Atheists Are Not Intellectually Superior!

            I used to be very passionate about Cricket. Not playing, but watching. I hardly missed any of the matches that the Indian cricket team played. I loved watching the Indian team play cricket.

            This passion lasted for more than a couple of decades (the 80s and 90s). But when the media exposed match fixing in Indian cricket, I lost all my passion to watch cricket. I stopped watching cricket.

            I reasoned in my mind that if corruption had entered the sport, then I should not be wasting my time watching that sport because the results were not due to good or bad play, but the results were being manipulated by corrupt forces to cheat the innocent fan. I did not want to be cheated.

            What I thought was a good idea (watching cricket) became a bad idea, hence I buried cricket in the graveyard of my mind.

            This decision that I took many years ago was freely taken by me. I used sound judgment and reason to decide that I was following the wrong sport.

            Similarly, I decided, years ago, to be a Christian because Christianity is true.

            How did I know that Christianity is true and another worldview such as atheism is false? It’s because I applied my mind into studying these worldviews rather extensively, and then based on sound judgment and reason I arrived at a conclusion that Christianity is true and atheism is a false dogma.

            I used my free will to decide between atheism, the other worldviews, and Historic Christianity. Nobody controlled any of my actions or decision. I was neither controlled by the physical laws nor by a mad scientist!

Atheists are Determinists

            Atheists, on the other hand, are determinists. Atheists deny free will.

            Neuroscientist Sam Harris believes that free will is illusory, “Sam Harris, recognized in skeptical circles as one of the four leading voices of modern atheism, penned a book titled Free Will. In that short volume, he wrote: “Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making…. We do not have the freedom we think we have.”⁶ He further stated, “I cannot determine my wants…. My mental life is given to me by the cosmos.”^…And, “What I will do next, and why, remains, at bottom, a mystery—one that is fully determined by the prior state of the universe and the laws of nature (including the contributions of chance).”⁹ As he begins to summarize his views toward the end of the book, he says, “You will do whatever it is you do, and it is meaningless to assert that you could have done otherwise.”¹⁰”¹

            Richard Dawkins, another celebrated new atheist, is very well known for his quote that each of us being determined as we are, are dancing to the tune of our DNA’s, “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.”²

            When atheists deny free will, they also should deny that they are rationally superior to those subscribing to the other worldviews. Significantly, atheists by virtue of being determinists cannot make a truth claim.

Atheists Cannot Claim Rational Superiority

            On what basis would an atheist make a truth claim?

            How could an atheist argue that their worldview is superior? To say that atheism is rationally or intellectually superior to every other worldview is to make a truth claim. (When atheists attack religion and deem religious faith as evil, then atheists claim intellectual superiority.)

            Professor Paul Copan explains that atheism cannot claim intellectual superiority, “…I asked Dawkins how he could claim that the naturalist [is] rationally superior to the theist since, according to his book River Out of Eden, all of us are dancing to the music of our DNA. Our beliefs are the product of non-rational, deterministic physical forces beyond our control—whether we’re theists or naturalists. In fact, if the naturalist is right, it’s only by accident—not because he’s more intellectually virtuous than the theist. That is, the naturalist has accidental true belief (which is not knowledge) rather than warranted true belief (which is knowledge).”³

            By adhering to determinism, the atheist implies that he/she cannot freely think because they are controlled by the forces of nature. Christian apologist Tim Stratton explains, “If one assumes determinism is true…they do not believe human agents have free will or the ability to change their own minds. This is because they affirm that things external to humans (such as physics and chemistry) causally determines all things — including human thoughts and beliefs…

            …The naturalistic determinist would have to appeal to physics/chemistry, the initial conditions of the big bang, or perhaps to random events in quantum mechanics. None of these things are up to the determinist, so if their mind is to be changed about anything — including the topic of determinism — then things external to the determinist would have to force and determine them to reject determinism or to change their minds about anything else. If determinism is true, one simply does not possess the ability to freely think, and thus, they are simply held captive and “along for the ride” dictated by the forces of nature.”⁴

            Since atheists cannot think freely, whatever belief they subscribe to is an accidental belief. Accidental belief is not knowledge.

            Atheists or determinists cannot think rationally, “If determinism is true, then genuine free will does not exist, and if free will does not exist, then free thinking does not exist. Given the determinist’s view, how could anyone ever freely choose to be rational and know they are? If everything is determined by factors external to you — including your thoughts and beliefs and your thoughts and beliefs about your thoughts and beliefs — then your choice to follow the laws of logic and to think rationally would only be an illusion. You have no say in the matter.

            If determinism is true, then the determinist who holds to determinism did not come to that conclusion based on their intelligence, and by choosing to examine the evidence to infer the best explanation. They were simply determined by physics and chemistry to be determinists. It has nothing to do with knowledge, logic, or rationality. If determinism is true, then there is no free will either in assessing whether one thought is better than another or not. All that remains is question-begging assumptions and presuppositions.”⁵

            If rational thought process eludes an atheist, he cannot claim that he or his worldview is rationally superior to another worldview.

Endnotes:

¹http://apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=1228

²https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins#River_out_of_Eden_(1995)

³https://thinkingmatters.org.nz/2011/03/dawkins-determinism-and-truth/

⁴https://seanmcdowell.org/blog/determinisms-self-destruct-button

⁵Ibid.

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