument. 4. There is no reason to not have created gods, history and myth are full of them, including some very early sects of christianity that thought the old testament god was a flawed created god and the NT god was the true god. Zeus was the child of Chronos for instance. 5. If using occoms razer to avoid infinite regression (which is why the uncreated claim exists in the first place) then it makes MORE sense to simply say that the universe always existed. I am not referring to the steady state theory, but if the BBT deals with all time, then that actually does mean that the event was before all time and therefore the universe did ALWAYS (in all time) exist in some form. There was no 'before' to discuss. 6. Finally the claim is an assertion, and on reflection on points 1 to 5, a poor one. If someone says a god is uncreated, that alone is not sufficient to prove it so. Just because it is philosophically tidy in the eyes of apologetics does not mean it is a sound argument.

OK, at 18 minute mark, the design argument is brought up, however 'purpose' can have many meanings, as the Greeks like Aristotle demonstrated. He posited 4 different types of 'purpose' but the last one (meaningful purpose) is the one that is used by the design argument. This is a classic  equivocation fallacy. Since there are many 'purposes' for things that does not mean those purposes are equal or equivalent. The meaningful purpose is subjective and externally added to natural objects or events, they are not inherent to the objects or events themselves. E.g.: flowers need water to live and this was provided as a meaningful (4th) purpose for rain. However this is a subjective externally imposed meaning by the observer. The other three purposes include the formal purpose and inherent purpose (I cannot recall the third type). These can be summed up in the water cycle in terms of water rising as vapour (getting to the sky), clumping into larger water droplets and falling to the earth due to gravity. These three purposes have NOTHING to do with design's use of 'purpose'. These are the 'how' part of nature. The 4th one is often classified as the 'why' purpose. But this is a misapplication of the 'why' principle. Sometimes the how purposes are all that exist in nature. The why purpose is superfluous. Using that 4th purpose was why people thought Zeus was behind lightening in the sky or used,by Muslims,  to explain falling meteorites as missiles used by Allah to hit Jinn so they cannot reach heaven. Using man made objects (like a shirt) in this argument is a version of the watchmaker argument and that fails because to recognise design, you do not use complexity as a criteria, but contrast it with natural objects. Therefore you cannot extend that analysis to INCLUDE natural objects as you then have nothing left to contrast design with and the term becomes meaningless. Its a bit like saying blue is also red and yellow. You are left with nothing useful. The last part of his comments are simply all over the place. The idea of order and chaos is a oversimplification and misunderstanding of the laws of thermodynamics. The universe can wind down (increase in entropy or unusable energy) but it is not a flat or uniform event. As with all matter, energy can clump and locally reverse entropy while overall entropy continues to increase. The Sun allows for this reversal or stalling of entropy on earth through living things. Eventually the sun and all things will dies and ultimate entropy will win out. Evolution (I hope he is not going to start denying this occurs later in his arguments) gives rise to complexity without intelligent design due to natural selection primarily. That is why natural selection was such a ground breaking addition to the theory of evolution. It allows for undirected selection to occur naturally in organisms. Finally the statement at the end of that segment is also a fallacy. An atheist DOES NOT hold the burden of proof for knowing how everything occurs. If asked such questions an atheist can simply say "I don't know" and the theist is still responsible for providing evidence for his or her claims that a god exists. Otherwise you are simply falling into the god of the gaps argument. "IF you cannot supply me with a better explanation then my guess wins by default." No, that is not how reason or logic works.


The moral argument - at 23 min mark the speaker is lying or misinformed. Of course atheists have answers for how we have morality. Do you seriously think the millions of atheists in the world do not consider the question of why we are moral beings? Seriously. It is one thing to disagree with our viewpoints, it is quite another to flat out deny we have any replies at all. Morality has its roots in our desire for self preservation, and our social contract with each other as social animals. This morality can be seen in studies of other primates and even some non-primates too. A sense of unfairness or compassion has been demonstrated in lab tests with primates and even mice. This is obvious if you simply think about any successful society and it's requirements. Those societies that considered murder and theft OK among their in-group could not compete with a trusting and supportive society. Also there are individuals that are born without empathy, which flies in the face of a designer that imbues a moral code in their creations. Morality is situationally based. and the speakers assertions that murder, lying and theft are UNIVERSALLY accepted as bad is FALSE. There are situations when lying is good (think Anne Frank). Theft is also a very conflicted stance (depending on the greater good, e.g.: steal an apple to survive starvation). We redefine murder too, allowing for execution of extremely dangerous criminals in some cases, abortion where the baby is found to be a danger to the mother's survival and its own life is terminal too, self defense, assisted suicide of terminally ill patents, etc. The speaker is grossly oversimplifying a very complex topic to get his viewpoint across and it does a disservice to his listeners as they will find the advice useless in discussions with any informed atheist. As far as a moral giver is concerned, most religions, certainly the Abrahamic ones, have conflicting moral guidelines. This raises the question of credibility of transmission of knowledge to theists of these proposed objective morals. That is a huge minefield of problems for theists that is rarely if ever coherently addressed in my experience. This and many more rebuttals to the moral argument exist among atheists. I would also mention that, like before, simply shifting the burden of proof unto atheists is not going to impress us. Just as with the design argument, the speaker is saying that Christians should defend their faith with atheists by saying atheists must have all the answers or the Christians win by default. So far ZERO evidence for god has been provided.

The concept of meaning to this atheist

I was motivated to write this by looking at an interview of John Loftus by a rather ignorant interviewer on YouTube.
John was discussing his new book, but the interviewer decided to rant on about how atheists dismiss free will and think everyone is just a biological robot. The interviewer sneered and strawmanned a position regardless of anything John would say to clarify, up to the point of actually calling John a liar and a fool (not with those precise words, but intent). What did the interviewer have to back it up? He could decide to lift his arm. That's it. That was the extent of what he thought Free Will meant and what questioning it denied was possible. Absurdly stupid.

He also went on about Near Death Experiences and sneered when John said that it was not his area and he was uncomfortable talking about it as he had not expected to discuss it, but had expected to discuss his new book which addressed flaws in fundamental Christianity.

Anyway as stated this got me thinking about meaning and free will.
So first it is only fair to state what the free will and purpose argument is about.

To theistic Christians, for example, the concept of free will is vital to allow for judgement by a god to be just. If free will does not exist then judgement by a god is unjust as we are 'merely' robots doing what we are programmed to do. Blaming a robot for doing what it is programmed to do is irrational and that would either make the christian god, for example, either insane or cruel (or both).
Obviously this is not acceptable as the god of such religions is supposed to be good, and moral, at least to many Christians. Now of course not all Christians see their god the same way so I am not lumping everyone's view into one when I discuss this, but it would be dishonest of Christians to deny that MOST Christians do see their god as good, sane and moral, in most cases, to a maximal extent. Ultimately it places the blame for all actions on man, not his (or her) creator. This is vital when discussing Hell and Heaven as it must be seen that humans are entirely to blame for their fate or it might tar the god Christians worship and Christians cannot have that happen.

Now objective meaning is also vital to many theists, including christians, but that meaning is often not really discussed or analysed too deeply during such conversations. Let us ponder what that theistic meaning really is. It is a meaning imposed by another being that overrides the rights of the individual it is imposed on utterly, without their consent or even knowledge. The greatest crime, along that line of thinking, is NOT to fulfill this imposed meaning, regardless of circumstances or conditions. This often, with religion, makes it impossible to fulfill this meaning so loopholes are required that just happen to be what the religion is selling to their followers (indulgences, donations, submission, obedience, sacrifices, etc). This can be seen as offering a cure for a disease that was invented in the first place.
For instance original sin is often used to tar everyone right from birth (and before), followed by the idea that all people are sinners and thought crime is equivalent to actions. So thinking of killing someone is the same as actually killing them or lust is seen as adultery or covetousness is the same as theft in the eyes of a christian god. That every impulse or thought is our fault as surely as premeditated murder is a crime.
This 'objective' meaning is a claim that is often assumed as normal and true and when atheists reject such claims, obviously because the type of objective source is a god, which the atheist does not believe in, they are mocked and told their life has no meaning and is worthless.

But what worth is a meaning if it is imposed from an external source, even if it did exist, which of course, there is no evidence for at all. As Hitchens and others have stated, would you consider it desirable if you were told what job you must do all your life (like a type of caste system) or who you can marry (as many religions do attempt to do) or where you can live or what you can wear (beyond normal standards of sanitation and comfort). This so called 'meaning' would be seen as a tyranny, and ultimately unbearable. Imagine if your whole existence, in this life and the alleged hereafter was marked out before you were conceived as having a meaning that you had zero say in. Is this a good thing? I would say no.

Now what is the meaning that most of the Christians (and Muslims) often state we have? To obey a god in this life and the next. To exist solely to please another being. We have no rights, no say and no ability to go our own way, even in supposed disobedience. Many happily consider being slaves as the greatest goal of their lives but even a slave has more liberty than what they propose. A slave has the sanctity of their own minds and has the possibility of escape, of revenge and always the promise of death as the final freedom from such tyranny. A christian 'slave' (or Muslim) has none of that. Their thoughts are an open book, the division between them and their master absolute and eternal and since one is already dead, there is no escape either.
I could not envision a greater evil than what they propose as objective meaning.

Some Christians have different views on Hell, as the concept demands a LOT of rationalizing to live with. Some believe no Hell exists, or it is a temporary thing, or that it is some vague concept of being away from the presence of an omni-present god (yes, that is a contradiction). But they are in the minority. Most Christians and Muslims believe in some form of eternal or extremely long lasting hell that includes torment. Most Christian and Muslim writings on this type of Hell can be classified as torture porn.

But I think we are perhaps drifting off topic a bit.

So atheists who reject such meaning as mere unsupportable assertions, are seen by these types of Christian (and other theists) as having no meaning in their lives. The issue of Free Will also plays a part too here, which is why I combined these topics. The interviewer I mentioned was not a Christian seemingly, and seemingly had no clear label at all to categorize his stance, believed that without free will (never defined by him) then life was meaningless. HE went so far as to state that atheists should commit suicide or they are not being consistent with their 'worldview'. This is parroted by theists, that if we don't care about a god's plan for us, we are better off dead. I have had a Muslim tell me he would be doing me a favour in killing me, as I have no worth.
Yes, dangerous thoughts indeed and they deserve a response, although like most responses to theists its not a simple one. Simple responses are why theists remain theists in my opinion.

Free Will can mean a lot of things, but most people see it as the ability to control your life, to make decisions. Most will acknowledge that free will is not absolute, that we cannot choose to disobey the laws of the universe for example. I may choose to step off a cliff, but I cannot choose not to fall. That is fair enough, but they fail to extent their reasoning to its full extent.
What makes the difference between the cliff example and my deciding what I will wear in the morning. The former is accepted as not an act of free will, the latter is seen as 'obviously' an act of free will. But apart from asserting this to be the case, why do you think you are exhibiting FREE will when you pick out your clothes. Again when you drill down you will find free will adherents begin to admit more limits, more examples of where free will is not really free.
If I am going to work, I cannot choose to wear clothes I do not have, or choose to wear inappropriate clothes or no clothes. These possible actions can be reflected upon but they are not options that we will ever choose (unless making a social statement or protest, which involves other preexisting factors not discussed here in this example). So we are left with appropriate clothes, so we don't really have much free will then, if the choice is not really a choice, but a conclusion.
A lot of people make the mistake of overstating what not having free will is, by using poor analogies. The biological robot, as the interviewer used, and John accepted, is a poor analogy. Robots are programmed by external intelligent forces. Our universe does indeed impose limits to our choices, but the real issue is IF we really decide anything consciously at a higher level of awareness. This is an internal thing, not external. Our brain makes the decisions, but we are not aware of all the factors being processed every nanosecond and thus the final decision we ARE aware of may be just a conclusion relayed to our conscious personality after the brain has completed its calculations.
For sake of argument I will classify the brain as A and the part of our mind that we think our personality is as B. What I mean by personality is what you think of as yourself, your personhood, what you feel and see out of your eyes and think about the universe at any given moment in time. This is not static and constantly changes all the time as new data is collected or old data is lost or amended.
I think it fairly safe to say that B is not aware of everything A is doing, and this does not stop B from existing. I have likened it to a figurehead in a large corporation that is told what will happen after all the decisions have been hammered out and the figurehead gets the credit. This becomes so common that the figurehead thinks he is running the company when he has little actual imput, if any, in the resulting decisions.
If this is the case with B as the figurehead and A as the corporation, then B is not really in control of what is happening, but just becomes aware of it after it has occurred. With the brain this can be in a second, and so can often be mistaken as B MAKING a decision rather than being aware of it.

This does not make us robots, biological or otherwise, it simply means that how we perceive how we make decisions is fuzzy and inaccurate. We (A) are in control (within external limits) but we (B) are also not in control.

Meaning to an atheist can therefore be a self derived one that can center around himself, his community or even the whole world (e.g. Saving up for a holiday, cleaning up the street or working for a global charity). That meaning does come from himself (A) but he may not be fully aware of why he (B) 'chose' it.

The idea that death is the only logical choice for an atheist or they are inconsistent with such views on free will, or god, indicates the flaws in the theist stating it and the poor merits of their so called meaning.

Why is death something that would attract an atheist just because they hold these views? Death offers nothing to an atheist. except perhaps an end to unendurable pain. Life on the other hand offers a multitude of options and joys. An atheist cannot come back from death, so why squander life when it is enjoyable. Death is not going anywhere so why rush to choose it.

Other elements the interviewer threw at John was that Love if its merely a chemical has no value to an atheist. This is another slur and completely unfounded.
Love is a label for a host of different factors, from friendship or sexual relations to parenthood.
All atheists are human, and thus feel love in some or all of these areas during their lives. They do so because they have evolved to have it. Love is MORE than a mere chemical, as we have labels for such chemicals and we don't call them love. There are chemicals that cause euphoria and pain, but those are not love, they are aspects of the experience, not the experience itself.
Social customs, mutual support, friendship, an genetic desire to procreate, loyalty, trust in others, empathy, etc all are present in atheists as much as in theists. These may be understood somewhat differently by atheists (and there are more than one view on these topics) but that comprehension does not negate their presence.
Going back to free will issue, or lack of free will, I can experience love on many levels, while also acknowledging that there is chemicals involved in it and denying magic elements that are often merely subjective poetic descriptions of such experiences, not scientific facts. So claims that love is a gift from God can be dismissed as it is a blind assertion, but love itself still has lots of value, whether I choose to love or not, in an absolute way.