Why Atheism is Incoherent & You Aren't as Smart as You Think You Are

[Angrboda]

[H]ow can you explain that natural laws should lead to ever greater progress, towards ever more complex life, if nature is ultimately devoid of meaning or purpose?[/font][/color][/font][/color]

Given the enormous amount of embedded formatting codes, I'm suspecting this was copy-pasta from somewhere, if only your editor.

I can explain it simply. There is no trend toward progress. Nature has no arrow. As Robert Ingersoll observed, in nature there are neither punishments nor rewards; there are consequences. The idea that nature is trending one way or the other, beyond perhaps some entropic effects, is an illusion fostered by sloppy thinking.

FWIW, when I consider theist options, as a former Hindu, I lean toward the idea that we are all ideas in the mind of God, or, secondarily, the Neoplatonic god in which we are essentially derivatives of an unseen perfection, like instances of a Platonic form. How either of those differ from pantheism, I don't know. Much of what I see as pantheistic urges in people is just taking the inert universe and slapping the label God on it, which, lacking any evidence of purpose is nothing more than equivocation.