...nothing but the laws of nature, we are reduced to a set of atoms with highly complex and regulated actions. This of course would mean that there is no free will, and not merely in the sense of having no control over your destiny. Your whole life is not decided on the choices you make, but on how trillions of atoms interact as governed by the laws of nature.
No. The behavoir of subatomic particles is governed by the laws of quantum mechanics. These laws only deal with chances. It is not the cause that dictates the result, is is a set of 'dice' that do. Of course which 'dice' are 'rolled' depends on the cause. This means not even god, or nature herself, however you want to put it, knows what a particle will do. It will only know the chances. Now it is very important to understand that experiments up tilll now have proven there are no hidden variables and that nature itself really doesn't know anything at all about the outcome of the chance. Only the moment something happens nature, and we, how 'the dice landed'. From this comes the famous Einstein quote: "God does not play dice." on which Bohr replied: "Who are you to tell God what to do?"
Now scientists really hate it that nature is this way. But it is a scientists job to ignore this. They aren't there to put judgement on nature, obviously. Their job is to accept nature as she is. This is very hard to do. Einstein could not do it. And he was never able to accept this property of nature. This is one of Einstein's blunders. He actually admitted that the other was 'his greatest mistake'.
All this is because of the "Heisenberg uncertainty principle." The idea that the universe is one big complex mechanical clock with only one starting condition and thus only one outcome is wrong. The starting conditions are uncertain. They cannot be pinned down. The exact location of the walls around you are uncertain. The same goes for the properties of the particles making up your brain. This means that when we play out reality several times we will have, or rather could in theory have, different outcomes, eventhough the situation in all realities are the same.
The fact that I made this post, has nothing to do with expressing myself. My body as determined by genetics and environment, received the input of this thread.
Yes, this is true. Your brain is a 'computer' and the outcome is dictated largely by what goes in; genetics and the experienes in your childhood. But this isn't the same as determinism. What is going to happen is not cut in stone. It is only true that how you will react to what happens to you is dominated by your genetics and your childhood experiences, things you have no control or choice over. I do suggest that 'free will' is very minor and largely an illusion because we naturally have the idea we can choose what to do freely.
This would suggest that this debate is pointless. If the laws of nature make me believe in Jesus and they make you believe there is no God, how could we change them?
First of, do the laws of nature really make you believe in Jesus? As for myself I do not believe there is no God because of the laws of nature. I do not believe in god because the laws of nature one would expect to see if there was a god are missing. There is nothing that proves to me god doesn't exist. It is just that I think that if god existed that there should be proof. And that I think that when there is no proof one can't know anything.
As for changing the laws of nature. Either god exists and he is the only one that can do this, something he has never done as far as we can tell. Or god doesn't exist and the laws of nature cannot change. Unless there is a law which changes the other laws, which doesn't seem to exist because our observations indicate the laws of nature have been the same throughout time.
Actually, how could stop ourselves from attempting to change these beliefs? We have no control over anything, but even worse we wouldn't be able to do anything different now that we know of our lack of control.
It seems to me that atheism is really nihilism. Life becomes truly meaningless.
Are humans to make out if live has meaning or not? I mean, on the universal scale? Yes, as far as I know nothing that we do will make a difference on a large scale. All things we do are extremely important to ourselves and very important to those around us. They can be really important for all other humans or our planet. So there is plenty of room to give your life meaning. There just isn't a universal 'goal of life' in the atheistic way of thinking. Which is actually preferable. I mean, let's take christianity. Life on earth is only a test. We have to prove that we belong in the kingdom of god. The moment we have done this life becomes purposeless. Our goal has been accomplished. What else to do?
Really, I do not beleive any christian limits herself to the purpose of life dictated by the bible. They also give their own lives meaning. If you take away the god dictated purpose then they will still have plenty to live for. They will not be nihilists.
If we had a sufficiently powerful computer, we could press play and let it live out the future of humanity(and for that matter the universe) and be exactly correct.
In a sense the universe is a powerful computer simulation. But in the case of god it may be the same. God is doing some experiment. In both cases the outcome is unsure.
So I have a question for any Atheists. Assuming you don't find a logical flaw in my arguement, do you believe this? Do you live life in this manner, denying any control over even the slightest aspect of reality as an illusion? Would it matter? Because if this were true, you would be unable to act on it.
So no, the universe isn't deterministic.
Rationality requires free will to exist.
I don't believe this. Computers can reason, if we program them correctly. They do not have free will.
Free will requires God.
I do not believe this either.
Plus free will is a very puzzling concept to me. I mean, you just can't do what you want. People are not born as a clean slate. If my will is free enough to want to magically fly through the air, I just can't do it. Maybe only god has a free will. But he created humans in his image. So his own nature forced him to create humans in his image. Isn't that a flaw in free will? If god really had free will he would have be free to create humans any way he wanted.
So I don't really understand what makes you think this.
Seeing as how anyone in this thread believes both of these.
Actually I do not think humans have 'free will' in a pure sense. I am not sure which definition you use. As for rationality. Humans have the capability to be rational. But most of the time they are not. It is impossible to be rational the whole time. As for your definition. I do believe debate is possible but more important, I believe debate is useful, constructive and that people can be reasoned with. But it is also true that some people can be impeccable to reason. No offence but I think Pianistimo is one of these people. One could reason with her about music but not about religion.
As for objective truth. I do not believe this. I believe there is one truth, one reality. But it will be impossible to connect with this is namy cases. I mean, if there is no one writing down what really happens, for example like a galactic library as I once saw in the Silver Surfer animation series, an archive of universal truth where one can check if something matches the universal truth, then universal truth will be lost. There is no way to ever know what was before the big bang. But I do believe there can only be one answer to that question.
This means I mean that I think that humans can never have access to universal truth, they can never claim to possess universal truth.
The only way to do this would be through god. Actually, the idea that god gives their followers universal truth is one of the reasons why you will see me 'lash out' against monotheists. The idea that you have universal truth and universal morality on your side can be very dangerous.
...can the idea of pure materialism be construed as anything other than cognitive dissonance?
Cognitive dissonance? I don't really understand what you mean with your concluding questions since I don't agree with some of your definitions but let me say this.
I believe that humans naturually give their own life meaning. I mean, it is not hard to see that monotheists do all kinds of things that god never told them to do. The bible doesn't tell you to play piano. (though I am not sure but I think it does say some things about music) The bible doesn't tell you you should spend your life watching football, american football, basketball or something else. Yet many people do this nonetheless. They do it because they have decided they should do these things. So people do not need god, or something else, to give meaning to their life.
And then the universe. As an atheist it is extremely puzzeling, in an extremely profound way, something not possible to express in words, why the whole universe even exists. I mean, there could be nothing. No space, no time, no matter. For some strange reason all this accidentally came into existance. Why? Why would there have to be any law? Anything at all.
And this is also very strange. I do not undertand why there isn't nothing. But at the same time I do not understand what 'nothing' is.
Also puzzling, though much much much less so, is why there is only very tiny spot with us humans on it, and nothing that compares to us has been observed yet.
My astronomy teacher once said that we exist to observe the universe, appriciate its beauty. If we didn't exist the universe lost its reason to exist. No one would have ever become aware of its existance. I mean, if no one can observe it then why does it need to exist? So we have justified the creation of the universe

It seems that most people need to have these questions 'eliminated' (I will not call it 'answered') and this is done by theology. I do not. I do not see the need for not having these questions and I do not feel that god is a satisfying answer at all. Even if it were proven that god existed I would still have the same question.
I do not see a reason to put theology in the picture at all. The 'why' in the question is much more deeper than the usual 'why'. I do not mean it in a sense that I think the universe should have a reason to exist. It goes beyond that in a way I cannot really put into words.