The naturalistic view of the universe is that all things came to be as a result of natural laws at work. According to this view, there is no need for a creator god because given sufficient time, natural selection will ultimately bring about whatever, of necessity, needs to exist. It brought about the formation of the universe out of nothing. It brought about the presence of life out of non-living matter. It configured the solar system as needed to support life on Earth. And even your very will is an illusion created by natural laws affecting the veritable rats nest of neurons that is your brain.

Experiments by Libet, Soon, Haynes and others have demonstrated that what is perceived by an individual as free will may well be an after effect of a subconscious decision having already been made. If indeed this is the case, then it would reasonably follow that free will is an illusion, as is all that is born of conscious choice. Your sense of personal identity and conscious awareness, and your intelligence are also therefore illusions. All of these things are the product of natural laws acting upon atoms in your brain. The illusion of consciousness is tricking itself into believing it actually exists when in fact it does not.

To go still further, one can assume that since natural laws acting on chemicals and energies ultimately resulted not only in the formation of human beings, but also directly predetermined every choice they have collectively ever made through the history of mankind. That which by human standards has met the criteria for intelligence when we applied it to ourselves, actually belongs to the collective product of natural selection driven by natural laws. Every scientific revelation, every great work of art, every book and song ever written and monument ever built was predetermined by natural laws at work. Yes, the collective sum of all natural law is an intelligence unto itself. I call this entity The Puppetmaster. He is the naturalistic god. And your will, intelligence, conscious awareness, and sense of personal identity (collectively what some might call your "soul") belong to him. You may rebel against this idea, or you may accept it, depending on which choice The Puppetmaster has predetermined for you.