No Evidence for Naturalism?

There is a claim that seems to be favoured by the Christian philosopher William Lane Craig and it goes like this:

“Naturalism is the view that the physical world is all there is and that nothing supernatural exists. However naturalism requires faith just like Christianity, because there is no evidence that the physical world is all there is.”

Now this argument starts off fine. In saying that naturalism is the view that the physical world is all that is, he’s got it pretty well pinned down. However his mistake is in making the claim that naturalism requires evidence for its dismissal of the supernatural. Naturalism, by definition is focussed on phenomena that can be observed by natural sciences. And as far as natural sciences, using natural methods are aware, the evidence points to a natural world that came about without the intervention of a supernatural force. To say that this needs faith is an absurd claim, firstly because we have evidence in the place of faith, and secondly we have no evidence whatsoever that is contrary to the naturalistic view of the universe. With no evidence to the contrary, we reason do we have to suspect a non-naturalistic explanation for the universe?

Dr Craig goes on to say that naturalism cannot be proven and therefore is an internally incoherent belief. I paraphrase him as follows:

“Naturalists claim that we should only believe that which can be scientifically proven. But the claim that the natural world is all there is cannot be scientifically proven and therefore naturalism, which is logically equivalent to atheism, is internally incoherent. Since science only deals with the natural world, science cannot prove naturalism true and therefore requires faith.”

First I repeat that we have no evidence to the contrary of the naturalistic view, therefore no consistent reason to have to prove it anyway. Secondly I am forced to agree with Craig. Science only deals with natural phenomena and so we cannot prove that the supernatural doesn’t exist. Wow, so much for naturalism being internally incoherent. Craig’s own position is just as internally incoherent. You cannot prove a negative claim.

But, you say, the claim that the natural world is all there is, is a positive claim, so you have the onus of proving it!

What an absurdly convoluted rebuttal. Regardless of there being no evidence that suggests a non-naturalistic explanation for the universe, we have the responsibility of proof thrust upon us, in the face of a belief that has no evidence, naturalistic or otherwise.

Craig says that naturalists have to prove that the supernatural does not exist, because we can’t prove that it doesn’t. But theists are free from this burden. What if I were to demand that Craig proves that the natural world isn’t all there is?

This really is a stupid argument. Why is it necessary to prove or disprove something that has no evidence supporting its existence? I repeat for the second time, there is no evidence to suggest that the natural world is not all there is; and there is no evidence at all for the supernatural. I concede that natural science cannot detect the supernatural and therefore scientists shouldn’t say that it doesn’t exist, however we have no scientific reason to believe that it does exist and so we can say that it probably doesn’t.

This does not mean that we should take a 50/50 approach and say maybe the supernatural exists, maybe it doesn’t. There is no reason to believe that anything other than that which can be detected by natural sciences exists, and again there is no evidence to the contrary of the naturalistic view, therefore we can say with confidence that the supernatural most likely doesn’t exist.

A Universe From Nothing?

A staple claim from theists is that nothing can come from nothing, therefore there must have been something to create the universe. It cannot have come from nothing. The claim attempts to appeal to the laws of conservation of energy (energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed), in which they say energy cannot have come from nothing, therefore God must be the initial energy source (which is inconsistent with the doctrine of creation ex nihilo); and of cause and effect i.e. every effect (the effect being the universe) requires a cause (the first cause being God). When faced with the question “what caused God” the Christian will assert, the answer is that cause and effect only applies to and within the natural, created universe and since God is the creator He is not subject to the laws which He created. Now here is my argument, and it draws on the very support for God not needing a cause. Imagine, for example that the laws of conservation of energy and of cause and effect are only applicable within the natural universe (as is what we can observe). This means that within the universe, nothing can come from nothing. So then theists are correct! Woah wait on a minute; I said what if the laws that we can observe only apply within the natural universe. What if cause and effect only applies within the universe. That could mean that prior to the universe, since these laws did not exist, the creation of the universe was not subject to these laws and could have, theoretically come from nothing.

To summarize if nothing can come from nothing only within our universe (which is not the case, as has been seen with sub-atomic particles) then the universe itself is not subject to the same laws and could have theoretically come from nothing.

The Argument for Purpose

Is there purpose in the universe? Does the cosmos itself have a purpose? Does life have a purpose? These are all questions proposed by Christian philosopher William Lane Craig, presented as evidence of God’s existence. The point of the argument is also to assert that without a God who created us to have fellowship with, we can have no real purpose, and that any purpose we give ourselves is ultimately meaningless. However all I can say to that is “Hard luck”. Professor Dawkins, in a debate with Craig pointed out quite rightly that Craig’s arguments for purpose are simply an appeal to emotion. It isn’t a nice thought that we are all here ultimately for no reason. It isn’t comfortable to entertain the notion that in the grand scheme of the universe our lives don’t measure to the blink of an eye and have no transcendent meaning. Craig admits that he appeals to emotion, but defends his arguments by stating that these are the deepest existential questions. My argument, in line with that of Dawkins, is that if there is no real purpose to life, tough, not liking it doesn’t make it any less true. I believe that purpose is an illusion. The opposition might put forth the rebuttal that if purpose is an illusion then why bother and that the naturalistic worldview is unlivable (as Craig states). To me, it doesn’t matter if the purpose I give my life is simply an illusion, it is an illusion that is beneficial to my survival and influences positively on the lives of other people. The sense of purpose perhaps developed as an evolutionary advantage, as a being with a sense of purpose may be more likely to value life and therefore protect it, propagating the species in the process. Just because purpose may be an illusion or psychological mental construction does not lessen the value that it has in our lives. We all experience the feeling of purpose in the same way and thus can objectively say that purpose, albeit illusory, is a beneficial factor of mankind. And if ultimately there is no real purpose to life, as is likely the case, then there is even more reason to give one’s own life a purpose and to live as though it were real. In the end, although our purposes are constructs of the mind, the effect and influence they hold over our lives and the lives of others are very real.

Natural Objective Morality

This supposed evidence for the existence of a creator is one of the most popular and most used. It is also one of the most dealt with and rebutted. This chapter was inspired by a video by Youtuber ZOMGitsCriss dealing with the issues of objective and subjective morality. This is my take on the question. Basically the claim asserts that without a divine law giver who is outside of naturalistic instincts and to whom we are all responsible, there cannot exist any absolute, objective morality from which to draw a standard of behaviour in declaring what actions are right or wrong. Since atheists/naturalists do not believe in such a being or such an ultimate standard, we are demonized as not being able to make moral judgements, and when we do our judgements are attributed to the moral law of the creator and it is said that we have followed the law but have not acknowledged it.

The standard rebuttal from the freethinking community is that we, as sentient and intelligent creatures can decide for ourselves what is moral and what is not, leaving out the fact that morality can be very well accounted for by the evolutionary development of altruism and that immoral behaviours are selected against by the community because they are retardant to survival and reproduction.

This argument is met with the assertion that if it up to humans to decide what is moral and what is not then our morality is simply subjective and is ultimately meaningless. If we leave it up to human beings to decide what is right and wrong, and if we value the right of the individual to think for her or himself then all subjective moralities are equal. There is then no basis on which to call someone immoral if their own morality accepts murder and adultery. However in no claim for atheistic morality is it required that all moralities are accepted as valid. The reason is this: as an intelligent and social species we are capable of reasoning together to create (yes, we can be the creator) a morality that is objective; objective in a completely naturalistic sense of the word, showing that a divine creator is not required for absolute morality.

The reasoning is as follows. Every living thing in nature seeks to avoid suffering, especially humans. This is a universal evolutionary imperative. We can say that suffering is objectively bad because it is universally avoided. Nobody wants to experience suffering. Suffering is an objectively negative experience, therefore if we create a moral system that seeks to relieve suffering by behaving in ways that do not cause suffering to others, we have just created a morality that is completely objective. It cannot be subjective because the experience and avoidance of suffering is universal throughout all people. ‘But what about the people who enjoy suffering, that proves that avoiding suffering is subjective, because not all people have the same opinion of it.’ Well those people, perhaps those who engage in painful activities for entertainment or due to depression are not behaving in a way that makes the avoidance of suffering subjective. In the case of those who hurt themselves for fun, they are not glorifying the experience of suffering, because for them the actions they engage in do not cause suffering in our objective sense. Neither are people who are depressed subjectively choosing to suffer by inflicting pain on themselves. They are behaving in a way that is consistent with the objective avoidance of suffering, in that the pain they inflict acts as a way to relieve the suffering they feel.

Here is my definition of suffering and my suggestion for an appropriate moral code without the standard of an absolute divine law:

Suffering is any unwanted physical or emotional experience that is perceived as negative, painful, life threatening or detrimental to the well-being of an individual or group. This experience is entirely objective because all human beings experience suffering in the same ways and the avoidance of suffering is universal. An objective morality is one that seeks to eliminate the suffering of others. Immorality is behaviour that contributes to or causes suffering.

Now there is a problem with my suggestions. The matter of suffering in nature; under the moral code that I have suggested, would it be immoral to let animals kill animals for food, and to do so ourselves? Would it be immoral not to alleviate the suffering of our animal cousins? This opens the debate between vegetarianism, veganism and the slaughtering of animals for food. This is not an issue that I have room to go into in this chapter, however a few points for a possible future chapter:

My suggested moral code would imply that killing animals for meat is immoral; that animals killing other animals is immoral; would it cause more suffering e.g. starvation to not allow the consumption of meat, especially in nature, in which case the lesser suffering is preferred over the greater; and finally we should not apply our human moral codes, although objective, to other animals which cannot comprehend morality.

Correcting Erroneous Views of Evolution Part Three: Macro vs Micro Evolution

This is perhaps one of the most dumbfounding, absurd proposed evidences against evolution that I have ever encountered. Supposedly creationists do not accept evolution but at the same time they do accept it, but they do not realize, or maybe they straight out deny, that it is indeed evolution. Micro-evolution (which is a misnomer because it is simply short term evolution) covers two changes that creationists accept: variation and speciation. However what they do not seem to understand is that these two occurrences are not evidence against evolution. People like Kent Hovind and Ken Ham have so misconstrued these concepts as to be either willingly ignorant are blatantly dishonest, putting their fingers in their ears and singing while the scientific education boards attempt in vain to explain to them what these processes are.

Before I progress in correcting this erroneous view of evolution, we need to learn what it is that creationist believe micro-evolution is. Essentially we start off with God creating a number of ‘kinds’ of animals. A kind of fish, a kind of snake, a kind of bird, a kind of horse, a kind of dog etc. Then we have a bit of actual science for once (albeit tainted by the pseudo-scientific ‘flood geology’). Variations begin to appear within these animals, causing visible changes of the few thousand years since they were created. This leads to the millions of species we see today. However all of these animals, though now not interbreeding and being considered different species, are still labeled as members of the same ‘kinds’. The so called creations ‘scientists’ will say “well yes they have been changing over time, but all these varieties of dogs are still dogs, bird species are all still birds. We have never observed one kind of animal evolve into another kind of animal. This is micro-evolution.” Now, what they are telling us would be true, if they were not blinded by their myth that the earth is less than ten thousand years old. They are dismissing the evidence that the world is billions of years old and saying that “within the past six to ten thousand years all the changes in these animals has never produced a new kind of animal.” Creationists are being blindly daft and perhaps purposefully limiting evolution to a period of six thousand years. It’s no wonder we are asked time and again why we don’t observe kind to kind evolution occurring. First they need to clear out the insanely dishonest idea of young earth creationism before we can begin to educate them on evolution. More on this later.

Now on to speciation. The reason I mention speciation is that over and over evolutionists are told that there is no evidence for species to species evolution. But this is simply a misunderstanding of what the term species means. In very simple terms a species is any individual group of animals that cannot interbreed with another group. Speciation occurs when this group of animals is internally separated and variations as mentioned above begin to occur within the two separate groups. Over time these variations accumulate to the point that the two groups now have distinct characteristics and the gene-pools are no longer able to mix and produce offspring. Creationists then take the same paint to speciation and say “but look, they are still the same kind of animal.” Well of course they are, you are limiting variation to a period of millennia, what do you expect to see?

The geological records gives us billions of years of speciation or so called micro-evolution to work with. If the creationist claim that variation and speciation do not lead to the development of new kinds were true, we should expect to find ‘kinds’ of dogs coexisting with ‘kinds’ of dinosaurs within the same geological strata. However we do not see the modern kinds, or even their ten thousand year old representatives existing in Jurassic or Pliocene stone. This tells us that the modern kinds MUST have developed through millions of years of speciation, and we have the fossil and genetic evidence to confirm that they did.

Now, I have dealt with this in a previous chapter, but again I must address the claim that there are no transitional fossils, because after watching a video debate featuring Kent Hovind I was astounded by the stupidity of what he was suggesting. Supposedly an acceptable piece of evidence for evolution would be a fossil showing one kind evolving into another kind. No, not evolving over millions of years of subtle changes into another kind. But literally a freeze-frame of an animal, Pokémon style, undergoing over the period of its life a metamorphoses into another species. Well for once creationists are right when they say that evolution doesn’t happen. We do not live in a Pokémon world in which animals change into different forms over the duration of one generation. This misunderstanding is ridiculous. In Thunderf00t’s words, “Why do people laugh at creationists? Only creationists don’t know why.”

Slightly less absurd is the idea that evolution occurs when one species gives birth to another species in one generation. Creationists reject every transitional fossil by claiming that it is a fully formed animal. Now of course it is. A transitional form is not a half metamorphosis between one kind and another. It is an animal exhibiting traits that belong to an extinct species and a living species, supported by further fossils showing traits slowly changing generation by generation away from the ancestor and towards what we see in the modern animal. This is also supported by genetic evidence showing that the modern animal is a descendant of the ancient animal, just as we can do with bone remains of humans when confirming ancestry.

To summarize this chapter, we start off with animals exhibiting changes in appearances over time. This is variation. Then these animals become more and more distinct to the point that they cannot interbreed, and are thus considered new species. This is speciation. It is also an example of evolution whether creationists like it or not. We are held up at this point because they jump on the train and say that regardless of all of this ‘microevolution’ these animals are still the same ‘kinds’ of animals. The problem here is that they stamp the earth with a production date of 4000 BC, thereby not allowing enough time to see major evolutionary change. But when shown fossil evidence of a kind of animal developing the traits and appearance of a different kind of animal over an immensely large time frame, they stamp it with the same production date and place it in the same 6000 year period as its descendants and ancestors. Of course we can see that the evolutionary change needed to go from fish to amphibian to reptile to mammal, and all other branches of development, cannot have occurred in the Biblically time frame, and there is born the claim that evolution is false.

So before we can begin to properly educate creationists on the evidence for evolution, we need to remove from their eyes the misconception that the world is less than ten thousand years old, and the pseudo-science of flood geology. Once they understand the evidence for the age of the earth, we can begin to show them how micro-evolution that we observe today has been happening for billions of years and that all of this micro-evolution has accumulated and has the power, given the immense time, to change a reptile into a bird, an apelike creature into a man and a fish into an amphibian.

How Did I Become an Atheist?

Just before my baptism, I had an insatiable appetite for scientific knowledge. It was at that time in the fifth grade that I was learning about evolution, but once I was baptised (at the unusual age of nine) my focus turned entirely away from science and onto the Bible. I went to two Christian camps the next year, I read the Bible for hours every night and was disgruntled when Mum would tell me to go to sleep and turned my light off. Between the ages of ten and thirteen I don’t recall much involvement in either science or Christianity, but my religiosity became prominent once more when I was fourteen and attending a Baptist Church in the Brisbane suburb of Mansfield¹. There I met one of the Church elders/deacons named Jock Buttress. He was an aged man and an editor of ‘The Answers Book’, a book published by the creationist/Intelligent Design organisation ‘Answers in Genesis’ founded, I believe, by Ken Ham, a prominent creationist and Biblical literalist. Jock introduced me to ‘Creation Magazine’ the monthly publication of AIG, a pseudoscientific journal of articles written to discredit Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, often using the same arguments as The Answers Book that have been long rebutted by actual scientists².

It was through reading these magazines and books that I myself became a Biblical literalist, a position which dominated my worldview for six years. In the science class at school I refused to accept evolution as a scientific fact. I spurted the creationist motto: I didn’t come from a monkey!

I had a short period of Christian fundamentalism in the mid to late 2006 that involved me alienating my friends by not only being a Puritan, but by being a right arse to everyone around me.

It wasn’t until late 2010 and early 2011 that I actually came to accept evolution as truth. I began watching videos on YouTube about debates between creationists and ‘evolutionists’³. Time and again I saw the creationists fail to present arguments that were sufficient in establishing Intelligent Design as a plausible alternative to evolution by natural selection. This was difficult for me to handle. As I watched more videos and learned more about what evolution really is (not what creationists misconstrue it to be) I slowly became convinced that I had been wrong all along. It was then that I began to question my faith as evolution became an increasingly solid fact in my mind. I also had to cope with what evolution meant for the Bible. If the theory of evolution was to be taken seriously then it was unlikely that Adam and Eve were literal humans⁴. And if that were so then the fall most likely never occurred, which meant mankind was no born in sin and had no need for a saviour, thus making Jesus' death on the cross void and invalid (this would later become one of my key tenets of atheism). The Bible began to fall apart before my eyes and I lost my faith very quickly.

I held on to title of Christian, not wanting to let it go. But soon I began to call myself a naturalist, one who believes in the natural world as all there is and the natural sciences as sufficient to explain the questions of life. I soon started writing brief articles about naturalism, evolution and atheism, all of which can be found in the appendices.

I came to believe that if evolution had the effect of nullifying the Gospel then the Bible wasn't true and God didn't exist (the Abrahamic God at least). It was then that I began to call myself an atheist. I was angry about having been guilt tripped by a religion that was contrary to the physical evidence and began my own channel on YouTube to combat the irrationality of faith. All of the videos I uploaded were adapted from my written articles.

2The actual scientists argument goes like this – creationists claim that scientists have a monopoly on scientific education (called scientism) so that they are the only people who are allowed to speak on scientific matters. This claim is false. The reality of the matter is that anyone can speak on science, as we see with AIG and other creationist organisations, but that scientists are the only authorities on scientific matters because they actually have an education in science and know what they are talking about! Unlike creationists, most of whom do not have a university education in the sciences and therefore cannot be considered authorities and should not be listened to if you want to know accurate scientific facts.

3Which is a misnomer, because scientists who study evolution are no more ‘evolutionists’ than those who study the theory of gravity are ‘gravitationalists’. The terms are ‘biologist’ and ‘physicist’.

Why Are You an Atheist?

I was not an naturalist at first. I was a Christian. Rather I was a person under the delusion that I was a Christian. Because of my faith in the Bible, and the war between creationism and evolutionism, (I use war in the place of controversy because in reality there is not actual controversy), I was afraid to read any evolutionist material that my cause me to question my faith. However it was thanks to YouTube that I was slowly exposed to what evolutionary science really is and how creationist understandings of it are dramatically incorrect. It came to my realization that if evolution was a fact, then the Bible’s account of creation was false. Now any consistent theologian who knows the problems with theistic evolution also understands that evolution has a ripple effect on the rest of the Bible. No longer is the Bible inerrant or infallible, and if the Genesis account of man’s fall from perfection into sin never occurred, which is what evolution would suggest, then man has no need for a saviour, a redeemer.

Evolution was the catalyst that led me to fall away from my faith. It was the consequences of evolution that freed me. My life is full of important people that, had I been a Christian, I would have been required by God not to be in relationships with, especially my girlfriend, who did not meet the requirements of my brand of Christianity (Baptist). I did not want to give her up, but the Bible said that there would be those who scoff at the word of God because they want to walk after their own lusts. That was the claim that I only don’t want to believe so that I can go on sinning. So I chose to reject that on the grounds of evolution. If evolution is a fact, I thought, then there was no original sin, and this ancient moral code has no bearing in reality and further more is supported by no evidence and as such has no basis on which to call natural, imperative human desires sinful or lustful.

Love remains love, based not on religion, but on an evolutionary imperative that we as human beings choose to act on for the mutual benefit of our partners. And no, evolutionary theory does not lessen the value of love. It’s what you choose to do with it that determines true love. True love in the sense that we are perhaps the only species that has the ability to act outside Darwinian imperatives and love others even when it has no visible evolutionary benefit. If without God love is an illusion, so what? If it’s an illusion then tough. It’s an illusion that benefits humanity.

So why am I an atheist? I am an atheist because I refuse to be guilt tripped and psychologically manipulated by faith without evidence. I am an atheist because I reject a system of guilt and fear based on no evidence in favour of a methodology that can be tested, verified and proven beyond reasonable doubt.

Correcting Erroneous Views of Evolution Part Two: No Transitional Fossils?

There are no transitional forms, really? Well this is perhaps the bread and butter of the creationist movement; picking at the fossil record in an attempt to find something that doesn’t exist. That’s right! There are no transitional forms! Okay, I’m joking there are, but in the case of what creationists think transitional forms are, there are none. Let’s explain what a transitional form is not: it is not a halfway point between a crocodile and a duck; it is not a half man half chimp. I’m surprised that creationists aren’t searching the fossil record for centaurs, mermaids and satyrs, because that is what they seem to think a transitional form is. So what is it really? Well it is every creature that has ever lived; a genuine transitional fossil shows very slight change from one species to another. For example as Professor Dawkins so eloquently put, we have fossils showing the transition from the reptilian jaw to the mammalian jaw, and all of the intermediates between the two jaws show the slow movement of the reptilian jaw bones into the inner ear of the mammal. This is what we would expect to find if evolution is correct. Then the transition from land mammals into whales and dolphins: we see the slow movement of the nostril to the top of the head in the fossils, and the slow loss of the legs into fins and vestigial features, each form found in the correct strata sequence. If these are, as creationists claim, all individually created species, why do we find them perfectly distributed throughout the strata to suggest evolution over time? Well either God continued to bury coincidently similar species in rock over six thousand years creating the illusion that those higher up were the ancestors of those lower; or they were all placed in that sequence by Noah’s flood, as suggested by Kent Hovind, Ken Ham etc. But if the flood put the fossils in their current places, why are they so ordered such as to show slight changes leading up to what appears to be evolution? Wouldn’t the flood randomize the fossil record, not create the chronological order which we see? So to summarize a transitional form is not a complete half way point between any two species, it is every single fossil ever found, showing slight variation from one fossil to the next and so on, until they accumulate into a long line of change clearly showing one species to another.

Correcting Erroneous Views of Evolution Part One

A common question that could be used as an argument against evolution goes something like this: if evolution occurred because animals needed to change to survive in their environment, how did they know what changes needed to be made and how did they make them? This question relies upon the false premise that natural selection and adaptation is driven directly by the species in response to a need for change that it is apparently aware of as was proposed (or rather is interpreted as being proposed) by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. That is where the problem lies, a variation of the question would be: nature isn’t a conscious entity so how does it know what changes to make? The problem with that question is that it assumes that natural selection is doing any actual selecting. Aside from sexual selection in which attractive traits are chosen by the female or male partner, selection in natural selection is done simply by the survival or extinction of genes. However even in sexual selection traits are not chosen for the purpose of making the species more suited to its environment but because the selector has a predisposition to favouring mates with specific traits. The fact of the matter is that evolution is not about animals or nature being aware that they would survive better in their environment if they develop gills or legs or wings and then decide to do so. Evolutionary change and adaptation occur in spite of or regardless of the environment. It is not about the environment at all. Variations emerge in species and either they will be beneficial to the species’ survival or detrimental, leading to extinction. Variations do not emerge to make the species more suited to the environment, those that just so happen to be more suited will assist the species to survive and reproduce and develop more genetic variations which over time will lead to macro evolution. Changes occur not to suit the environment, but just because they occur. Evolution does not have a goal such as improving the creature or making it suited to its habitat. Evolution simply occurs either to further evolution or to dead ends in which the animal evolved in a way not suited to its environment. If evolution had a particular direction or purpose such as improving species we would not see these dead ends. It is a misconception that evolution occurs to make a species more suited to its environment; if a species is lucky enough to undergo beneficial variation then it will survive and reproduce.

Faith, Guilt and Psychological Manipulation

As a person struggling between faith and reason, I have been ridden with guilt over my reasons for not believing. As I have previously explained my loss of faith had nothing to do with a desire to ignore my responsibility to God, but the current guilt I am experiencing comes from just that. It stems from the claim that ‘You don’t want to believe because you want to live a sinful life’. In a way that is true, there are things in my life that I want that being a Christian would force me to give up, such as my relationship with my girlfriend, which I simply do not want to lose.

Then I come to the reasoning in my mind that if evolution is a fact then the whole Bible begins to fall apart, so then I am free from this guilt trip. But then Christian apologists will spout arguments like ‘The reason that atheists cling so tightly to evolution is because it appeals to their desire to live without God in their lives’. In a way they are right, evolution and science appeal to my desire to live my life without irrational beliefs clouding my mind and holding back my potential.

So it is a circle with no escape. There is no escape from this irrational belief system founded on no evidence whatsoever that is contradicted by observable fact, but if one tries to free oneself from the stranglehold of religion then they are wicked.

So Christians are correct. I want to live my life free from the guilt placed upon me by a moral code written in support of a belief system that has no evidence to back up its claims.

You have to believe without evidence that the Bible is true, and dismiss all evidence that it is not, simply by faith.

This is psychological manipulation. Another claim is that people only want to be atheists because they are angry at God. That is not correct, specifically in my case. I am not angry at God, I am angry at being psychologically manipulated, told not to use my intellect because to do so is to espouse a wicked humanistic viewpoint, and having my freedom of thought crushed under the foot of a belief system that does nothing to back itself up before trying to take away all that I treasure in my life, because it claims that the desires and emotions I was born with are immoral and sinful, due to a fall of man that evolution shows most probably never even happened. So if evolution is correct and the fall of man never occurred then nobody is born in original sin and we are free. Free from a system of morality that has no basis in reason or fact. Free from being told that to scrutinize any belief that has no supporting evidence is foolishness in the eyes of God. Free from being told ‘not to lean on your own understanding’, because of course my fallen human mind is easily deceived by the so called evidence that science presents, while the inerrant, infallible Bible is exempt from being scrutinized. Yes I am angry. I am angry, and tired of being psychologically manipulated by fear and guilt, and being told that the collecting wisdom of mankind is infinitely inferior to belief system based on nothing but legends and tales that can’t be verified in any way. In this way I am a freedom fighter, I fight for free and rational thought.

You’re a Naturalist Because You Can’t Accept That You Have to Answer to God

No. No, no, no. My transition to naturalism had absolutely nothing to do with accepting responsibility to God. At the time that I was struggling with this, I already accepted that I was responsible to God for my actions. I am not a naturalist because I want to explain away my misdeeds; I am a naturalist because the evidence led me here. I came to the point in my faith where I finally and fully accepted that I could not reconcile evolution with scripture. One had to be wrong, and from examining the evidence, I found that it was Genesis. I actually went through the process of coming to a proper understanding of science instead of peddling old dried up creationist mudslinging like I used to. Whether or not there is a God does not negate my personal responsibility for my actions, I will either be judged by God, or man, so becoming a naturalist does not free me in any way from my responsibilities.

Are Morals Given By God?

Is it wrong to cheat on your partner, kill a person or steal? If morals are not handed down by a just and moral law giver, then what objectivity can there be to say that it is absolutely wrong to do any of the things I just mentioned? Theists declare that without God, there is no absolute standard by which we are to behave toward one another, and without that standard morals are just subjective and that it is perfectly fine to cheat, kill and steal just so long as it does not impact upon your personal or cultural morals. But is this really the case? Without going into the evolutionary psychology of morals and how certain behaviours have become wired into human interaction based on reciprocal benefit, we can demonstrate that morals can, and do exist independent of an omnipotent law giver. And here is how: it is wrong to cheat, kill and steal because those actions impact negatively on the people they affect. Yes, that is subjective, but ultimately it makes no difference whether our morals are subjective or objective. The fact of the matter is our actions have an effect on people’s lives. They hurt people regardless of a divine creator. We know what it is like to be hurt, and so we generally try to avoid inflicting pain on others. Most of us want to live happy lives with each other and we feel bad when we hurt others, why is that? Because we know that we have done wrong. But by what standard have we done wrong that we should know it? Well I ask this, why does there have to be a standard? Again, our actions impact people’s lives whether there is a standard or not. If there is no standard that does not negate our personal responsibility.

To summarize, it is wrong to lie, cheat, kill, steal etc, because it hurts people. Why is it wrong to hurt people? Because we don’t want to be hurt.

Everything From Nothing?

Creationists like Ray Comfort are always criticizing evolutionists saying that it is intellectual dishonesty to teach that life and the universe came from nothing. However on the same note creationists teach that God created everything from nothing, pretty hypocritical of them when you think about it. The only difference they see is that God is the agent by which all existence was created out of absolutely nothing. But that does not answer the question where did everything come from? Being a former creationist myself I understand the futility of asking where did God come from? Because God by definition created beginnings and is not in the category of things that begin, therefore does not need a beginning himself, so I will not make the mistake of jumping on that train with other naturalists. But that does not excuse the claim that God created everything from nothing, the same thing that creationists say is impossible. So what did God use to make everything from nothing?

The Miracle of Evolution

Once you begin to look at the world through evolution by natural selection, life on Earth seems so much more miraculous than creationism could ever make it appear. Think about it for a moment, creationism proposes that all life on Earth came about in seven days of spontaneous creation; but evolution by natural selection shows each form of life as having developed over millions of years of subtle change, countless eons of history written into the genetic code of every living thing. At the same time, millions of species of life on our planet may never have existed if natural selection had taken a different course. Now which is the bigger miracle, spontaneous creation or evolution and adaptation to such a harsh planet? When you open your eyes to scientific naturalism, whenever you see a bird or a butterfly you see the struggle it took over millions of years to get here, you see its countless ancestors, its family tree, and eventually the common ancestor you yourself share with it. Again I ask which is the bigger miracle? Everything being created in its current form; or millions of years of struggle for survival and slow change which just as easily may not have happened if nature had taken a slightly different course? THAT is a miracle.