This is part 5 of a series of commentaries on material presented by Andy McIntosh. This material was presented at a church that I attend. It has been presented other places as well.
For reference, related arguments were presented by McIntosh in the following video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNIwh6-KEe0
He begins:
For reference, related arguments were presented by McIntosh in the following video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNIwh6-KEe0
Atheism's Claimed Contradiction
McIntosh begins discussing this chart at 52:50.
He begins:
“Atheism says that there is freedom to think what I want to think.”
This is shown on the chart as "Freedom" It describes something known as libertarian free will. Freedom to do as a person wants, without another person stopping them. This sounds like a core part of many western human rights documents, but not sure I would want to draw a line between that and atheism. Atheism is the lack of belief in god(s). I do agree that most atheists would support libertarian free will. This seems to fall short of showing atheism requires libertarian free will.
“Then [atheists] say there is no god”
Not all atheists. Many atheists, such as myself, only say that they’ve never seen a valid basis for theism. As such, we lack belief, and call the belief we see around us an error (because we’ve looked into them, and have found errors).
“Then [atheists] say that there is no authority”
Atheists tend to believe in the need for authorities. I would describe someone that says that there should be no authority an anarchists; but I imagine McIntosh's point here is that atheists do not believe in divine authority. This feels like an emotional appeal as it is unclear how this is part of the final argument.
“Then [atheists] say there can’t be an absolute foundation for truth.”
That is agnosticism, not atheism. There are gnostic atheists, and agnostic theists. Theism/Atheism describes one's belief or lack of belief in the existence of a god. Gnostic/Agnostic describes one's belief or lack of belief in human access to objective truth. No agnostic atheist that I know would ever claim to know there is no god, making this slide wrong. Note that this error is between this point and a non-critical part of the argument McIntosh is building: it doesn't defeat the argument.
“[Atheists] would say that we’re just molecules. [Atheists] would say there’s no soul. [Atheists] would say that we’re just genes.”
Again, simplifying. Most just say there’s no evidence of anything more than molecules. They doubt the claim that a soul exists, and are asking for evidence. The "just genes" part seems to just be a tie-in to what follows.
“Genes can’t have any individuality.”
This is a bold claim that is just asserted. A person's DNA is "individual" enough to send them to jail. Again, this feels like an emotional appeal. I get why this would be effective for a theist, but it is an assertion with no evidence that seems contradicted by the uniqueness of a person's DNA and life experiences. However, it also doesn't seem to be part of the final argument.
“And they can’t have any freewill. And they can’t have any freedom.”
This is shown on the chart as "No Freedom." This seems to be McIntosh's main goal with this slide - to show that atheism rests on "Freedom" and results in "No Freedom". This would be a major contradiction, and would invalidate atheism.
But there is a major problem with this argument.
The initial "Freedom" is libertarian free will. The final "No Freedom?" is contra-causal free will. Contra-causal free will is the idea that, while a person is free to do whatever they want, that desire will be wholly caused by extremely complicated material interactions (per McIntosh, Physics and Chemistry). So if you draw a box around the person, their wants are driven by physics and chemistry inside the box, but not controlled by physics and chemistry outside the box. When we use explicit definitions for these two freedoms, the apparent contradiction vanishes.
But there is a major problem with this argument.
The initial "Freedom" is libertarian free will. The final "No Freedom?" is contra-causal free will. Contra-causal free will is the idea that, while a person is free to do whatever they want, that desire will be wholly caused by extremely complicated material interactions (per McIntosh, Physics and Chemistry). So if you draw a box around the person, their wants are driven by physics and chemistry inside the box, but not controlled by physics and chemistry outside the box. When we use explicit definitions for these two freedoms, the apparent contradiction vanishes.
Logical Issues
The use of two separate definitions of freedom invalidates the argument by false equivocation. There is no deduction that shows agnostic atheism relies necessarily on libertarian free will which invalidates the argument by baseless assertion. Gnostic claims "No God" and "No Authority" form another false equivocation when paired with agnostic claim "No foundation for truth" as these points imply "gnostic atheist" and "agnostic atheist", although this isn't tied into the final argument.
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