Why Do Atheists Exist?

I hope to accomplish a number of things here and you'll see why.

The title question is basically a question about what convinces non-believers to be ... non-believers, whether they are "agnostic" or strict atheist or anti-Christian (because these are all different, and, I believe, incompatible with each other).

The answer is simple on a critical level (though this does not address societal issues, like right-wing ideology): atheists sense or directly understand incompatibility between commonsense notions of free will and religious belief.

The problem here (one of many) is that religous people don't actually have belief. They have emotional motivation to make claims that don't congeal in a way that form belief. I think if we continue discussing the above compatibility you'll see better what I mean.

Atheists form a large group of perhaps half the population who believe various forms of things that differ from monotheism (usually Christianity and Islam). Usually all that an atheists means by being atheist is his/her attack on monotheism (a negative position) rather than something that he/she believes positively. IE: He thinks the God concept confuses commonsense notions of free will, but it does not tell you what he/she actually believes about choice. He/she claims what is wrong (is a skeptic) but has not yet said what he/she believes is right.

An historical problem for philosophy is the discussion of free will. It has been said that though Kant was broad and comprehensive (perhaps moreso than anyone else) all he really want to show was that free will was absolute. When Thomas Reid wrote (a little before Kant) his emphasis really became about "active powers" which, when translated contextually, is about free will. The "deeper" religious debates really revolve (when they contain actually discussion of belief) around free will, whether it is provided, measured, restricted, etc.

For us, of course, defining free will would be useful and, it turns out, pretty complicated. For the same reason that religious people are so well able to manipulate language, most thinkers have a hard time explaining free will. The less capable humans are of grasping something, the easier it is to confuse and confound the thing. Is free will as simple as absolute choice?

I think to really help this discussion I want to bring in an additional question that really sounds more like an academic paper title and for a good reason. This question is: Is the concept of free will an all-or-nothing answer?

I really thought about putting this question at the top and then decided against it. I also think it is harder to understand this than it is to understand free will. And the definition of free will has to be clear in order to provide this. After all, the delineation of the elements of the free will discussion is intended to show the core of the atheist position.

There are people like Kant who (despite the irony in his commonsense structural argument for it) wanted to build a critical structure in support of free will or active powers. For there to be "choice," there must be an equal chance of choosing something else. In order to go right, I must have been able to go left. This should seem obvious. There are people like Einstein who (based on, it is said, reading Spinoza, of whom I am not very knowledgeable) are "strict determinists." What does this mean? It means that the world has such a strict order, revealed by strict rules, that the simple life of a human is but a bit of energy engulfed by this order. Another way to explain it (which is, btw, the way I explain it to students who start by knowing nothing) is that a super computer, with all of the information in the world, could easily take one human and show exactly what he/she will do at every moment of their life. The simple definition of determinism is that given a decision, to go right, any other option was not possible.

A super computer could plug in your info and using a complete "world" database show exactly what you will do. This, if done correctly, will actually match perfectly with what we call the "future." That is to say, the computer will say that you will go right, and, when you get there, you will go right. And if, by chance, you learn of this and, to be annoying, go left, the computer will have predicted this also. I suppose this means that the world and your biology and genetics, are so solid and objective, that a map could be made of every choice and movement in your insignificant life.

With this as the alternative, you can see why Kant made a commonsense argument against it. What consequence does determinism have for, say, religion? For one it means that God cannot punish, for how could he punish an action entirely predetermined? And, to this, add that, by definition, he predetermined it.

Our question, though, is about a middle ground. Can there be a third or fourth (or however many) option to the solution of free will v determinism? I think answering this question will shed light on what the definition of free will really is. I also think it will help answer the question about what atheists (on a real critical level) sense is wrong with religious thinking.

I have a sense, though I do not know confidently, that one either has to pick free will or determinism. From this choice, you can precede to explain your own position. The suggestiong that you have to "choose" though demonstrates maybe where I am on this, and I would say that I stand with Kant (over Einstein, though it might be at the bottom semantic).

I do not sense that there is a middle ground. If you grant one choice, you grant every choice in a fully lived life. If you stand with a structured, rule-based world I think you have to stand with it completely. If my "real" choices are predicated on some real freedom, then freedom must suggest the fundamental inevitabilty of all that we call choosing. To live with any freedom means to have the potential to be fully free, in this one sense, and I daresay this is the crux of existentialism. For how can we proclaim anything or form any moral judgement if, in fact, there is no, or limited, ability to have chosen otherwise? This is, of course, Kant's argument distilled.

I am suggesting two things, however. I am suggesting that there is free will and that, in addition, there is no middle ground. To grant a little free will is still to grant free will and in this to grant it indefinitely. If you find yourself curtailing free will on a fundamental level, I believe the opposite is true; I think determinism creeps in completely. I think this is how Einstein felt.

To answer the original question: It should seem obvious now that God cannot be God in a determinist universe. He would be a malevolent alien or the originator of every evil and prepostrous thing that has befallen man and, in turn, will have redeemed man completely as a slave. There can be no morality where there is complete fascism and inevitability.

God also cannot be God in a world of real freedom. The Christians are fond of saying that God grants free will, but it should seem obvious if you have made it this far, that freedom cannot be granted. That is a painful conception of a middle ground rooted in nonsense. If I can grant free will, I can un grant it. If free will is God's construction, it is no more free than the gift of hand cuffs. If in fact there is no middle ground, which seems obvious, then God cannot perform any determinist action because there would always and objectively be an alternative. A God would not be in control at all of a world in which choice is possible and he certainly would not be able to judge or punish, which removes a good chunk of the religious story.

This is of course (this last thing) at the heart of Socrates' Euthyphro. It seemed obvious to him and to many Greeks that the concept of active powers relative to a God contradicts the idea of choice and freedom. It muddles the entire discussion, and it does this merely to attain emotional satisfaction. In turn it promotes ... what? it promotes atheism.

*Euthyphro was "forced" by Socrates to admit that the Gods cannot "make up" morality because then it would be opinion, but neither can they get it from somewhere else because then they would be subject to its laws and not Gods. Coming as no surprise to nonbelievers, the Euthyphro really shows the instable positions held by believers, that they simultaneously believe both because neither is possible. It distills down to a chicken-and-egg argument, which came first? Morality or God? And the answer is not possible because the belief, as it clashes with a stable notion of active powers, becomes incoherent.