Atheism vs. Theism: Purpose, Morality, and Existence Debate

Atheists find purpose in life through personal values and relationships, not reliant on a higher power.

### Atheism vs. Theism: An Intellectual Debate on Meaning, Morality, and Existence
* 🤔 "Atheists have **nothing to die for** and **everything to live for**," highlighting the contrasting views on purpose between atheism and theism.
* 💬 In a debate between Cliff Kenley and Matt Dillahunty, they tackle critical questions about ultimate meaning, arguing that the **absence of a divine being does not negate the value of life and personal purpose**.
* 🚗 Cliff illustrates that just because something may become useless in the future, like a car, it does not diminish its **current value or purpose**, emphasizing that **meaning is derived from human experience**.
* ⚖ Dillahunty argues for a secular morality based on human interactions and the physical universe, asserting that **morality does not require a transcendent source** to be meaningful.
* 📖 The debate also touches on the nature of evidence, with Dillahunty critiquing religious texts and the **lack of compelling proof for divine claims**, while Kenley defends the **reliability of biblical manuscripts**.
* 💔 Both debaters discuss love's existence without God, with Kenley arguing that love is a **conscious choice**, while Dillahunty asserts that love can be explained through **biochemical processes**.
* ⚰ The discussion concludes with differing views on life after death, with Dillahunty asserting that **without God, existence ends at death**, while Kenley believes in the possibility of an afterlife based on **historical evidence for Jesus' resurrection**.
* 💡 Ultimately, the debate emphasizes the **importance of evidence and reason** in shaping beliefs about existence, morality, and the nature of love, regardless of theistic or atheistic perspectives.

Atheists have nothing to die for and everything to live for. In this rare debate, Cliff goes toe-to-toe with the former president of the Atheist Community of Austin in this incredible intellectual debate. Cliff Kenley and Matt Dillahunty respond to their evidence for some

of the most debated topics for religion. Make sure to comment down below which argument was your favorite. Now let's get to the debate. One is this: Is this continued objection to, without God there's no ultimate meaning, there's no real purpose? Well, I don't know what you

mean by real purpose. That seems kind of cheaty. But as far as ultimate meaning, yes, I agree, no ultimate meaning in the existential sense that you're talking about. And it doesn't matter one bit. The car that I've got out there parked in the parking lot, I've had for a couple

years. One of these days, it's going to rot away. Does that mean it's not valuable now? Does that mean it doesn't have any value to me now? Does that mean there's no purpose? Should I just go ahead and chuck it now? Let's get rid of it. Eventually, it's going to

be useless. That's absurd. We all recognize that things have meaning and purpose right now because they are valuable to us. These are things, these are properties that we imbue things with and we imbue people with. Do I matter as much to you as your spouse? Bet you I

don't, unless it's you. This idea that without ultimate meaning or if something is ultimately meaningless, doesn't mean it is always meaningless, or it doesn't mean it's meaningless in every way. This idea about morality, um, that it's all relative, um

Actually, I'm a staunch defender of absolute morality, and despite Cliff's strawman, uh, I'm not saying that slavery is immoral because I said so. It might surprise some people to know that while I don't think there's intrinsic value, I think that there is a value in people, and that's

the value that we imbue them with. This idea that because I said so is the is the basis for secular morality is flatly absurd. It's the exact opposite of what I just finished talking about, about how you go through and you build up this system. We are physical beings in a

physical universe that follows physical laws. There are truths to be discovered about how our actions benefit us and how our actions harm us. This is simply true. We don't need another mind. This is about the interaction of minds, but we don't need some transcendent mind to dictate

what is true. We discover what is true about the reality that we inhabit. God or not, soul or not, we can choose everything on the list that Cliff just talked about, about being good to each other and building a productive society and caring and loving and trying

to end poverty, trying to end oppression, and trying to build a better society. We can do all of that just because it's the right thing to do. There's no evidence for a soul. In fact, there's good evidence against it. There's no evidence or not enough evidence, um, of

the various God claims that are out there, or not any particularly good evidence at least that I've been made aware of. But I could be wrong, and tomorrow I could find out that there is a God and that I do have a soul, and it

wouldn't change very much for me as far as how I end up living my life because I've already come to good reasons to do things. I'm open to being corrected on them, but what's going to correct me is reason and evidence, not appealing to

a God. And if people ask me, well what are you going to do if you die and you end up standing before God? Hey, I tried. I used my brain. I followed the evidence where it was. And by the way, if your character is actually accurately depicted in the Bible or the

Quran, I don't want nothing to do with you. I'm already morally superior to you. I already care more about people than you do. I know I've never sanctioned slavery, never sanctioned genocide. Gods have. Do all religions lead to the same God? I don't

know. I think I think it's unlikely. Um, I think they clearly all define God differently. I think you could go right down into the same church on the same pew and get two different people and they're going to define God differently and they're going to have

different views of God. I think there's as many different religions as there are people trying to practice them. And my concern isn't whether or not they all lead to the same God, it's what kind of world do they end up creating because why should I care about an afterlife

that I don't know whether or not exists when I've got a life that I know that I have and I'd like to make it better. And if your religion is impeding on the ability of people who don't practice your religion or those who do

from living the best life they can right now, then your religion is a problem. That goes for Islam, Christianity, Scientology, Hinduism, and everything. If you're advocating something that is detracting from the good of this world, you're part of the

[Applause] problem. Thank you, gentlemen. Matt, the next question will start with you. Does being an atheist require the same faith that believing in God does? No, I, I'm seriously, it doesn't require any faith to not believe something. It doesn't. Now, if atheism was

this assertion that there are no Gods, oh, I'm pissing people off. If atheism was this assertion that there are no Gods, well, then yes, you might be able to make a case that that was based on faith. Or maybe it's not. It would depend on

what the basis, what the foundation for that particular belief was. But atheism in the weak atheism sense of 'I do not believe this,' doesn't require faith. I don't believe there's a Bigfoot. That, that's not a faith. It's not a

faith-based position. Uh, I'm not asserting certainty that there isn't a Bigfoot. I'm just not yet convinced the Bigfoot claim hasn't met its burden of proof. Neither have alien abductions, which by the way, I'll point out you can

actually go talk to real living people right now who will tell you their alien abduction story. Living, breathing people, you can talk to them. They will have stories that are similar in detail. In some cases, there are multiple people who've supposedly experienced this together. In some cases, the VIS, this

things that people have seen have been entire small towns and you can interview these people how many people think that they're actually being abducted by aliens not me that's people you can talk to right now somebody writes a couple books in a couple thousand years somebody could

stand up and say hey look I wouldn't believe it but look at all of these accounts these are firsthand people they were interviewed by the news we have a much better record of what was happening at the end of the 20th and beginning

of the 21st century then we do about what happened back when Jesus was supposedly alive or back around the time that uh Hinduism was being formed this is a real record we even have video footage of people talking about how they came down

and then they'll start tying it together in an intricate little web the same way conspiracy theorists do right now oh there were lizard people in the government or crop circles out there we don't believe any of that I hope I am at Texas State I kind of respect you guys

CU I don't care about colleges so we're not in any rivalry you know UT uh but we don't believe that why should we and yet we're expected to believe what is potentially a more extraordinary claim and weaker evidence there's nothing particularly

extraordinary about a universe that's billions 13.7 billion years old that there might be some other life somewhere I don't know probably unlikely they made it this far no reason for them to pick out Earth because we're not special despite what

many creationists would have you believe they've got this wacky coyote God who straps on a hat and balances on a wire and goes through all this stuff to catch a coyote. He builds this entire massive Universe all for one mammal species on

this little bitty insignificant dot. Did the aliens get here? I don't know. I don't think so. I don't have any good reason to believe that they did. Doesn't mean I believe that they didn't. And yet we're expected to believe the more extraordinary claims of

religion unless sound evidence. We're expected to believe miracles, things that suspend or violate the laws of nature. There's nothing about alien abductions that necessarily violates laws of nature, is there? I mean it's at least slightly more reasonable and yet we don't believe it

with people you can talk to. Yet we're going to point to anonymous books that are hearsay accounts, copies of copies of translations of copies by unknown and anonymous authors, wherein which we know there are forgeries. Anybody seen snake salvation on TV? It's on National

Geographic. It's about the snake handling Pentecostals and they rely on Mark 16, somewhere in the 9 through 20 section, I think it's around verse 18 where they say 'you shall take up serpents.' Mark 16:9-20 is almost certainly a forgery.

It doesn't exist in the oldest and best manuscripts. Yet they believe it. Maybe it should be there. Maybe there are the ones that are right. I like snakes. I've got pet snakes. I'm not going to handle them and I'm certainly, you know, I'm I'm I'm G

to handle mine I'm not going to handle venomous snakes uh for fun and certainly not as an exercise of faith because there's not really good evidence that it's actually um something that we should encourage because those guys get bit and die all the time and my my

pastor friends who don't adhere to that particular doctrine look at them and say hey dummy God gave you a brain and doctors you know go there's not agreement on these issues about God we don't have good evidence for these things we have or fallacies

and tired old arguments that have been rebutted over and over again if there is a God he knows exactly what it would take to convince me he hasn't done it meaning he either doesn't exist or he doesn't want me to know he exists

Does being an atheist require the same faith that believing in God does? No, an atheist has a type of faith that says I'm going to live for someone or something other than God and the fascinating question that I love to ask my atheist friends is what do you live

for and what is the evidence that whatever it is you live for is true now the majority of my atheist friends living in the United States live for money and it makes sense money can benefit you a great deal nothing wrong with money but is the ultimate purpose

of life to live for money so my secular materialist friends are very talented majority of them work on Wall Street and majority of my secular materialist friends live for the American dollar I think we live in a culture that puts a premium on that I'm

not saying that Matt does, I'm just saying the majority of my atheist friends who are very wonderful people live for money, others of them live for pleasure, they've reduced the purpose of life to stimulating my nerve endings. I understand that I enjoy pleasure, I'm

convinced that pleasure is a gift from God. The central nervous system that I have that gives me pleasure is good, the taste buds on my tongue that enable me to enjoy food is good, but to reduce the purpose of life to stimulating my

nerve endings, I mean come on now. What I find interesting is Matt consistently says well there's not enough evidence, fine. What I would love to hear from Matt is what am I living for, and what's the evidence of what I am living for is

true? See, friends, all of us are going to put our heads on our pillows tonight, none of us can prove that what we're living for is true. Question though is, what's the evidence that whatever it is you're living for is reliable and true and

there are a lot of different options out there now. Matt likes to talk a lot about the Bible, so let's talk about the Bible. The gospels that we have in English today are based on over 5,200 Greek manuscripts or pieces of manuscript

dated from the 2nd through the 10th century AD, all agreeing to an infinitesimal degree. There is no document from Antiquity that can even approach the New Testament gospels in manuscript evidence. Secondly, you have four different gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They're not

carbon copies, obviously they use notes, there are similarities in language between, especially the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, but there's a tremendous internal consistency between Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. There are no major contradictions, there are different perspectives, the same way that if you

and I were standing on a street corner and we saw two cars coming down the street and we heard a woman scream, there was a screech of brakes and then there was a collision. If you and I went to the police department and you said, 'Officer, I

saw the two cars coming down the street, I heard a woman screaming, then there was a collision.' And if I were to say, 'Officer, I saw the two cars coming down the street, I heard a screech of brakes and then there was a collision,' we're not

contradicting each other, we're offering two equally valid perspectives on what really happened, and that's what you've got in the gospels. I'm real glad they're not Xerox copies, they're not photocopies, they're unique perspectives on Jesus of

Nazareth. Now what I find astonishing is that Matt says he went to seminary. No, I didn't. All right, you were going to the ministry. I was going to... I didn't go. Yeah, you want to go into the ministry. Okay, which means you probably read the Bible

and then when you wheel off a statement that the Bible doesn't say anything against slavery, that's embarrassing. Let me tell you why it's embarrassing. The main point of the book of Philemon in the New Testament is Paul is writing to a slave owner, Philemon, and

He is saying, "I met your runaway slave Onesimus now in the Roman Empire. The rule of law is that you are permitted to execute the guy, he's a runaway slave. But I, Paul, am asking you, Philemon, to take Onesimus back, no longer as a

slave, but as a brother in Christ." Who do you think fought and finally won for the abolition of slavery in the British Empire? A man named William Wilberforce, who served in the British Parliament. And it was due to his faith in Christ that he struggled against

slavery in the entire British Empire until he won, just before he died. Why did William Wilberforce fight for the abolition of slavery in the British Empire? Because he was a devoted follower of Christ and he understood that all human beings are created in the

image of God. Therefore, to stand against slavery and to stand for the value and dignity of all of human life is not an option. So I can promise you, folks, you've got to read the text for yourself because if a man as intelligent as he

can say the Bible never says anything against slavery, you've got to read it for yourself. Read Philemon in the New Testament. What do you both think or believe will happen after you die? I imagine my wife will get married to somebody else, and actually, uh, she's

she's going to run off with a friend of hers and have a whole bunch of... Oh, you may what's going to happen to me? I don't know. I don't see any reason to think that anything is going to happen to me. Uh, everything that makes me

me everything that we uh have historically and religiously attributed to a soul that can be identified with a place is has a place in the brain My personality is in my brain We know from experiments on people who have suffered all sorts of brain damage that

you can reset people's personality their preferences their memories their ability to make new memories uh I'm going to get the the name wrong but I somebody will know anyway did a talk a talk at one of the religion Summits about a split brain patient

hemispherectomy they can communicate with both halves and each half has its separate personality and a separate identity and communicates independently one half Christian the other half atheist Now I guess you could argue that when we split that brain in half there was only enough soul for one side and

the other side uh just got you know shafted but everything we know about what makes us us our likes our preferences our desires they're all all a product of the brain A lot of theists would say that that there's a soul behind it all as a

puppet master the ghost in the machine and yet there's no evidence to support this and it and it doesn't make sense in the model If I suffer severe brain damage and all of a sudden I don't remember the past I don't remember that

I love my wife I don't like the same foods I don't want to interact with the same people and now all of a sudden I believe in God Am I the same person I don't think so Haven't we really kind of ended up

with a whole new person I have an argument that I use partially as a joke It's an argument that demonstrates, according to some traditions, nobody's in heaven and it's really easy in heaven There's no suffering and no sadness According to some traditions, my mom is

convinced she's going to heaven She's convinced I'm going to hell I don't know who's going to end up in heaven, but it won't be my mom There's no way my mom could be up in heaven, not suffering and

not sad that her son is in hell And if God does some kind of magic to take that out of her, it's not my mom anymore It's a facsimile of my mom, some kind of robotic worshipping thing that's not my

mom My mom and I disagree violently on religious stuff, so much so we don't talk about it anymore because we love each other We'd like to have a civil, you know, Thanksgiving or Christmas or whatever religious holiday drives me up there to to visit and hang

out By the way, we celebrate Christmas We have a big white tree with uh peppermints and stuff on it It's awesome, entirely secular stuff We're stealing it back because Christianity stole most of those things from from other religions, but and Easter too, but I'm not that big on

eggs and candy because I'm diabetic But everything that we know about us takes place in our brain Your brain gets damaged, are you the same person? I don't know The math on souls is confusing Sam Harris has talked about the math on souls for people who believe

that zygotes get a soul because the embryo will sometimes split and then re-get together so when it splits does it have two souls and when it comes back together does it just have one or now do we have a body with two souls or do we

not put a soul in until afterwards or does it happen when he breathes his first breath as the Jews believed doesn't it? It doesn't make any sense the math on Souls doesn't make sense the science on Souls doesn't make any sense there's no reason to think that there's

some kind of ghost dictating what goes on in my brain. We haven't even gotten into Free Will. CL keeps asserting that we have it. I'm not convinced we do, at least not in the sense that he's talking about. I don't know what's going to

happen to me when I'm dead. I'm pretty sure my body's going to rot, my brain's going to stop working and I will cease to exist and it didn't bother me before I was alive so I don't see what bother me

afterwards. Guys, we got to be honest with each other. If there is no God, we know exactly what happens when we die. If there is no God, there's no life after death. If there is no God, you are matter and energy and when you die, you die

the matter and energy fall apart. So let's not act like maybe there's life after death. No, that's illogical. If there is no God, when you die, when I die, we become fertilizer. Very logical, very reasonable. But you know what the problem

The problem is that I've got to do funerals for families that are atheist or agnostic. Inevitably what happens to me is I'm standing there and they're coming up to me saying, "Well, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe the Great Spirit..." Excuse me, "Great Spirit, what are

you talking about? If there is no God, there's no Spirit. There's matter and energy, and when we die, the matter and energy falls apart. Now, don't get scared, just face reality, be objective, and don't allow your fears to get you knocking your knees saying, "Oh,

well maybe, oh well possibly." No, be rational, use your good mind. If there is no God, when you die, you rot. When I die, I rot. End of story. Just think about it. Now, there's an alternative to that, and the alternative is that if there's a

supernatural God, then possibly there is life after death. And I can promise you, I would never believe there's life after death because I'm scared to die. That's being a wimp, that's being a coward. Instead, you'd better use your brain and you better start thinking, and

you better figure out: does the evidence point to there being something more to reality than matter and energy, there being some type of God, or does there not? And then, secondly, you better use your brain and you better think real clearly: does the historical evidence point to

Jesus having died and risen from the dead, or not? And I can promise you, if you believe there's life after death because you're scared to die, you're an intellectual wimp. And I would never believe there's life after death because I find it

attractive and Matt is wrong. I don't believe there's life after death because I've got this deep longing for life after death, but I'll tell you exactly what I do if I find that I have a deep longing for something: I look at the

evidence to find out is there any truth to it or not. And if there's no truth to it, I drop it, but if there is evidence to support it, I would be very wise to follow that evidence. Now, why do I believe there's life after death? First of all, because

the evidence is there is a supernatural God. And second of all, because the historical evidence is that Jesus was dead and 3 days later he rose from the dead, and the people who saw him risen from the dead died for not for belief, they died for what they claim to have

seen: the dead Christ risen from the dead. If you claim to have seen something like Matthew, Mark, John, Thomas, Phillip, Andrew, Peter, if you claim to have seen the dead Christ risen from the dead and then you stand before Roman soldiers and the Roman soldiers say 'Caesar is Lord and live or else' maintain

their to Jesus has risen from the dead and we will execute you for it. And if you stand there and and say 'I'm sorry, I've seen Jesus risen from the dead,' that gives your claim tremendous credibility. So the evidence is Jesus rose from the dead. That's why I'm

convinced when he promises you eternal life if you trust in him. He ain't blowing smoke, he's speaking the truth. How do you both explain love? Is it a real thing if there is no God? You have reduced reality to matter and energy, which means the student at Duke

University was absolutely right when he said to me, Cliff, there is no God. And I asked, "Fine, then what motivates Mother Teresa to do what she's doing among the dying in Kolkata, India?" And he was spot on when he said, "The drive to preserve

the genetic pool; that's what motivates Mother Teresa." And I said, "I'm sorry, I don't agree. I don't think that Mother Teresa has to work among the dying in Kolkata, India. I think that she freely chooses to. I think that she freely chooses to

love people who are dying ghastly deaths, and that ability to choose to love is part of what it means to be a human being. And every atheist, every agnostic, every human being has the ability to love. All of my atheist friends love very deeply; they love, but

what is love? Love is not simply a biochemical reaction, a sex drive, or a drive to preserve the genetic pool. Love is a decision of the will to care for someone else. Now, I think Matt's definition of love, it's it's something that just comes to you, is straight out

of Hollywood. In other words, love in America for too many of us is something you fall into and fall out of; it's a feeling that just sort of overwhelms you. Jesus said, "Love your enemy." I never have good feelings for my enemy, so is Jesus being unrealistic when

he commands us to love our enemies? No, because when you read the New Testament and the Old Testament, what you begin to realize is love is not a feeling that you either fall into or out of; rather, love is a decision of the will to pray for and to work for the well-being and

the success of another human being even if that person is your enemy so you and I are created to love. We all have a free will and we all choose whether to love or to seek revenge. We all choose whether to love or to be apathetic. We all choose whether we

love or hate and I can promise you if you put your faith in Christ all that he wants to do is help you to love others better and that has been my experience. I I went to Davidson College down in North Carolina to play basketball. The only problem was I wasn't

good enough to play D1 basketball so I barely made the team and I had good seats for every game and there was an assistant coach who would stand on the sidelines during basketball practice and he would mock me and my teammates would come up to me

and say hey man what have you done against this guy? Did he treat you like a piece of dirt? And I say I don't know, but inside me I felt a hatred and resentment towards this man cuz he stood between me and what I wanted to do

Cliffe Knechtle Debates Atheist Matt Dillahunty | Is There Life After Death?

Bible Alive

Debate on the Meaning and Purpose of Life Without God

Discussion on the objection that without God, there's no ultimate meaning or purpose.

Argument that the absence of ultimate meaning doesn't negate present value and purpose.

Analogy of a car's eventual decay not diminishing its current value.

Explanation that meaning and purpose are properties we imbue things and people with.

Discussion on the relativity of morality.

Defense of absolute morality, rejecting the idea that it's solely based on personal assertion.

Emphasis on the physical nature of beings and the universe, and the discoverable truths about actions' benefits and harms.

Argument that understanding the interaction of actions and consequences doesn't require a transcendent mind.

Assertion that building a better society and pursuing good actions are achievable without belief in God or a soul.

Argument that atheism doesn't require faith, contrasting it with the assertion of the existence of God.

Discussion on the difference between weak atheism ('I do not believe') and strong atheism ('there are no gods').

Use of the Bigfoot example to illustrate the lack of faith in disbelief.

Comparison of belief in alien abductions with religious beliefs, considering evidence and burden of proof.

What Atheists Live For and Evidence for Beliefs

Questioning the motivations of atheists and the evidence supporting their life choices.

Observation that many atheists in the US live for money, pleasure, or sensory stimulation.

Critique of reducing the purpose of life to pleasure or sensory stimulation.

Challenge to atheists to explain what they live for and provide evidence for its reliability.

Evidence for the Bible and the Nature of the Gospels

Presentation of manuscript evidence supporting the New Testament gospels.

Discussion of the four gospels' unique perspectives, emphasizing internal consistency rather than contradictions.

Analogy of eyewitness accounts of a car accident to illustrate the different perspectives in the gospels.

Rebuttal of the claim that the Bible doesn't address slavery, citing the book of Philemon.

Mention of William Wilberforce's role in abolishing slavery in the British Empire, linking his actions to his faith.

Afterlife Beliefs and the Nature of Consciousness

Discussion on what happens after death, focusing on the material nature of consciousness and the lack of evidence for a soul.

Explanation of how brain damage affects personality and memories, challenging the concept of a separate soul.

Example of split-brain patients to illustrate the connection between brain and personality.

Argument that severe brain damage results in a different person, challenging the idea of a persistent soul.

Humorous argument questioning the compatibility of heaven with the suffering of loved ones.

Discussion on the nature of love, challenging the reduction of human motivation to genetic preservation.

Example of Mother Teresa's actions, arguing that love is a choice rather than a mere biological drive.

Assertion that all humans have the capacity to love, regardless of belief in God.

Distinction between love as a feeling and love as a decision of the will.

Discussion on Jesus' command to love enemies, emphasizing the choice involved in love.