[VinceField]

It’s a common misconception that the atheist or naturalist worldview is grounded in logic, while the Christian worldview is based in mere fantasy and belief. The reality is that the atheist/naturalist worldview in which nothing exists beyond matter and nature (i.e. God, the soul, etc.) is self-defeating, irrational, internally inconsistent and contradictory, actually requiring the atheist/naturalist to steal from the Christian worldview to even make an argument for their own belief system!

The atheist/naturalist worldview does not provide the preconditions for intelligibility, reasoning, science, natural laws, morality, human freedom and dignity- these immaterial and abstract elements of reality cannot exist if the universe is nothing more than matter in motion. Thus the very proposition of an argument for the naturalist worldview is proof that the naturalist worldview is false, as the atheist must employ logic and reasoning to argue, and again, these immaterial aspects of reality would not exist if the universe was strictly material.

The atheist worldview cannot account for intelligibility. In order for our experience to make sense, we need to think properly, which requires the laws of logic. A random chance universe of matter in motion doesn’t allow for an ultimate immaterial standard of reasoning. To the atheist, there shouldn’t even be the same laws of logic between any two people if thoughts are nothing more than chemical reactions in the brain, as everyone has different brains undergoing different chemical reactions. A correct and objective standard of thinking doesn’t make sense in a chance and purposeless universe.

Without an omniscient source of knowledge, there are no grounds for which anything can be known. One must presuppose their senses and memory are reliable to have knowledge, and yet this assumption cannot be accounted for in the atheist worldview where everything is just matter in motion and in constant change. There would be no way to know that your brain is conveying intelligibility in a meaningful and correct way. Assuming that your senses are accurate is begging the question. The atheist has no philosophical basis for trusting their own reasoning. Even if you had 99% of all possible knowledge, the 1% you didn’t have could completely change the 99% that you think you know, and so the naturalist has no sufficient foundation for knowledge and truth.

I’ve heard the argument from many atheists that mankind should be rational, but from the atheist worldview, where the universe is simply atoms bumping into each other with no underlying purpose or meaning, there is no obligation or reason to be rational. If naturalism was true and thoughts were merely chemical reactions guided by natural laws, there would be no mind and no objective reasoning or freedom of thought. If naturalism was true, there would be no rationality, there would just be whatever people end up thinking and doing resulting from these unguided natural processes. Thus the materialist who wants to be rational has already departed from his materialism and concedes his position.

Materialists believe that everything happens by chance and there is no personal control over the universe. They adopt a contradictory position, however, upon assuming the uniformity of nature, as there is no basis for assuming that what has happened in the past will happen in the future in a random chance universe. All human reasoning and science presupposes uniformity, but the atheist’s worldview does not account for this and they must beg the question and rely on an unquestioned philosophical bias to hold this belief. The atheist’s presupposition of the uniformity of nature is contradictory to naturalism.

The idea that empiricism is the ultimate standard of truth and that all truth claims are proved by empirical observation is another self-defeating view, as that itself is a truth claim which is by nature immaterial and thus cannot be tested or proven by science or empirical observation. Empiricism refutes itself. Science cannot account for the concept of truth. How does the empiricist know that all truth claims are proved by empirical observation? Did they prove that by empirical observation? Of course not, truth cannot be observed, it is immaterial and abstract.

Aside from the fact that you can’t make sense of evidence within the atheist worldview, as it lacks the preconditions for intelligibility as I’ve already demonstrated, evidence itself can never resolve a worldview conflict anyway, as a person’s worldview tells them how to interpret the evidence. Thus using evidence to prove the naturalist worldview to a Christian, for example, is the atheist’s folly, not to mention the fact that the atheist contradicts their own position as they do so.