Reading Time: 3minutes “You are no more responsible for the state of your brain in this moment than you are for your height…thoughts simply arise in the mind. But the idea that we as conscious beings are…responsible for the characters of our minds, simply can’t be mapped onto reality.”
Reading Time: < 1minute “There is no such thing as morally right or wrong. Individual human life is meaningless and without ultimate moral value. We need to face the fact that nihilism is true.” In making sense of atheism, I believe that Christians need to consider carefully the topics of (a) free will and…
Reading Time: 3minutes Finally some good news in this world! In a stunning rebuke of all faiths everywhere, but especially of the really stupid ones, like Christianity, Professor Richard Dawkins has delivered a killing blow.
Reading Time: 4minutes “There is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference…We are machines for propagating DNA…It is every living object’s sole reason for being.” Dr. Richard Dawkins, a famous biologist said that, and on atheism, it seems to me that while it’s sad, it’s also…
Reading Time: 3minutes I once pointed out that most, scientifically minded atheists don’t believe in free will, and noted what one had said in a book. A few people remarked that I was just “quote mining,” which wasn’t really true—I just like to take notes while I’m reading, so I typically have them…
Reading Time: 5minutes “Since the brain cannot have thoughts about stuff, it cannot make, have, or act on plans, projects, or purposes it gives itself. Nor, for that matter, can it act on plans that anyone else favors it with. There are no plans. That’s just more of the illusion Mother Nature exploited for our survival.”
The Horror of Modern Man—Free Will and Mass Murder
This is a sensitive topic about murder, so please be warned.
The mass murders in the news are just terrible. In discussing murderers with comedian and avowed atheist Ricky Gervais, famed biologist Dr. Richard Dawkins said,
“I feel as though I have free will, even if I don’t. […] It wasn’t “me” that did the murder…it was my neurons and my genes.”
Under the view of atheism, we know all about the physical universe, and we know that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. As such, free will is a mere illusion. Why?
Because there is no disembodied “spirit” telling your body what to do. How could this invisible “force” control the chemical reactions in the brain to guide it into doing anything? How can there be such a thing as a spirit? It may seem that we have one, but on determinism, you are really nothing more than an equal and opposite reaction of incredible complexity.
As the late Stephen Hawking remarked,
“Given the state of the universe at one time, a complete set of laws fully determines both the future and the past. […] It is hard to see how free will can operate if our behavior is determined by physical law, so it seems we are no more than biological machines and that free will is just an illusion.”
So mass murders, under the view of atheism, are rationally neither evil nor good, but mere working of biological machinery; actions in response to stimuli, albeit complex.
Reading Time: < 1minute Evil. Why do evil people choose to be the way they are? “You are no more responsible for the state of your brain in this moment than you are for your height…thoughts simply arise in the mind. But the idea that we as conscious beings are…responsible for the characters of…
