The truth about 'serious atheism'

In such a universe no objective morality can exist. Matter does not care what we do. Moreover we are not responsible to anyone for anything. The serious atheist who does think they are responsible to anyone for anything is just seriously mistaken.

Sellick refers to "human failings," "and "human cruelty" but again these words mean nothing if atheism is true. One cannot fail if there is no objective goal and one cannot be cruel if there is no objective moral standard.

This sounds shockingly counterintuitive but it just shows how powerful the influence of Christian/religious belief remains in our society. Let's face it, we desperately want to believe that it is true that rape and murder are actually wrong and that kindness and generosity are actually right. To think that all these behaviours are equally "good" and "bad" – that the notion of morality is essentially meaningless - is too awful to contemplate. But such is the nature of an atheistic universe.

Lastly and most significantly, the serious atheist should recognise that an atheistic universe would be one that is fully determined, that is, one without any free will. The laws of physics acting on physical matter would fully determine everything that a person thinks, says, and does and nothing could make it otherwise.

As atheist Sam Harris has noted, ". . . the future is set – and this includes all our future states of mind and our subsequent behaviour" (Free Will, p. 29) and, "The next choice you make will come out of the darkness of prior causes that you, the conscious witness of your experience did not bring into being" (ibid. p. 34).".

Should this be true then it must be conceded at this point that all rational, meaningful interaction is impossible and always has been. The fact that we feel like we genuinely interact with each other must be nothing more than an extraordinary illusion. Hmmm.

Sellick generously states, "Atheists are to be admired for their commitment to truth and their refusal of superstition, sentimentality and the wishful thinking that cannot cope with the stark realities of life."

Well, if atheism is true then the stark reality is that life and morality are both objectively meaningless. If serious atheists are as committed to the truth and opposed to wishful thinking as Sellick thinks, then, as grim as the truth may be, let's hear them spell this out clearly.

But I forget, if everything is fully determined by the laws of physics acting on matter then we have no influence over how we feel about things or what we do about them anyway.

Serious atheism, if true, means that we live in a world that is actually nothing like what we think we know or experience.