The Atheist delusion
David: Richard, do atheists have free will?
Richard: Yes we have, just like any other human being. We started from a single cell and evolved into...
David: Hold on, let me interrupt you here. If we are just the product of a chemical reaction, then that means, if I’m correct, that experiencing free will and thinking are chemical reactions themselves. So actually we don't have free will, we are just the product of constant occuring chains of chemical reactions? We are being lived, instead of living how we want?
Richard: Uuh...
David: Well let me give you an example. Can you move your arm up and down?
Richard: Yes, look I'm moving it.
David: Now, did YOU actually make the choice are was it just the product of preceding chemical reactions.
Richard: Well, it came to be by impulses. When you asked me to move my arm, I received impulses in my brain, then I chose to move my arm by sending impulses from my brain back to my hand.
David: So YOU made it move?
Richard: Yes
David: So what is this YOU that apparently controls your choices? I mean what source triggered your brain to make or not to make that choice if you aren't a chemical reaction yourself which is triggered by preceding chains of chemical reactions, and those again by preceding chains, etc, etc?
Richard: Yes, I am a chemical reaction.
David: I don't know if you understand where I'm comming from. Let me put it this way: there are 115+ elements in the periodic table and the body is fully made of a whole bunch of them. All are dead elements. You're saying that something transcedental, which is YOU, can control dead elements to trigger actions at will?
Richard: Well, I wouldn't say transcedental.
David: So you're saying that chemical reactions can have free will? How come water can't choose whether are not to turn into ice at will?
Richard: Well because water is a dead inorganic substance whilst we are living organic creatures which developed more control over consciousness. Our skin is also bound to react to environmental changes.
David: Oke yes you’re right about that, but your will and thinking is not any less the product of chemical reactions than water turning into ice because of environmental changes, right? Eventhough thinking and will stem from within your body, it is a product of chemical reactions happening within the body which again is the product of other preceding chemical reactions and so on, right? Who controls them? Wait, let me put it this way: what if we could, hypothetically speaking, take your head off your body and put your head in another room. Where would this YOU be? Here or in that room?
Richard: Well, I don't know. I suppose in that room because that's where my brain is.
David: Why would you think that?
Richard: Because that’s the place where the chemical reactions occur.
David: Aren't there chemical reactions happening in other parts of your body?
Richard: Yes, but I mean it is the brain where impulses of free will and thought originate from, not from say the feet.
David: Which is again the product reaction of preceding chemical reactions right?
Richard: Yes.
David: Here's my take on it. Mere experience and observation tell me that I have free will.
Richard: Well, there's no source in the evolution model that initiates free will and then chooses to look upon the thoughts or actions it thinks its own self created or performed, just like there isn't any evidence for a Creator who looks upon the universe. We can see your body, but not your free will. We have a natural explanation for what happens in the body when moving an arm, there is no need for free will to be. Just like there’s no need for a God because we have a natural explanation for what happens in the universe. The only obvious fact here is that having free will is not supported by any evidence.
David: So you're saying that I think that I can think for and by myself, but actually I can't? I have no free will or whatsoever? It's just false believe like false believe in any deity?
Richard: Yes, it's a logical explanation if you accept that we evolved from a single cell by means of chemical processes without the intervention of some God putting souls in humans . That's why a common ancestor evolved into apes and humans, because a chemical reaction does NOT KNOW which path will bring him the best features neither can it choose that path. Reactions are reactions and are bound by the laws of nature.
David: Wait, you said in the beginning that everybody has free will...
Richard: Uuh...
Conclusion: Atheists have no free will, it's a doctrine they have to come to terms with.
