"Atheists can't answer these questions" ...or Can We?

a few weeks ago an islamic apologetics channel called towards eternity released a video called atheists can't answer these three questions it was in my recommended on youtube so i gave it a watch and i found it interesting i was glad to see that it was far from an exercise in atheist bashing but was rather a simple challenge to atheists to provide better answers to a few questions than the host himself could provide it seemed like a fun challenge so here we are just a heads up i'll only be addressing question 1 and question 3 because i'm honestly not entirely sure what question 2 is even asking and i think it would be unfair of me to attempt to answer a question which i can't accurately represent myself if you watch the video for yourself and think you understand question two leave me a comment on this video explaining it if you can answer the question then even better with that said let's get on to question one atheism a vive that constantly leads you to a dead end while questioning the universe while everything we see in the universe is actually evidence for accepting the creator atheism ignores them we can't talk about it very long but today we will consider only three questions that atheists cannot answer question number one where do these characteristics come from it's an established rule that one cannot give what one doesn't have to another one for example let's say there are only 100 white balls in a glass sphere what is the chance of a red bell to be chosen from this sphere of course it's zero right no matter how long you wait you will not get any because there is no red ball inside the sphere anyway keep this example in mind let's consider a black pencil can you draw a rainbow with this pencil no because the pencil is in no color other than black so naturally a rainbow cannot be drawn what i mean is you cannot give a feature you don't have to someone else now i take a look at the universe and i see that everything is made of atoms however although atoms are ignorant willless lifeless and blind deaf and numb creatures having no cognitive senses when they come together and occur to us as a human being we see that the man made of them carries all these features so the basic question is how can atoms give these properties to human beings while they lack all of them while simple parts may not possess a property on their own the interaction of simple parts within a complex system can give rise to a property on the level of the system properties like these are called emergent properties we observe these in nature all the time a single cardiac cell for instance can't pump blood but when enough of them get together they form a structure which can hydrogen atoms and oxygen atoms both fuel combustion but when they come together as h2o they can be used to stop combustion in these cases these small parts aren't giving what they don't have they're simply interacting with other small parts and from that interaction unique properties emerge there's an informal fallacy in play here called the fallacy of composition this is inferring that what is true of one member or part of a group is true of the group as a whole now the host of this video does recognize that a problem arises out of this reasoning but the way he solves that dilemma ignores that the dilemma is false to begin with as it's just based on a fallacy atoms lack certain characteristics humans are made of atoms so he reasons shouldn't humans lack those characteristics as well to account for the discrepancy there he doesn't acknowledge the fallacy in this reasoning but proposes another solution do you think you can guess what that solution is as they cannot be the true sources there must be someone else holding these attributes because the atom that cannot see cannot create the seeing eye the atom that cannot hear cannot make the hearing air the atom without life cannot form the human who has life the human being has a variety of feelings while atoms don't have any and all these things are repeatedly happening every day even every second so isn't it necessary to accept that they are under the command of a creator who has attributes such as knowledge will power life sight hearing and compassion behind these atoms as we said one cannot give what one doesn't have to another one so there must be a creator it actually isn't necessary to infer an intelligent creator as i said the proposed dilemma here is a false one building blocks even as basic as atoms give rise to emergent properties when they interact let's pretend that isn't the case though and that we have no idea how atoms give rise to complex life should we then infer that an intelligent creator must be responsible nope this is a classic god of the gaps we don't know how to explain something therefore god must have done it this is simply an assumption it doesn't argue that god did something because we have evidence that he did but argues that god did something because we can't come up with another explanation we could invoke countless other forces or beings to explain this and those arguments would be just as valid or invalid i should say we don't see many appeals to the ether or chaos emeralds though because if we're going to assume an explanation behind our own existence it might as well be one that makes us feel significant an intelligent loving creator is preferable second question who is the judge who is the prisoner like i said earlier i'm going to skip this one i find the wording rather confusing and if i'm not sure i fully understand his question i'm not going to try to answer it the video is linked in the description if you're interested in checking out the second question for yourself so on to question three question number three what is the real reason imagine that we see a train and a baby is pulling this huge train with a rope in his hand nobody would believe this so they will look for a hidden cause behind it right because there are no attributes such as sufficient power knowledge and willing a baby no doubt another resource is required in fact we see gaps between causes and effects in the universe every day while the causes are so simple the results are extremely complex the emergence of huge trees form a tiny seed the emergence of a magnificent peacock from a simple egg the emergence of a complex human from some simple water show us some examples of the gap between causes and results so it's necessary to look for another source behind the wheel because atoms lack the required attributes such as knowledge free will power and life so who holds these attributes doesn't science explain this you might ask no science only explains the detailed sequence of the stages of their emergence for example they observe that there are some certain stages extending over 28 days inside the egg observing the stages doesn't mean that you solve the system and find the answer observing is just seeing sequences there are still questions in the mind how can these atoms form a structure like a peacock despite lacking attributes such as knowledge free will power and life an explanation which is based on temporal sequence of events leaves out these questions with no answers so as we said in the beginning that a baby cannot pull a train just like that another cause appears to our minds behind the scenes due to the gaps between the so-called causes and their effects that we examine in the universe so everything we see tells about allah those who want to find him my earlier points about emergent properties should be taken into consideration here as well but there's more i should address here specifically this section doesn't science explain this you might ask no science only explains the detailed sequence of the stages of their emergence for example they observe that there are some certain stages extending over 28 days inside the egg observing the stages doesn't mean that you solve the system and find the answer observing is just seeing sequences the scientific process is based on observation yes but there's more to it than simply documenting one's observations once observations are made scientists can propose a testable falsifiable hypothesis some deeper causal mechanism to explain their observations then they designed some way to test their hypothesis through an experiment or series of experiments if this testing fails to confirm the hypothesis the hypothesis is then discarded and this process of observation hypothesizing and experimentation repeats when a hypothesis is repeatedly confirmed through experimentation though it reveals a causal mechanism behind scientists observations when enough causal mechanisms are revealed through this process scientists may observe patterns among them and hypothesize about even deeper causal mechanisms at work this is the laborious process by which we've gained an understanding of patterns in the universe or what we may conceptualize as laws or rules by which the contents of our universe abide understanding these laws can even enable us to make accurate predictions about future events such as where a planet will be in its orbit several years from now how fast a radioactive isotope will decay or even how much energy will be released in a chemical reaction so far from being a simple observation of sequences in nature science is a tool which allows us to methodically discern information not only about the matter and energy we observe but also about the laws by which they abide all that said i'll gladly even enthusiastically say that there's so much more to know about all the complex systems he mentioned and that science will never answer all of our questions about really anything that we observe our ability to question will always outpace our ability to discern how our world works because the former is easy and the latter just isn't here's where things get interesting the host of the video to which i'm responding has already posted another video defending his original points in this video saying among other things that appealing to the laws of nature not only fails to answer his question but actually points to his god's existence the laws of physics or the laws of chemistry are the names of god's way of ruling the universe the formation of water by the combination of hydrogen and oxygen is a chemical law however it's not a lot of chemistry that creates water this law is already the name of the formation it's just a name so it's gut who creates water by this rule the constitution of a state can only make known how the country is ruled it cannot rule the country likewise the laws of nature only describe how god controls the worlds so it's not an answer to say lazo nature if i'm getting this right he says that citing the laws of nature to answer his question of how simple inanimate particles can produce complex and even conscious beings like humans is inadequate because it doesn't explain why those laws exist or how they remain in effect so his gotcha question for atheists might now be restated as how do you explain the existence of the laws of nature this is a profound question one i don't take lightly it's one which our greatest scientific minds are only beginning to work on because we still have so much to learn because we openly admit our ignorance in the absence of compelling evidence the honest answer that i as well as any theoretical physicist actually working on this problem must give is i don't know wait so does that mean that he just asked a question which atheists can't answer actually yes because no one can give a verifiable answer to this question see i don't have an answer to this question and the host of this video says he does but give me just a moment and i think i can explain why positing an answer like god did it doesn't actually further our understanding of the issue at all this question highlights a gap in our knowledge about the universe citing this ignorance alone the host of this video says that god must be the answer this again is just a god of the gaps it's the argument that because a verifiable answer hasn't been provided we're justified in assuming that god is the answer now i've heard theists defend this thinking with arguments like a god whose nature lends itself to creating and maintaining all that we observe explains everything we observe so that god must exist however this is just proposing a hypothesis which if confirmed would explain the data and then saying that since that hypothesis explains the data hypothetically the hypothesis is confirmed here is precisely why i an atheist think i can't explain where the laws of nature came from while some theists like this host think they can if a hypothesis is unfalsifiable if it can't be proven disproven or even tested in any way i will not uphold that hypothesis as fact this host on the other hand will this god hypothesis is not being tested before it's accepted and what's worse it doesn't seem that the idea of an immaterial unobservable incomprehensible intelligence behind all things is testable in the first place if i wanted to answer this question with the same level of rigor i could just say the laws of nature just have to exist as they do or even something silly like the great incorporeal turtle upon whose back we rest maintains these laws by the deep magic of its mighty shell there is a reason why the scientific process tests hypotheses before accepting them it's easy to invent hypotheses which hypothetically explain our observations but if we accepted all such hypotheses we'd not only have to accept a vast number of mutually contradictory explanations of the same observations but we never again pursue explanations of our world which are empirically verifiable after all we already have all the answers since answers can just be made up i'll bring this video to a close in discussing the ironic intro to this video atheism a vive that constantly leads you to a dead end while questioning the universe while everything we see in the universe is actually evidence for accepting the creator atheism ignores them while theism does not necessarily hinder the use of the scientific process the god of the gaps thinking in this video is accurately described as leading to a dead end in learning about the world if we assume an explanation for the unknown rather than admitting ignorance and then using a proven practical methodology to find answers to our questions we'll never gain any more verifiable information about the unknown we will have prevented ourselves from ever escaping our own ignorance neither theism nor atheism must lead to a dead end in understanding our world but the brand of theism on display here certainly does in this video i utilized some of the ideas and tools of scientific skepticism like requiring hypotheses to be falsifiable before entertaining them and experimentally tested before accepting them there are many more tools like these which scientists often use to discover verifiable answers to our questions and minimize human bias in the process if you'd like to learn more about these tools i recommend my video how carl sagan beat pseudoscience the sagan method it's based on carl sagan's famous bologna detection kit and features plenty of insightful clips from sagan himself give it a watch and it might just help you answer difficult questions yourself or at least to see through the poor answers of others the link to that video is in the description cards and pin comment alright thanks for watching i've been drew of genetically modified skeptic a special thanks to my patrons for their constant love and support if you want to hear more from me subscribe and follow me on social media at the handles below as always if you're an apostate in need there are resources linked in the description to help you find community and mental health support remember to be kind to others in the comments and until next time stay skeptical

Channel: Genetically Modified Skeptic

Views: 1,613,655

Keywords: atheism, atheist, agnostic, skeptic, skepticism, genetically modified skeptic, gm skeptic, towards eternity, questions for atheists, atheist muslim debate, Atheists Can’t Answer These Questions, god of the gaps, fallacy of composition, scientific skepticism, islamic apologetics, challenge for atheists, arguments for god

Id: OIejZKfQQRw

Length: 16min 40sec (1000 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 02 2021