So, without further ado:
1.) Do atheists use "chance" in the same way that they accuse Christians of believing in the "God of the Gaps"?
For those who don't know, the "God of the Gaps" is a Richard Dawkins phrase (I believe) that effectively claims that we use God to bridge the gaps in our understanding (whatever Christians don't understand must be the will, power or plan of God and above us). Are we atheists doing the same with chance?
This is actually a good question, and ostensibly yes it's true. The author of the video is claiming that science takes anything it cannot explain (the example quoted being the origin of life) and, when the probability of it happening becomes ridiculously small, the scientists throw their hands in the air and say "well, it must have been chance!".
It is a conundrum scientists (and atheists) have yet to get around and perhaps it can be claimed that, to that extent, faith in chance is nothing more than a belief system, which I would partly agree with. But, chance is everywhere, and God possibly isn't. This may sound a rather crude explanation but it's true. People win the lottery, or get struck by lightning, or survive supposed terminal illnesses they'd have no "chance" of surviving. The odds of these happening are still much more favourable than, say, the origin of life. But what this proves is one very fundamental thing: chance is observable. That doesn't mean everything we can't explain is "chance", so to that extent it's not provable that chance is the reason behind these events, but it does prove one very key thing: chance exists.
The alternative to this is that God exists. The problem is, nothing can be explained by the presence of God that cannot be explained by the presence of chance. Rationally then (and, perhaps intelligently), we must say that the likelihood of chance exceeds the likelihood of God. This is something of a phyrric victory for our author: yes, atheists turn to chance when nothing else can be further deduced. But, chance is an observable phenomena on a massive scale. God is only interpretable on a massive scale.
2.) Why should there be something instead of nothing?
Hmm, not entirely sure where to go with this one. It's like trying to paint water. This is quite a big question so you need to watch the video to understand my attempted answer.
This comes down to a massive divide in the way we think; the very essence of thought structure. It's not really a good question but an understandable one. To put it in a simple, grammatically dubious phrase: "Why is?". Why the universe? Why the hallmarks of intelligent design (incidentally there aren't any in my opinion or, indeed, in scientific record, but that isn't the scope of this question).
Let's turn this question on its head. We, as humans, have limitations. We see a sunset and think it's precious. We see life and think it almost divine in inspiration. We see physics and find order and rules and incredible structures of design. That is because we are built to see this way. We need to interface with every molecule we come into contact with, and our very essence is built upon interpreting stimulus to build models.
So, back to turning this question on its head. Why did God "create" anything? Why are we little pink blobs with eyes and mouths? Why do we hear? Why is the universe expanding and not in fact a banana? Do you see what I am getting at here? This question highlights the limits of human thought: how can everything be nothing. Doesn't compute with most people.
This is again a question I cannot answer in a definite form. Equally it is a question that cannot be asked in a definitive form. Why not nothing? Because if there was nothing, we could not ask the question. Why not something else? For very likely the same reason? If we go the God route, did he do it this way because he was bored, or because it looked pretty? Was he not just happy with pure energy? Or being ultimately divine? Did his plan involve us sniffing around for clues to his greatness?
I say this question is like painting water (try it, it doesn't work very well) for this reason; you can't do it. I could ask an atheist version of this question all day but it offers no genuine exploration of the world. You see, a meaningful question is one that pushes us towards an answer. I cannot answer this question, but that does not leave us any closer to a meaningful alternative. It's ridiculous to think this universe "just happened", but not so ridiculous to believe a man in the sky wanted to make it?
Something of another phyrric victory for the author. Yes, he has succeeded in delivering another ultimately unanswerable question, but this one moves away from meaningful discovery into absurdity. Why something and not nothing? How is that question helping whether we are alone or of God?
There is another facet to this question that is partly question 3, but I will deal with it briefly here. "Moral Order"? There isn't one. Most of civilisation behaves in a perceived moral way. I don't like people getting hurt. I have belief in family and friendship and love. But they are not absolute. God didn't give them to me. If he did he also gave me selfishness, jealousy and anger. He also gave some people no moral compass; serial killers, rapists, megalomaniacs. This is yet another question that revolves around somebody's gut feeling that there's an inherent righteousness that we're this close to achieving as humans, but not quite. We live in generally moral world because it is mutually beneficial to most people. I don't remember my cat getting upset because it killed a bird. I don't see any remorse in chimpanzees that savage other animals (even humans) in packs. Is that because God made me better? Well, possibly. Is that because I've evolved and been given a cultural upbringing? Yes, definitely. Try telling the still existing tribes of South Americans, Africans and Pacific Islanders, who do everything from female circumcision to orgies, sacrifice and ritual bloodshed that we have a "Moral Order".
3.) Where do you get your morals from?
The basic attitude taken here is that morals are prescriptive; they look forward to the future and challenge our future behaviour. Morals are not simply about looking back, but being intuitive about how to move into our future. Atheists, on the other hand, simply see morals as an evolutionary by-product for propagating the species, even at the expense of individual organisms.
I could write a book on this (or, better still, point to several excellent others) but firstly evolution works almost definitely at the gene level and not on the much bigger organism or species level. My earlier posts deal with this a bit so I'll leave it there.
Secondly, if morality is engaging us to better our futures, what is the conclusion it is driving us towards? Is it moral to send soldiers to war to protect a nation? Is it moral to take revenge on the man who has taken your wife? Is it moral just to let him do it? Is it moral to not have sex before marriage? Was it immoral before marriage existed? Is it immoral to murder? Is it moral to let rapists, paedophiles and violent criminals live?
I'm not offering answers for these questions, I'm saying they are unanswerable except by personal opinion. Morals are incomprehensibly dubious. They're not tangible at all. I didn't get them from anywhere divine or absolute. I was told stealing was bad. I was told hurting people is bad. I was told killing is bad. I saw first hand the pain it could bring and I didn't like it and I try as best as possible not to engage in those things.
I have, of course, been nasty. I have, of course, been cowardly and put myself first. I felt bad because of a deep, cultural indoctrination. I would have felt much different even 2,000 years ago. Our morals change constantly. Is homosexuality immoral? We are slowly accepting it. In 2,000 years time it's very likely the surviving religions will have incorporated it into their acceptable world view (after all, Jesus and Mohammed despised wealth, but Wall Street and the stock markets of Dubai are legitimate, even aspirational lifestyles these days. We don't see brokers and investors as evil but, from an older moral viewpoint, they are).
And where are morals taking us? To a better place? To a place without war and persecution and selfishness? Can you point that place out to me? Are America in Afghanistan for moral reasons? If they weren't there, would it be fair to let Al Qaeda flourish and launch attacks on your people for the sake of peacetime instead of war?
This is a flawed question and I could write 10,000 words and not even scratch the surface, but it comes down to this:
1) We have no absolute moral order. It changes from individual to individual, if only microscopically amongst the majority of us.
2) This world is not improving in the way a forward looking morals would suggest.
3) Morality is not a religious concept. As a selfish organism I do not want to expend energy hurting or taking from other people. If the benefit to me is significant I still probably won't do it because the emotional trauma and drain on my energy through guilt and worry would be a detriment. I am moral because I weight up the pros and cons and act selfishly on them. Most of the time the major con is that I have been brought up to feel bad about stealing, hurting or abusing. My emotional guilt would outweigh my physical gain. Is this an instilled morality? No, because I am doing it fundamentally for my own best good. If I cared less or wanted more, I would probably do something and live with the downsides because the pros were more significant.
The bottom line with this question is this: this man believes in some divine morality and I do not. Show it to me. Show me a consistent belief amongst any culture, creed or race, through even 150 years. Just twenty decades ago I might have owned a slave and been able to sleep easy at night. Where do my morals come from? Depends where I've been...
4.) How did morals evolve?
This question sort of destroys the "moral order" idea the author put forward previously. If he admits morals are evolving then how are they absolute.
The author of the video also creates a hypothetical scenario in which a caveman kills another caveman and feels guilty about it. Why does he feel guilty? Firstly he almost definitely doesn't. I cannot prove this to be so, but the soldiers of Greece apparently broke into Troy and smashed the Trojan babies over the walls to prevent them carrying Troy's legacy. This was quite a heroic thing to do, Homer felt. Could you imagine a rousing piece of patriotic American (or British/French/Indian/anywhere) literature written today in which your ancestors proudly ripped to bloody shreds its enemies? No, of course not. Today we do things out of duty, as solemnly and humanely as possible (supposedly).
This question doesn't really offer any useful answers. Morals evolved out of a complex development of our brains, language, culture, emotional receptivity. I could expand on these but I (and, more likely, you) just don't have the time. Or I could point out how each individual has a moral compass that is different. I don't need to be married before I have sex. Do you support our troops in the Middle East? Would you want to see the man who killed your family put to death? Is it right to steal from the rich to give to the poor?
Again, our answers will almost definitely be different, and that's just morality for beginners. If we got down to the real nitty-gritty we'd expose morality as a loose set of rules that most of us follow and, in day-to-day activity, appear the same. How you feel about racism, violence, military conflict, rape, pre-marital sex, the family unit, friendship, rules and charity, to name just a minute number of topics, however, would quickly establish you as an individual with only remote connection to a perceived "moral order".
5.) Can nature generate complex organisms, in the sense of originating it, when previously there was none?
Well, yes. Like most of these questions I don't really know where to begin not because I am confused or feel I can't answer them, but the scope is too large and even if I couldn't answer them, what "proof" does that give to religion?
Life is not intelligent. It is interesting that this author talks about atheists firing an arrow and then painting the bullseye around it, but sees life as beautiful and designed, morals as somehow absolute and obvious, and chance as a poor substitute for God. I'll actually leave that question there because I can't open up another method of answering it without writing too much.
So, overall, how did this video do? In truth it's not good. This man has used a lot of words and complex sentences to ask a few mostly useless questions. Two of his questions are about morality, which any decent atheist or religious person follow whether believing in God or not. Saying there is some intrinsic moral order is sort of like saying God made hamburgers because, well, the ingredients were all here to begin with. Morality is based on deep, deep cultural influence combined with a background knowledge of religion and the origin of life. Most of us are moral because we don't want to expend energy dealing with the negative consequences of our actions (you live in a tribe and kill one of your community; try dealing with the rest of them after that).
This man has made the classic mistake of believing that everything is just so and atheism flounders to say it's all down to chance. Everything is not just so, it's an absolute mess. We make order out of it because, well, if we didn't, we would likely be dead or some species incapable of questioning to this magnitude.
I'd ask this author to open his eyes and tell me how many times he sees intelligent design, morality and the influence of God, with observable accuracy, every day. Not what he perceives it to be, but what it actually is.
Now look for chance, for collections of organisms (humans) interfacing with each other in the best way they know how.
My problem with this video is that I could go on asking questions like this to a Christian all day; "Why did God create millions of species, many we don't even know about?", "Why are so many of us ill, hurt, poor, persecuted?", "How is humanity improving?", "Why doesn't God talk to us, as he did to Moses, to Abraham or to so many others", "Why are God's books so absolutely open to interpretation that nobody understands them?", "Why isn't God available to every human on this Earth; what about those tribes, races and people that have never been personally touched by God (nearly all of them) - God seemed to like the near East and the Mediterranean quite a bit".
Many people would scoff at some of the questions above and, to some extent rightly so. And that brings me to the point of my problem with this video; what does it prove? Does it really tackle an atheist where it hurts? No. These are a few gaps in the scientific explanation we have as humans. I don't know how life started. I don't know how morals evolved. I cannot prove how the universe came to be.
I can, however, point you to evidence (human evidence) for a myriad other things; evolution, the big bang, quantum physics, chance etc. Please point me to the evidence for God. Not the words. Not the experiences of others. Not the hopes and desires. Not the stars in the sky or the love we have for each other. I have seen all them and found God in none of them (in the traditional sense). Please show me something in any of them that, time after time, can be proven to be constant, real and unchanging from human to human.
This video simply asks "Why are things as they are?". I could throw that question right back at anybody, atheist, religious or otherwise.
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