Why Don't You Commit Murder?

5 Questions for Atheists

This video gives a few basic questions for atheists, questions I can answer myself.

The first one was "How can you be sure there is no God?"

The truth of the matter is, we can't. There is no possible way to prove non-existence. However, there is no empirical evidence that there is a god. Belief in god's existence is a matter of faith, not fact. There is also no possible way to prove the non existence of the unicorn or the leprechaun and yet, very few sane people actually believe in these creatures. The default position for lack of evidence for existence is non existence. But again, you cannot prove non-existence.

Take for example, Pluto. Before it was discovered in the 1930s, astronomers could easily argue that Pluto does not exist, if you went back in time and told them about it. They had no evidence that it did exist and thus no reason to believe that Pluto existed. Obviously this was wrong, but this shows how non-existence cannot be proven.

"Were you born a theist or an atheist? If born a theist, why did you change?"

I was a catholic but then I started looking at facts. I'm not sure what the author is trying to get at here.

"In the beginning there was nothing . . . which exploded"

This short paragraph, riddled with obvious sarcasm shows the author isn't very knowledgeable about high school science that I learned at a catholic school. Ironic isn't it, learning evolution at a Christian school? At any rate, This question asks about the three theories that make up the creation of the universe and life, which are the Big Bang (Origin of the Universe), Abiogenesis (Origin of Life) and Evolution (Origin of Species.) The Big Bang and Evolution are well substantiated and well explained theories found in every high school science textbook in the relevant field. Abiogenesis is still a developing theory (technically, all theories are "still developing, however in this case, scientists are still looking for more substantial evidence) and yet still, the hypothesis that life evolved from lipid vesicles and self replicating polymers is a strong indication that life did arise from non-living organic matter (not all organic matter is alive!)

The Big Bang does not state that the universe came from nothing, it states that the universe started out as a very condensed point of singularity. Imagine, if you will, all the matter of the universe in one single spot, smaller than a subatomic particle. And there was more matter than that, since much of the matter was annihilated by antimatter at the start of the Big Bang. Where did this singularity come from? Is it the result of a big crunch that may occur if the universe begins to collapse? Scientists speculate on this point but no solid theories have come about. Theists usually claim "Ah ha!" and gleefully shove their god into this gap, which is, if nothing else, a simplistic way to explain it. Nonetheless, the Big Bang itself, the expansion of this singularity into our known universe, does not claim the universe came from nothing.

Abiogenesis does not claim that inorganic matter poofed into existence, the complex and modern cells we see today. Ironically, the Bible does. God made man from clay, breathed into it and poof! Adam! Then he made woman out of a rib. However abiogenesis does claim that life came from organic matter and formed very simple replicating systems that weren't alive but could be come increasingly complex and over a peroid of millions of years became life.

Evolution is the theory which explains how simple life became more and more and more adapted to its environment and ultimately brought about the life we see to day, which is still evolving.

"How did morality evolve?"

Simple. Many organisms, including humans, are social and depend on others for their own survival. Thus a code of ethics (thou shalt not kill) develop, which will ensure mutual protection for every member of that species. After all, if there was no morality, how would we survive? We most certainly would not have the civilization we have today.

"Do I believe that a god or afterlife is possible?"

Of course it is possible. But it is also unknown. It is also unknown if there are aliens on other planets or other universes. These are all unknown and I assume it'll either make sense when I'm dead, or I'll just be dead.