An atheist answering apologetics questions:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/6/24/1774083/-My-answers-as-an-atheist-to-apologetics-questions-from-a-religious-friend



Here's my take:



Where did I come from?

Biologically you come from your mother and your father. Psychologically and culturally you come from your family and friends.

Where did the origin of life come from?

The leading scientific theory is that the origin of life came from a thermodynamic non-equilibrium state. Life has a lower entropy than non-life, so how could this origin of life possibly have come to pass? The Second Law of Thermodynamics, that entropy always increases, is only valid for ideal, perfect systems: Systems with an infinite amount of particles and in equilibrium with itself. But that's not what real systems are like. Real systems have a limited number of particles and a delay between cause and effect. In real systems, a fluctuation can come and go before the more distant parts of the system had time to react.

That's the mathematical explanation, but what was the origin of life physically and chemically? A new and emerging theory is that it began with dirty ice and shockwave-synthesis. Ice-comets with primitive molecules of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen. When they impacted on Earth, the shockwave created very high temperatures and very high pressures inside the meteorite in the fractions of a second before it burst apart. From these primitive organic molecules, likely more complicated but still-primitive molecules were synthesized in the storm- and lighting-ridden chemical broth that were the oceans of young Earth. By pure chance, more complicated molecules emerged over millions of years. (Essentially, take a chemical beaker the size of an ocean and wait for a few million years.) A few of these molecules turned out to be molecular structures that can influence their environment: Proteins. Molecules that could influence their chemical environment in their favor survived, while those who could not did not. (Essentially darwinian evolution for molecules.) Over time, those molecules became more and more complicated and better and better at survival until we ended up with prions, viruses and bacteria.

Do I have a purpose?

Yes. Make the world a better place.

Is there ultimate meaning to life?

No. Make sure that you and others enjoy it while it lasts.

What is the purpose of life?

Biologically, the purpose if life is pure survival. Culturally, the purpose of life is building a society where people can live a good life.

How can I know right from wrong? Is morality objective or subjective? Can there be be objective standards?

Morality is by definition subjective. Morality concerns guidelines for living with each other. As such, they always depend on the circumstances.

Even if there were objective standards, we humans are biased by our limited ways of perceiving the universe, by the way our brain works, by the cultural biases with which we limit ourselves. Even if there were objective moral standards, we wouldn't be willing to accept them.

For knowing right from wrong, go by your gut-feeling. Evolution has biased your brain to have compassion for your peers. Go by that.

Where am I going?

I don't know. And that's not bad.

What happens when I die?

Your body wastes away and makes it possible for others to live. An echo of your mind stays behind as the footprints you have left and as memories in the minds of those who knew you.

What happens after death?

Nothing. And that's not bad.

How do I know any of this is true? What is truth? Is there such thing as known truth?

You can't. It's a matter of simple math. You can only know truth with perfect clarity of you have all possible information and the mind to process it unbiased. But you don't, because you're a fallible human. That's why scientists, contrary to people with religious belief, don't deal in absolutes. Scientists recognize and accept that any truth they have found might still be wrong. But if you do experiments, you can calculate an estimate for how likely it is that an explanation is the actual truth. And if you have an explanation with a very high probability for being the truth, you may treat it as truth until a better explanation comes along.