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.

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.

Defining Atheism

When I look back at my first encounters with definitions of atheism I am astounded at how difficult it is to get across the basic concept of what atheism is. Theists have managed to muddy the waters to a degree that even actual young atheists are confused by it. Yet it is actually very very simple in principle.
I think one reason why some apologetics distort it's meaning is because only a distorted view of the stance is really something that is hard to defend.

So what is atheism from the point of MOST atheists, including the major thinkers like Hitchens, Dennett, Dawkins and Harris.
It's a lack of belief in god or gods. That really is the broadest brush on the topic.
However there are subsets of atheistic views that can be held by particular atheists and those views can include disbelief in gods, rejection of claims about gods, belief in no gods and even the old and often misapplied belief that no gods exist.

Lets look at how 'atheism' is constructed to fully grasp my point. Theism existed as a stance and from it atheism was coined. Now once it was coined (put in use) it can be applied retrospectively to cover people that lived BEFORE theism, but it is not its OWN label, but a reaction TO theism.

So lets break it down. 'THEOS' means god. That is usually accepted. 'ISM' refers to a belief.
So THEISM means Belief in a god or gods. Nowadays it might be more accurate to stick 'personal' into that to distinguish between theism and deism but that is beside the point for the moment.

Ok, now add the 'A' which is best explained as 'without'. So A-THEISM means 'without' belief in a god or gods.

This does not mean that atheism means belief that NO GOD exists. This is a distortion of how the word was developed as it ignores the history behind why it exists.

Now in practical terms what does all that MEAN? Well from my perspective it means we don't believe the claims made by theists that propose they know a god exists and they have some knowledge about what it wants. You might note that I solely focus on the CLAIMS about god, not the actual question of whether a god actually exists.

A good analogy might be if someone (John for argument sake) disbelieves in alien abductions when he hears his neighbour (Peter) claim he sees them when he is blind drunk walking back from the pub. Does that mean that John knows aliens don't exist or that they cannot have visited earth to do some nasty abductions? No. But the claim by Peter is so poorly supported that you doubt his veracity and credibility and so you put the thought of alien abductions out of your head and live your life as if it was never a consideration. If Peter came back with verifiable proof that he got from the aliens, (see N.D. Tyson's amusing talk on what to do if abducted by aliens) then John would reconsider and re-evaluate whether the NEW evidence is enough to sway him on the matter.

Why is there so many different definitions for atheism if its simply a lack of belief in gods?
Again this is often a simple misunderstanding. Atheism is the lack of belief in theistic claims, but there are many avenues that an atheist can approach that situation.
For instance there is often comments about babies being atheistic, but how can they be atheistic if they had not the ability to reject theistic claims. Well because the definition at its broadest is a LACK of belief and babies certainly qualify for that level of atheism. This is referred to as implicit atheism
Explicit atheism is when someone is aware of theistic arguments and rejects or disbelieves them.
This covers almost every atheists anyone is likely to meet and is generally how most atheists discuss atheism. But to be fair, BOTH stances are atheistic, just the approach is different.

Does any atheist say they know there is no gods?
I hear that a lot from theists, but there is often a rather selective hearing issue involved. It is possible to say "I believe God does not exist" and not mean any possible definition of god, especially vague nonreligious ones. In many cultures an atheist may simply assume you mean the abrahamic God (capital letter intended) and that is what he or she is referring to. Most theists of that presuasion only think about that God anyway so there is justification in answering like that. However some people take that and run with it as if all atheists MUST know somehow 100% that nowhere in the universe and beyond some form of higher intelligence could not exist or they are not atheists. This is of course simply a strawman view and I have never met any atheist that thinks such a view is even rational.
Even the most famous atheist on the planet, Richard Dawkins, repeatedly refutes this flawed view over and over again.

Atheism vs Agnosticism: Is there any link?
Frankly I find this truly amazingly misunderstood by all three 'sides' (those that call themselves atheist, those that call themselves agnostic and those that call themselves theists).
Huxley was the man responsible for coining Agnosticism and it was to cover the question of whether it was possible to know if god (no capital letter) can be verified empirically existing or not. If not, then you remain 'agnostic' or undecided about it.
However this has NOTHING to do with theism or atheism which address claims ABOUT god not whether god actually exists objectively.
Every agnostic still has to either accept or reject any theistic claim on its own merit. Even if you don't explicited reject it if you DON'T accept it you have rejected it in any practical sense.
So its possible to be both agnostic AND atheistic or theistic as they cover two different questions.
Nowadays many theists and atheists accept the following groupings.
gnostic theist = someone who knows that god exists and believes in that god.
agnostic theist = someone who does not know that god exists but believes that he might exist.
agnostic atheist = someone who does not know that god does NOT exist but disbelieves claims that he does.
gnostic atheist = someone who does know that god does NOT exist and disbelieves claims that he does.

Its perfectly acceptable to be a gnostic atheist about SOME gods (Zeus or Horus or Allah or Jesus) while being an agnostic towards poorly defined possible gods. After all it would be irrational to expect someone to have only ONE view on every possible god.