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https://twitter.com/darwintojesus/status/1969212844324299005

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Darwin to Jesus

@darwintojesus

Nov 26, 2025

Earlier today I posted this meme saying that many atheists claim that it’s not actually, objectively wrong to rape a child.

Since then, I have been asked repeatedly “what atheists actually hold that view?”

These atheists all hold that view, and countless more 🧵

Alex O’Connor is a prominent atheist YouTuber, debater, and public intellectual best known for the Cosmic Skeptic channel. He is a defender of atheism, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism. In his discussions on morality, he openly rejects the idea that moral truths exist objectively in the world in the same way physical facts do. He consistently argues that without God, moral values do not have a mind-independent foundation, and that what we call “morality” ultimately comes from human psychology, evolution, and social agreement rather than from objective moral facts.

“Without God, I don’t see how you get objective moral values in the strong metaphysical sense.”

J. L. Mackie was an Australian atheist philosopher and one of the most influential moral philosophers of the 20th century. As an atheist and metaphysical naturalist, he argued that while ordinary people think moral claims describe objective truths, the world does not actually contain any such objective moral properties. Because of that, he concluded that all moral claims are systematically false. This position is now known as moral error theory and is one of the most important anti-realist views in modern philosophy.

“There are no objective values.”

Read 17 tweets

Darwin to Jesus

@darwintojesus

Nov 13, 2025

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐫𝐠𝐮𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
𝙒𝙝𝙮 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙝𝙪𝙢𝙖𝙣 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙥𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙨𝙢

I think about David Hume a lot.

Probably more than I should.

I suppose it’s because most atheists are appealing to his arguments whether they known it or not… so it’s important to be familiar with where all these ideas come from.

Anyways, I was thinking about David Hume and his famous argument against miracles a few days ago and a new thought occurred to me.

I was thinking about how Hume argued that we have no experience of miracles ever occurring, but we do have abundant experience of people being mistaken, lying, or misinterpreting events.

Therefore, he argued, it’s always more reasonable to believe that someone is wrong about witnessing a miracle than that a genuine suspension of the laws of nature has taken place.

I’ve responded to Hume’s argument against miracles elsewhere, but what struck me was the logic of it all… That logic, taken by itself, is sound.

“If we only see evidence of X and we have no evidence of Y, we should think X.”

As I reflected on this, I realized that this same principle, when applied consistently, actually leads straight to theism.

The more I thought about this, the clearer it became that this simple observation, rooted in the same principle Hume used against miracles, has profound implications.

If we only ever observe minds causing things, and we never see non-minds doing so, then the only rational inference is that the first cause of everything was also a mind.

What began as a passing thought has turned into what could become a significant argument for God. I’ve tried to write it out carefully and clearly here. I’ll warn you now that some parts are technical, but I’ve aimed to keep it accessible.

Let’s begin with the syllogism 🧵

Premise 1: A necessary being exists and initiated the causal sequence that is responsible for all of reality.

Premise 2: This necessary being either has intentionality or it does not.

Premise 3: If the necessary being has intentionality, then God exists. If it does not have intentionality, then God does not exist.

Premise 4: In all human experience, minds initiate causal sequences; non-minds do not.

Premise 5: Therefore, all evidence supports that the necessary being has intentionality.

Premise 6: If there is overwhelming evidence for one theory and zero evidence for the only other possible theory, it is rational to believe the first and irrational to believe the second.

Conclusion: Therefore, within the domain of causation, there is no evidence that supports atheism and overwhelming evidence that supports theism.

𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝟏

Premise 1: A necessary being exists and initiated the causal sequence that’s responsible for all of reality.

Before I justify this premise let’s get something out of the way immediately. When we speak of a BEING, we simply mean “something that exists.” The word does not mean personality, consciousness, or agency. A rock, a tree, or a cloud is a being in this basic metaphysical sense.

Many atheists misunderstand this point and assume that when philosophers use the word “being,” they’re already assuming some kind of personhood or divinity. That’s not the case. If something is “a being” that simply means it has existence, in other words: “to be = being.”

Now that we have that out of the way let’s discuss types of being. Among all possible beings, there are only two fundamental kinds: contingent beings and necessary beings. A contingent being depends on something else for its existence. It could have failed to exist, and it requires a cause or explanation outside of itself. Everything we observe around us fits this description. A necessary being, by contrast, exists by its very nature. It does not depend on anything else and cannot fail to exist. It exists independently and eternally.

These are the only two possible kinds of beings that can exist. The dichotomy is complete: a being is either contingent or necessary.

We clearly see contingent beings all around us. They come into existence, change, and pass away. None of them can explain their own existence. Each points beyond itself to something else that caused or sustains it. If everything that exists were contingent, then each being would require a cause, and the collection of all contingent beings would itself require an explanation.

To illustrate this, imagine drawing a large circle that contains every contingent being. Everything within this circle depends on something else for it’s existence. Because of this we must now ask: what caused all the things inside the circle to exist? The cause cannot itself be within the circle, because everything inside the circle is contingent and requires a cause. The cause must therefore be outside of the circle, and it cannot itself be contingent, since all contingent beings are already accounted for within the circle. There is only one possible answer. The cause must be a necessary being. Something that exists by its own nature and depends on nothing else for its existence.

A necessary being is not one more thing among many; it is the foundation of all other existence. Its nature is to exist without a cause and to provide the ultimate explanation for why anything exists at all.

Another way to picture this is with a chain that you see suspended in the air. Each link represents a contingent being, and each is held up by the link above it. But no matter how far up you go, the entire chain must be held by something that is not itself a link—something that holds the chain in place. If there were only links, the chain would have nothing to hang from and would not exist at all. The same is true of the universe: the chain of contingent beings must be caused by something non-contingent, a necessary being.

Therefore, since contingent beings exist, and a complete regress of contingent causes cannot explain itself, there must exist a necessary being that initiated and grounds the entire causal sequence of reality.

Read 13 tweets

Darwin to Jesus

@darwintojesus

Aug 28, 2025

There are only two possible theories for life’s origin: blind chance or intentional design.

The problem for naturalists is that the more we learn about life, the more impossible their theory becomes.

But just how unlikely is it?

Here’s why life is 100% designed🧵

How Simple Can a Cell Be?

To determine how unlikely life is to arise without a mind, we must first ask “how simple can a cell be and still survive?”

In 2016, scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute created JCVI-syn3.0, the simplest self-replicating cell ever made. They stripped away every gene that wasn’t absolutely necessary for survival.

Here’s what they found:
•The cell still needed 473 genes in total.

•438 of those genes coded for 438 distinct, functional proteins, each one a precision molecular engine built from amino acids.

•Every one of those proteins was essential for the cell to live, metabolize, and reproduce. Remove any of them, and the cell would die.

From this study we can safely say that 400 distinct functional proteins is the bare minimum for life.

So how easy is it to get these proteins?

Not easy at all.

Proteins are chains of amino acids that must fold into precise 3D shapes to work. If the fold is wrong, then the amino acids fall apart and the protein is useless.

Studies show that the odds of getting a single functional protein fold from random amino acids are about 1 in 10⁷⁷ (Axe, Journal of Molecular Biology, 2004).

To help you understand how large this number is, the number of particles in our observable universe is about 10^80.

That means the odds of mindlessly assembling just one functional protein is almost as small as the odds of a blind man picking out the one marked atom from the entire observable universe.

Read 10 tweets

Darwin to Jesus

@darwintojesus

Aug 7, 2025

𝐃𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐚𝐳𝐢𝐬 𝐃𝐨 𝐀𝐧𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐖𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠?
𝑾𝒉𝒚 𝑺𝒖𝒃𝒋𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝑴𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝑰𝒔 𝑵𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒆

One of the most popular moral beliefs in the modern world, especially among atheists, is that morality is subjective.

What’s right or wrong, they say, isn’t written into the fabric of the universe.

There’s no objective standard, no divine law, no transcendent good.

Morality, in this view, is just a human invention, shaped by culture, emotion, and social contract.

What’s “right” in one culture might be “wrong” in another.

There are no objective moral truths, only preferences and local agreements between people.

That’s it.

This view is often called moral relativism or cultural relativism, and it’s easy to see why it appeals to people today.

It sounds tolerant. It avoids uncomfortable judgments.

It tells us we can all live our truth without forcing it on others.

But is that really what we believe?

Does this theory really capture our moral experience?

This question was formally asked and answered 80 years ago…

After the Second World War, the world was horrified by the crimes committed by the Nazis. The systematic slaughter of six million Jews, the execution of political prisoners, the abuse of civilians, the inhumane experiments, they waged a total war waged on conscience itself. When the Allies won, they put the leaders of Nazi Germany on trial for crimes against humanity. These became known as the Nuremberg Trials.

Surprisingly, the Nazi leaders didn’t deny that they had done these things. In fact, many of them openly admitted to it. What they denied was that they had done anything wrong.

“We were only following orders.”
“We were acting according to the laws of our country.”
“You have your laws, and we have ours. Who are you to judge us?”

That was their defense.

In other words, they made the same argument that today’s moral subjectivists and relativists make. They claimed that morality is just a construct of society and law. And since Nazi Germany made these actions legal under their own system, they were not morally culpable. They weren’t “murderers.” They were patriots. Bureaucrats. Soldiers. Loyal Germans doing what was considered right in their culture.

And if morality is subjective and relative, they were right.

If morality really is subjective or culturally relative, then there is no ultimate moral standard we can appeal to. We can’t condemn the Holocaust. It might be emotionally offensive to us. It might be unpopular. But “wrong”?

No.

That’s why Chief U.S. Prosecutor Robert H. Jackson delivered one of the most important statements in legal and moral history. He said:

“The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated. They are wrong whether or not the particular nation which committed them is in the dock.”

He went on to declare that there exists a law above the law, a moral standard that transcends all national laws, all cultural customs, all societal norms. This moral law is not made by man and cannot be undone by man. It is higher than Hitler, higher than America, higher than every government and every opinion. And it is only on that transcendent moral ground that the Nuremberg trials could stand.

Because if there is no such law, if there is no God and no transcendent moral standard, then the Nazi defense stands.

Read 6 tweets

Darwin to Jesus

@darwintojesus

Jul 26, 2025

Every worldview has to face the problem of suffering.

But which one gives the best answer?

In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky takes it head on.

We might flinch.

But he doesn’t.

Here’s what he says about it🧵

The scene takes place in Russia during the late 1800s.

A woman comes to the monastery in tremendous grief.

She needs to speak to Elder Zosima, he is a holy man of God.

She’s just lost her fourth child.

He was only three years old…
She can’t stop thinking about him.

She tells Zosima:

“They threw him in the ground like a little dog.”

Her voice trembles.
Her hands shake.

She’s beside herself with grief and doesn’t know what to do.

Read 16 tweets

Darwin to Jesus

@darwintojesus

Jul 12, 2025

https://twitter.com/speedwatkins/status/1944021189279510941

This is a pretty standard argument from atheists trying to defend materialism and explain consciousness.

But there are at least four major problems with this view.

Let’s walk through them… (make sure you read number 4)🧵

https://twitter.com/speedwatkins/status/1944021189279510941

1. It Begs the Question.

Ben argues that because every brain state has a complete physical cause, there’s no need for the mind. But this assumes that the brain is a closed system governed solely by physical causes… which is materialism.

But “materialism is true” is the very thing Ben needs to demonstrate.

Right now he’s not arguing for materialism. He’s assuming it.

That’s textbook question begging.

2. Ben Conflates Necessity with Sufficiency.

Ben argues:

“The mind, if it moves the brain, must act through matter, for each neural state proceeds from one complete and physical cause, with no redundant force in parallel.”

In other words, he’s saying:
“If the mind is going to influence the brain, it must interact physically—but we already have a full physical explanation, so there’s no room (or need) for a non-physical cause.”

This line of reasoning completely misses the nature of what’s being claimed about the mind.

Here’s why:
Imagine someone says, “Every movement of the tongue and vocal cords has a physical cause, so we don’t need to posit a mind to explain speech.”

Would that follow? No. Tongues don’t compose sentences. Vocal cords don’t understand grammar. They are instruments, not origins. The movement of atoms and muscles is necessary* to get speech, but it is not sufficient* to get speech. Atoms and muscles alone would never cause a tongue to make meaningful speech.

Likewise, the fact that brain states involve electrochemical processes doesn’t mean those processes are self explanatory. A mind could very well use the brain, just like a speaker uses vocal cords. And yes, a speaking agent must interact with matter in order to speak, but that doesn’t mean the agent is reducible to matter.

The error here is assuming that if we can find a necessary condition for something to be the case, then that explanation is also sufficient to explain the phenomenon. Ben is conflating these two concepts.

Read 5 tweets

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