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.

Response to CARM's Questions for atheists Q21 to 31.

This is the final segment responding to 31 questions presented at the C.A.R.M. website by Matt Slick aimed at atheists. Please read the other pages first to properly understand my responses as some refer back to earlier questions and answers.

 21. If there are moral absolutes, could you list a few of them?

I am not making the claim about moral absolutes, so no.

22. Do you believe there is such a thing as evil?  If so, what is it?

Ignoring the definitions used by Christians, which are mired in their presupposed theology, I could still refer to things or actions being evil in a secular way. Evil would be, for example, to knowingly inflict harm on innocent beings without just cause. This is of course open to debate, in regard to "harm", "innocent" and "just cause". 

23. If you believe that the God of the Old Testament is morally bad, by what standard do you judge that he is bad?
Empathy, Reason and Logic. Also by the Bible's own standards of morality apologetics love to pretend are infallibly correct. We point out the hypocrisy of such claims.
When apologetics try to justify rape, slavery and genocide as morally good, you know you made the right decision to leave Christianity. Apologetics have done more to solidify my deconversion than any argument from the atheists.

24. What would it take for you to believe in God?

Heal amputees in a double blind test, by only praying to Jesus according to the bible's claims. That would go a long way towards changing my mind.

25. What would constitute sufficient evidence for God’s existence?

Repeatable and verifiable events that match the claims in the bible and/or God or Jesus appearing and demonstrating to me (with independant unbiased witnesses) his power and answering 1st hand my doubts. Considering I don't even have a single reason to accept ANY supernatural claim, including something as basic as a soul or free will, I have high but easily attainable standards if a Christian God exists.

26. Must this evidence be rationally based, archaeological, testable in a lab, etc. or what?
As opposed to what? It depends on what is offered. Not everything has to be testable in a lab but it should be rational to accept a claim. Does Matt think irrational evidence should be acceptable?

27. Do you think that a society that is run by Christians or atheists would be safer?  Why?

In what context? Since atheism only deals with the claim about gods, it offers no guidance towards a political or economic society by itself, then this question is not properly formed to give a good answer.
Ideally if the atheists were secular and allowed people to hold religious belief in private, promoted scepticism and tried to justify their beliefs, in whatever system they use for politics and economics, using empirical data rather than state authority, then they would be safer than those that rely on a presupposed divine mandate to guide them. However the reduction in the influence of religion on society is only the first step in changing the attitudes of the human mind, not the final one. All the human weaknesses are still present and still need to be addressed in a healthy and productive manner.
It is a long road and no doubt a rocky one.
Also there is nothing to stop christians being part of the process, as long as they are willing to grasp that their private belief does not equal reality automatically. I would prefer if we could eventually dismiss labels completely in regard to religion and simply work on making this world better for everyone in it.

28. Do you believe in free will?  (free will being the ability to make choices without coersion).
 
Using your definition, free will cannot exist. There are always external and internal coersions to any choice you make.

29. If you believe in free will do you see any problem with defending the idea that the physical brain, which is limited and subject to the neuro-chemical laws of the brain, can still produce free will choices?
Not applicable.

30. If you affirm evolution and that the universe will continue to expand forever, then do you think it is probable that given enough time, brains would evolve to the point of exceeding mere physical limitations and become free of the physical and temporal, and thereby become "deity" and not be restricted by space and time?  If not, why not? 

I don't think brains will become free of physical needs and it seems impossible for a temporal construct like a brain to ever escape time or space. Perhaps we might develop technology that moves the brain beyond mere brain matter in our skulls, but it will still need a physical grounding. The concept of having a immaterial brain that is outside space and time is not even a coherant concept.
Also evolution has been working on brains on this planet for hundreds of millions of years and in millions of different paths, and so far none of them show any sign of trancendance or even probable trancendance. To meet the goal you propose the very nature of the universe would have to change.

31. If you answered the previous question in the affirmative, then aren't you saying that it is probable that some sort of God exists?
Not applicable. But for the sake of argument you don't have to meet the ridiculous parameters described in Q.20 to be considered godlike.
We may be able to create life one day. We can already manipulate genes and even change atomic states artifically. One day we might birth stars, or even find ways to cross time. (in an extremely unrealistically optimistic long term view of the future).
Perhaps we could even create a universe of our own, as it may take very little to do so, if the universe cannot abide a vacuum. Being a god might take a lot of knowledge but little actual magical power.
Finally since you use "some sort of God" you are forgetting the definition you hold of God and should turn it to a lowercase god because you cannot evolve an uncreated (eternally existant) being.

So that is it, all the questions answered, or at least attempts to answer them. Some questions were fairly transparent in their attempt to shake an atheist viewpoint, however since they address skewed versions of atheist viewpoints they fail to achieve their intended goals.

Response to CARM's Questions for atheists Q11 to 20.

Matt Slick from C.A.R.M. posted a series of questions to atheists. I previously answered 10 of them.
It's a good idea to read them first. This is the next set 11 to 20.

11. If you were at one time a believer in the Christian God, what caused you to deny his existence?

I was a Catholic Christian for about 30 odd years before drifting away from that religion.
The question is, as usual, a bit malformed. As an atheist, the christian god, or God as CARM uses the term, is one of thousands of gods and no more special than any of them from my current position.

However I will attempt to break down issues that led to my doubting the claims about 'his' existence.
A. The bible is full of statements that don't quite mash if the Catholic doctrines were true, including the concept that Jesus was God. The bible is not very clear on that, and there are instances that directly oppose the idea. The story of the Devil tempting Jesus in the desert is a classic problem for that claim. If the devil knew God, but tried to bribe Jesus to worship him instead of God, it makes the idea that Jesus was God (and eternal) absurd. This directly points out that the devil thought Jesus was a man.
B. Genesis vs Science. Genesis is completely at odds with Science. Utterly.
C. The belief in witchcraft.
D. The hatred of and negative propaganda about the Jews.
E. Limbo (now dumped of course, as if it never was preached as real for generations).
F. The fragmentation of christianity (thousands of denominations).
G. The immorality of the Old Testament God and Jesus (for different reasons).
H. The use of guilt and fear to keep people in line while calling it love.

Of course none of this prevents there being a god or gods, or impacts on other religions, but those aspects certainly makes one wonder if the abrahamic God makes any sense at all.

Add to that the problem of evil, the change in the doctrines between the jews and christians and muslims and the remarkable corruption of the Catholic church (E.g. a series of well known evil  or mad popes, the fabrication of religious artifacts and the pragmatic use of saints and miracles for wealth and power.)
I could go on and on. I think the last straw came when I finally realised that nothing in the bible about Jesus came FROM Jesus (when you have a personal relationship with Jesus you can forget it is not him saying the words of wisdom), only tales about him from unknown or unreliable sources decades later. Plus all the non canonical gospels and stories and their absurd claims (Dragons for instance).

12. Do you believe the world would be better off without religion?

That depends on how religion was removed. Religion exploits human weaknesses. These weaknesses would still exist and would still be open for exploitation even without religions, as we see with people like Deepak Chopra and other mountebanks.
Religion has far more levels than merely the theology, this is self evident in that there are thousands of religions in the world, many drastically different, (so the theology is largely irrelevant) but all offer social control and some offer hope against the cold reality of death.
It has been so for so long that it would take a massive change in how we think about the big questions and the big fears to educate ourselves away from dependancy on easy lies and fast talkers.
If we could become more sceptical, more patient, less self centred and more responsible then yes, we could dump the out of date concepts that served our primative ancestors and move towards a future that replaced the lies with truths. How that would be achieved is a much harder question.
Currently ripping away religion would cause a lot of problems, however challenging it and seeking real reform that moves away from blind faith would be feasible and not as traumatic. In fact if we are ever to start finding truths, you have to recognise the lies first. As with all addictions, acknowledgement of the problem is the first step. Religion is certainly an addiction to many people.

13. Do you believe the world would be better off without Christianity?

Yes. Without Christianity we also would not have Islam to content with, or Mormons or all the other religions and cults that cling to the christian concepts of Hell and Heaven. Of course we might have something else instead, as human weaknesses are easy to exploit with lies and fast talkers. Would the world have been a better place without Christianity? That is impossible to say. Christianity has been a massive part in our human history for 2000 years. However humans would still act according to their nature, so there would still be art, still reform, still wars and still fast talkers so while names might change, the state we are currently in probably would not.

Since christianity is not one thing, but thousands of losely connected faiths and dogmas, it is possible to further reform Christianity to the point where it does not have to be removed at all to allow for humankind to flourish. The further away from the horrors of blind faith the better.

14. Do you believe that faith in a God or gods is a mental disorder?

This statement is often used by atheists like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris to describe how they preceive blind faith in a god. They have their reasons for thinking like that. However lets look at the term 'mental disorder' itself to see if blind faith in a god qualifies.
"A mental disorder, also called a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a mental or behavioral pattern or anomaly that causes distress or disability, and which is not developmentally or socially normative. Mental disorders are generally defined by a combination of how a person feels, acts, thinks or perceives. " ~ wikipedia.
Now I say BLIND faith as there are many types of faith you can have and apologetics like to pretend that they are all the same in terms of justification. They like to think of faith as a kind of justified trust in God.
However the story of doubting Thomas (John 20: 24-29) in the bible does support Dawkins view of faith as blindly believing something without evidence "...blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.".
So focusing on blind faith, is that a mental disorder?. Well it is a mental and behavoural state, it can cause distress and disability as it can control your thought processes and create blindspots for reason and logic (listen to any apologetic for an example of this line of thinking). The only thing that stops it being seen as not socially normative is that it is so widespread and persistant. If someone says they see fairies or have faith in fairies or elves (which many people still do) most christians would think that faith is crazy and would call it a mental disorder, but if they call these fantasies angels and christians will stop and listen (some anyway). So faith in God is not a mental disorder for a very bad reason, it is simply too common. In some christian denominations, speaking in tongues (gibberish) or drinking poison or handling snakes or praying away cancer rather than seeking treatment, or beating unruly children with a stick, or forbidding swearwords because curses are magical or think that by saying a few words over a cracker it changes into the flesh of Jesus so they can eat it is normal. In such societies, 'normal' can be a very twisted thing.

15. Must God be known through the scientific method?

As we are using the Christian God here, rather than all possible gods, then it is important to understand what atheists mean by providing empirical proof of God. Modern christian apologetics and priests have moved God outside of reality (making it, ironically,by default unreal) and saying that it cannot be preceived by man and science. While this is not backed up by the bible, that has never stopped apologetics from moving the goalposts before when asked to backup their claims.
In the bible, God has a physical form (and I am not talking about Jesus), as do angels which supposedly exist with God on whatever plain of existence he is on.
So there is no reason that God cannot manifest on earth or provide a suitable avatar that would achieve the same result. The bible is full of very physical miracles of his power, very showy and definitely not requiring blind faith to see them.
However even respecting the modern view of God, a being that is supposed to be everywhere (but just not anywhere science can detect him of course) and all powerful (but unable to demonstrate he exists to anyone who does not already accept he exists or accepts very subjectively interpreted events.) Even the most liberal Christian accepts that God is a personal god, and that claims in the bible about how personal he is are true. So while you might not spot a man in the sky with a big beard you should be able, using the scientific method, to descern his interferance with reality. Prayer being one example. Christians have a long and varied history claiming the miracles of prayers, yet not one has been scientifically verified. The Catholic church used to proclaim miracles at a drop of the hat, but in an increasingly educated and scientifically literate society, they have rapidly become very very reluctant to offically claim new ones nowadays and when they do, don't go out of their way to back it up and usually rely on unrepeatable claims and mysteries.

16. If you answered yes to the previous question, then how do you avoid a category mistake by requiring material evidence for an immaterial God?

Well according to the bible, God is not simply immaterial (whatever that is?), that claim was made up by apologetics to get around the problem of having no empirical proof of their God.
But even giving the immaterial claim to them, they are making the error, not the atheist, as we don't ask for material evidence for an immaterial God, but material evidence for that God's interventions on the material universe. Christians do believe God does stuff, all we ask is for them to prove it.

17. Do we have any purpose as human beings?

This question is one of those questions that don't (yet) deserve an answer (like "Why do the rain clouds hate me?"). It also attempts to put the burden of proof onto atheists. Provide evidence we have an ultimate purpose first then ask the question, rather than presuppose it and then dare atheists to disprove it.
Perhaps our only purpose is to feed the legions of bacteria that live on us, or perhaps all living things have one purpose and that is to struggle to survive in a hostile universe, or perhaps such answers are unknowable. The only purpose we can know exists 100% is the one we give ourselves.

18. If we do have purpose, can you as an atheist please explain how that purpose is determined?

Going back to my previous answers in Q. 17.  and developing each in turn. 
A. There are a heck of a lot more bacteria than there are other species of animal or plant. Perhaps bacteria are special to the universe. (This is a joke, in case someone thinks I am being serious.)
B. Those that do not seek to survive die out before reproducing, those that survived desired to do so and being successful seem to point towards that being a reasonable and respectable purpose.
C. Keep looking for the hard answers and maybe we will find out someday.
D. By genetic and social and personal factors.

19. Where does morality come from?

Nature ultimately, and further refined (in our case) by human development and cognitive awareness of the social contract and self preservation. Morality, from my perspective, is the difference between harmful and beneficial behaviour in a social system. Without a social framework there is no need for morality. Christians may have their own view of what morality is, but I really don't care as I don't recognise many of their presupposed justifications for their definitions.

20. Are there moral absolutes?

Perhaps or perhaps not. I don't know of any but that does not mean there could not be any, assuming the term is internally consistant in the first place. Since morality (IMO) is derived from our development (in many ways), and thus must be somewhat flexible then absolutes makes no sense anymore than a married bachelor makes sense. Christians like to use emotionally charged 'examples' like raping babies, but that proves nothing in itself. Just because certain actions are seen as objectionable by atheists and theists does not, in any way, prove it to be an absolute anymore than if we all agreed upon something being good makes it an absolute. There is no standard to judge these concepts against and that is the nub of the matter. Once again all it comes down to is presupposing a God and then presupposing that God's attributes, then unjustifiably claiming since those attributes exist the God must. A nice circular argument.

Ok, that is enough for now.

Response to CARM's Questions for atheists Q1 to 10.

I sometimes like to browse sites like CARM to see what they are posting. They have a page that asks a series of questions to atheists and I decided to write a response here.
This response is aimed to be as truthful as possible in regard to my stance on atheism, and I am not trying to represent anyone else in these answers.

1. How would you define atheism?

A good question. A lack of belief in a god or gods is the broadest and best answer to this, although disbelief in gods also works for explicit atheism, which is what I would think is my stance.

2. Do you act according to what you believe (there is no God) in or what you don't believe in (lack belief in God)?

This is a bit of a leading question or two separate questions. Using the CARM definition of God, rather than all possible gods, then I suppose I do act according to that statement as I believe the abrahamic god does not exist that has the characteristics attributed to it by CARM's definition.
I am not sure what they mean by acting according to a lack of belief in a god. If I don't hold the belief in the first place, how do I act in lacking it. Its not a well formed question. I don't pray, or accept the concepts of a God and it's threats or powers.
I suppose those that lack belief in Santa claus don't go to sleep expecting magical visitations by a fat man with a beard either, or expect to find reindeer hoofprints on their roof in the morning.

Unfortunately CARM also has an article on what they think a lack of belief is, which they manage to mangle. I am not using their view of a lack of belief. My view is simply not holding a positive belief in the claim that a god or gods exist. This can include a range of positions, all of which fall into the lack of belief category.

3. Do you think it is inconsistent for someone who "lacks belief" in God to work against God's existence by attempting to show that God doesn't exist?

Once again the previous corruption of a lack of belief (which they think means having no opinion at all on the topic) is used here, but since I don't recognise that definition I will stick to mine which is more accurate.
The question is poorly phrased, as those that lack belief can be completely consistant in demonstrating or attempting to demonstrate why CARM's version of God doesn't exist. Not all bother doing so of course, as CARM later admits and atheism does not require one to do so to be philosophically sound in having a lack of belief in God. If you believe that CARM's God does not exist, they also lack belief in that God. How could it be otherwise. It is a strawman to attempt to oversimplify the idea of having a lack of belief and thus make it seemingly narrower than it actually is.
Also the idea of working against God's existence does not make sense. Either your God exists or it does not. You cannot work against anything's existence. You can only dispute the CLAIM that such a thing exists or make a claim that such a thing does not exist. The claim about a thing is separate from the fact of existence or non existence of a thing. Existence is not contingent on belief in a thing.

4. How sure are you that your atheism properly represents reality?

This question seems to be assuming atheism equals a claim that there is no God, since I am not sure how a lack of belief in something represents anything outside not accepting the claim. It is not a claim ABOUT reality, only a rejection or ignorance of a claim.
For me, my atheism is 100% matching reality, as I do not see any reason to accept CARM's definition of God existing. That does not mean that I know for 100% that their God cannot exist. But a discussion on the nature of their God is a big topic and would derail this post.

5. How sure are you that your atheism is correct?

Oh I am getting a flashback of Shockofgod. This question is also poorly phrased in it's intention. Once again it seems to be aiming for the idea that atheism means that there is no God. This is not how I defined it.

Atheism is correct by this logical argument:
a. atheism means a lack of belief in gods.
b. a lack of belief can be held as a valid position on a topic if not given sufficent evidence to accept a claim.
c. atheists are not convinced by the evidence provided by theists on the existence of gods.
d. therefore atheism is the correct position to hold in that circumstance.

6. How would you define what truth is?

Heck, that question has dogged philosophers since the dawn of time, and depends on the context it is referring to and the perspective of the questioner too.
If CARM means descriptive truth about reality, like what the diameter of the Earth is, then Truth would mean the closest answer that can be verified with empirical observation and testing. However I do not necessarily mean an absolute value of truth, but more a pragmatic value, in that it is something contingent on our current knowledge and technology and subject to possible revision in the future.
If CARM is referring to some philosophical 'truths' about morality or ultimate meaning then I am not sure truth is even a valid term to use in that circumstance as the questions themselves may not be even coherent.
Not every question has a truth behind it. Just because a person can ask it, does not mean there is any meaningful answer. "why do the clouds always try to drench my new suite when I go on a date? Do they hate me?" Is there any truth in these examples? The questions have lots of presuppositional errors and assumptions that corrupt the validity of the questions.

7. Why do you believe your atheism is a justifiable position to hold?

This seems like a rehash of Q.5 and perhaps Q.4.

8. Are you a materialist, or a physicalist, or what?

These seem a bit off topic, and require an understanding of what CARM thinks these labels represent.
"A materialist atheist is someone who assumes that the physical universe and its properties are all that exist, that nothing exists outside of the material world, and this necessarily means that a transcendent God cannot exist."
OK, I am not sure the phrasing of this is really accurate. We do not know if anything exists outside of the materal universe, as once we discover something new, it becomes automatically part of the universe. We don't have any example of something we know exits NOT being part of a material universe. I don't accept the way materialism is defined as being entirely coherent, but I would consider that everything we do understand is material, including thoughts and dreams.
If something comes from another dimension, or even another universe, it would also be material, if we detected it. I am not sure what a non material thing is. We have no examples of it.
I also support the concept of methodological naturalism in regard to how science operates.

9. Do you affirm or deny that atheism is a worldview?  Why or why not?

Using CARM's own definition of worldview it seems obvious that atheism is NOT a worldview. It can be part of one, just as any stance can be, but it has no tenants, guidance, rules or dogma outside of it's definition.

10. Not all atheists are antagonistic to Christianity, but for those of you who are, why the antagonism?

Well just to clarify, it is not JUST christianity that some atheists can be hostile to. Christianity is nothing special in regard to it's claims. However the influence and power of Christianity does make it a larger target for some atheist antagonism, especially if that atheist lives within a predominantly christian populace. Christianity has a long history of persecution of non-believers and heretics too.
Plus it teaches what we preceive as hateful doctrine to our friends, family and children. Living in a society that proclaims atheists are going to hell, are sinful, work for Satan, are evil or fools, blind or ignorant of the 'truth', deserve torture and a whole host of other unpleasant concepts hardly endears christians to atheists, although, thankfully, most christians playdown the worst parts, at least in the more educated areas of the world, excluding parts of the South of the USA.

A lot of the annoyance is also derived from anti-science movements and outright irrational bigotry that has it's roots in a theistic interpretation of a holy book. This is not exclusive to christianity as other religions have their fundamentalists too. Also these movements do not represent all of christianity either. There are thousands of versions.

However the antagonism usually aims to protect atheists from the harm such beliefs can inflict on societies that the atheists live in. We generally think this life is the only one we know we have and don't want it ruined by a barbaric adoption of ancient beliefs that we see impact and undermine our lives. This also can apply to non religious concepts that cause harm too, including psychics and certain new age 'medicines'. However none of that comes directly from atheism.

Anyway that is enough for now. I will come back on more of the questions in future.

The Argument from personal experience and why it fails to convince atheists.

This is a vastly varied field as personal experience is by definition personal and there are billions of theists in the world, and throughout history.

Basically it revolves around claims about miracles and feeling the presence of god. This is one of the poorest arguments anyone can present to an atheist, especially if the claims about a miracle are simply hearsay (e.g.: "my sister got healed when we laid on hands and prayed to Jesus").
Conversely if you could demonstrate a miracle to an atheist, empirically, then it might be the strongest argument you could present, but then it would not be an argument from personal experience anymore as it would have independant confirmation external to personal testimony.

So what is the problem with it? Well no one, including theists, would accept such unreliable testimony, if the tables were turned on them. No one would accept a tale by someone about something outragously improbable without some proof to back it up, unless you already accept the premises beforehand.

So for instance if you believed in ghosts, then you might believe someone telling tales of ghosts, but if you did not believe in ghosts, a tale about them would not convince you they exist.
If a hindu tells a christian that Vishnu revealed himself and healed their sister the christian would not believe them based purely on a unsubstantiated story, but if a fellow church member says Jesus did the same thing, then they might, unless it contradicted something doctrinal. Likewise if a Christian tells a Muslim that Jesus appeared and told them he was indeed the son of God, rather than a prophet of God, the muslim would consider the Christian either lying or deluded. This is because personal testimony is the weakest form of evidence you can provide, its highly subjective and easily contaminated by prejudice.

Now what if it is a 'confirmed' miracle of your faith, from history.  Does that make a difference?
Well not to someone not already a believer, because the miracles often 'confirmed' by religious authorities are highly dubious in their intent and purpose for validating the miracles. For instance the Catholic Church manufactured relics when it suited them, fabricated or accepted with little if any evidence miracle claims in the past when it suited them and nowadays, thanks to science, rarely if ever proposes any miracle might be authentic because they know it may be debunked if looked at closely by independant sources. The shroud of Turin is one glaring example of fraud and pussyfooting of the Church.

The holy books have claims of miracles in them, some witnessed by many people, even supposedly non-believers, does that make a better case?

The answer again is no. These are unverifiable 'proofs' written in the same book as the claims of miracles and the witnesses (of whatever type) are simply recorded as being witnesses, but there is no way to know what actually happened as there is no way to verify the statements. In many of the cases, no names are even mentioned, only numbers of anonymous 'witnesses'.
No theist would accept any of these as proof of a different religion being true over their own by itself.
If a theist will not accept such 'proofs' even when they already accept a truck load of supernatural beliefs, then why should an atheist that shares none of those beliefs?

Does that mean no miracle could impress an atheist? Well yes and no. No unsupported miracle will impress anyone not already a believer in that miracle or type of miracle. However if a 'miracle' could be shown to an atheist first hand, rather than a story or hearsay, then that is a different case entirely.
First hand experience is a lot more persuasive than 2nd or 10,000th hand.
However prayer studies have failed in this regard, or been shown to be badly or even dishonestly done, and no miracles have been recognised as valid outside of a religion's own followers unless they ascribe different purposes for the miracle (done by demons to trick you or something like that) by opposing faiths.

For me personally, if I saw limbs being regrown, as I watched, on amputees after someone prayed to only a particular god and no other, that would cause me to be impressed. It would need to be done openly and with proper sceptical double blind methods and repeated in different situations but if that kept occuring, only when one god was prayed to, then that might be enough for me to stop being an atheist. In the future this may NOT be enough as we may medically be able to regrown limbs but for it to spontaneously happen now after a prayer, well that would be, for me, a miracle.
However other 'cures' like healing bones, or curing cancer are often poorly documented and in many cases either misdiagosed in the first place, or had perfectly plausible natural reasons for what happened. I remember reading up on a famous case in Lourdes of a man who had a broken leg spontaneously heal on visiting the shrine, but after a bit of research found out that there was collusion with the doctor, outright lies and mislaid testimony and the leg had healed over 3 years prior to the trip to the shrine (he claimed the old scars was a 2nd miracle, which shows in hindsight the brass balls of the guy).
The claim originally sounds very impressive, the truth is a very different matter, often extremely deceptive and exaggerated.

Why the Argument from Design fails to impress atheists like me.

One of the most common arguments for any god is the argument from design, and is used by theists and deists alike, and even some atheists that believe in intelligent design (Raelians for example, although saying they are atheistic is stretching the term a bit in my opinion)

Many of these arguments use a variant of the Watchmaker argument or analogy, most famously proposed by William Paley over 200 years ago in his book Natural Theology.

In a simplified form, it goes along the lines of "If someone was walking on a beach and came across a watch (hence the name), you would immediately, on examination, determine it had a designer and did not appear by chance. All the gears would be too precise and purposeful to occur without a mind behind it. It is clearly evident that it was designed and therefore a designer exits." 

Some add that if an uneducated savage (rather than just anyone) that came across the watch they would work it it had to have a designer, even if they never saw a watch before. I think this only makes the argument worse, not better as it add extra elements that only clutter it up.

This is a form of telelogical argument that was aimed at showing empirical evidence for God rather than revelation or personal experience, which was more spiritual in origin.

One of the most popular current versions or subsets is the argument from irreducible complexity, brought forth by Dr. Michael Behe, although often misunderstood by theists (and some atheists) in regard to why Behe uses it. More on that later.

As an argument it is certainly more accessible to discuss than faith claims involving direct quotes from a holy book or miracle claims, but is it a sound argument?.
I would say no and there are many reasons why not. First a comment on the watchmaker analogy itself.

1. It is self defeating. The very act of spotting a watch, as an obviously designed object, on a beach of natural objects, like stones, sand, shells, seaweed, crabs, etc and recognising it as designed, in contrast to the natural world, BECAUSE it contrasts with the natural world, shows why using it to then surmise that the natural world is designed is an example of poorly applied logic. If the savage picked up a stone and on examination, HAD to come to the conclusion it was designed, then they might have had a point, but the only reason the watch stands out is because it is UNnatural. Personally this alone makes me laugh at this analogy as it self refutes its own argument.
2. The idea that a 'savage', (or in the timeperiod this argument was written, anyone not a white british gentleman) would have to come to the conclusion that a watch was designed is dubious in intent. IF we remove the 'savage' element for a second, the reason anyone would recognise a watch right off as designed would be because we KNOW they are, we already own them, see them being made, and understand vaguely how they work. Even if someone did not know what a watch was exactly, they would recognise metal working and craftmanship as humans have for thousands of years crafted stuff. Heck even before humans were humans there was some rudimentary crafting of stone knives and blades, so the act of design and purpose is fairly easy to recognise when facing something really alien to a natural environment (hard metal with lots of internal metal gears and clasps and dials and numbers). If they found a soft green rubber ball, no less designed than a watch, they might not realise it was designed as it might contain enough similarites with natural items to be assumed as a soft rock or animal. So basically this is nothing more than an carefully crafted (or designed) assertion of what they would like to happen, using, for the timeperiod in question (early 18th Century) one of the most sophisticated technologies available to really appeal to the populace and 'common sense'.

Moving on from the watchmaker argument, to the universe at large, theists often mention the constants, like the weak and strong nuclear forces, that if one (remember it has to be ONE) changes then all life we know (again the emphasis is on what life is currently like) would likely not exist.
This is an extremely dishonest slant on the argument, basically playing on probability numbers and the still poorly understood 'constants' of the universe.
There are many faults with this argument too, and the often misapplied false constants like the goldilocks zone the earth is in or the size of the sun, or the orbit of the moon.

1. Lets get the false constants out of the way first, they are often used in place of the actual constants, as theists often don't understand the 'real' ones but can grasp the easier idea of the earth being in a 'perfect' place for life or the moon being in the perfect orbit to help life exist and protect the planet from asteroids. None of these are constants, they change, have changed and will change. These are not the constants scientists discuss and to use them is to make one seem foolish. As far as each individual 'false' constant is concerned, while some do 'help' life exist, there are rebuttals to why they do not show design too. For instance the earth does get hit by meteors, as there have been multiple extinction events all throughout earth's history. Not exactly well designed if the moon and jupiter were 'designed' as a shield. Life hung on by the skin of its teeth (even before teeth evolved).
2. The constants that are actually accepted as constant are the way they are for reasons no one yet understands. Therefore using them as 'proof' of design is simply an argument from ignorance, as they are largely a mystery. A universe may settle into a state of set laws as it develops, and these 'constants' became constant after a while, they may be interdependant on each other, and therefore a change in one would affect others so that you cannot change JUST one and leave it at that. What would happen if many of these constants were slightly different, would they produce a different but still life supporting universe? It is possible. Yet apologetics don't want to hear that, they focus on changing ONE and how disasterous that would be to us, as if they knew what would happen in reality instead of just guessing.
3. The idea of the multiverse, that all possible outcomes do exist somewhere, and our constants happen to be the way they are here, and we are only aware of them because we exist in that kind of universe is one valid, if somewhat circular, response. It is often referred to as the antropic principle. Basically we only know the universe is the way it is, because we would not exist in a universe if it was different. This is a bit unsatisfying and I am not a huge supporter of the multiverse theories until I see more evidence than I have so far. I don't oppose the idea of multiverses at all, if they exist, fair enough, but the math is beyond me to be frank and I find some of the reasoning for them more wishful thinking than actual fact.

In general the idea that the universe is designed for humans is simply not true. It might be arguable that the planet earth was designed for bacteria to exist on it, as they thrive pretty much everywhere, but humans? 70% of the planet is water and most of that is undrinkable, most of the land masses have climates that are too harsh and the sun causes cancers, most plants are dangerous and most animals can hurt us or even eat us. If it was not for the eventual rise in technology we would be restricted to very small areas of the planet and constantly fear for our lives. This is shown by the near extinction of our species in Africa (well not human species really but our ancestorial species). The primary reason we survived is that we adapt and don't specialise. Exactly the opposite traits for a beloved creation that exists in a specially designed habitat for it's prosperity.
Its a bit like say the superbugs in hospitals were designed with love by the scientists that spend billions trying to kill them.

Now before I leave the topic I wish to discuss the idea of irreducible complexity. This is often discussed as if it shows deliberate design as if these organisms had to be created fully designed or they could not exist. This is not exactly what Behe was proposing IMO. He is not actually against evolutionary processes per se (common ancestry for instance), he does not believe in the organisms being poofed into existence in their current form by the word of God. Remember he is a bit more rational than your average frothing creationist. He is an I.D proponant and instead proposes that the organism that has some irreducibly complex feature, is proof of intelligent design, rather than chance. This means he has no problem with the idea that it developed, only that it could not develop by chance and there had to be a set goal in mind (thus a mind behind it). The necessary mutations were therefore made by a mind to set up these functions.
Now I could be wrong, but that is generally what I get when I hear Behe talk about his contribution.
He has an issue with Darwinian progression of undirected natural selection and feels that since these complex features need all their parts to fulfill their current function, they cannot occur in stages by chance.

However his arguments have been torn assunder quite sufficently to consider them largely nothing more than more aguments from ignorance. He offers no evidence for intelligent design except for knocking parts of natural selection. This is the old false dichotomy fallacy, where he sets up two options, misrepresents the one he does not like and knocks it, and declares the other option the winner. Its not only anti-science but outright lazy thinking.

The bacteria flagellum is his trademark example and rebuttals showing how it could have developed in stages has been made. He makes some major mistakes in his general thinking, these are cumulative issues, so it is important that you read ALL of them to understand the issue people have with Behe's line of reasoning.

1. That the current function was always the function or a required function of that organism in the ancestorial past. It has been shown that organs and other structures can change, and even absorb or co-op other functions through a species evolutionary history. Evolution is not a ladder of progress towards a set goal.
2. That all the elements needed for the current function have to be optimal, this is also shown as unnecessary. Organisms do not need to have perfect functions, only slightly better functions than their competition (if it aids in their propogation). This can result in refinement, or it can be a bridge to a merged or different function later on when another mutation / change of circumstances opens a pathway to a different line of evolutionary adaptation. The development of lungs for instance or the movement of cetain bones from the jaws of reptiles to mammalian inner ears shows that functions change or co-op already present features for new purposes.
3. That any part cannot be removed without the whole function failing. Using 1 and 2, this is no longer a valid argument as no one says that evolution has to follow that line of thinking. It's a strawman of evolution. An organism can develop and find benefits to parts of a future structure on their own, with their own, perhaps radically different, purposes before a mutation or series of mutations and circumstances compiled these together into what we see now. Behe somewhat accepts this while at the same time ignoring it and saying that because it's improbable (in his opinion) that they occur via indirect evolution they point towards a designer. However if it CAN happen, that there are indirect routes to irreducibly complex features, then how can pointing to it be evidence for design? All Behe really has is an argument from incredulity, in so far as he cannot believe it occured by natural selection and blind mutations alone so he proposes it must be caused by a designer.

Well that is all for now. This argument is a bit like a hydra as it has many heads that rise up where ever science lacks clear answers but when you get to the bottom of it, it is merely an assertion that if science does not explain something, and it looks amazing and baffleing, then a god or intelligent designer (a.k.a god) must be behind it.

Finally even if we grant a designer, it only gets you to a form of deism, an impersonal god that made the universe and that was it. For anyone to propose that is the reason they are a member of ANY religion is a serious failure of deductive reasoning.