5 Questions Every Atheist MUST Answer: I answered all five of them. Does that make me an atheist?

Q1: Are you using "chance" in the same way in which you accuse Christians in using "God of the Gaps"?
I stumbled upon this video on YouTube, so I am not sure who the person in the video is. But it does not sound like he really understands the scientific process. In any case, no. The difference between using "chance" or "God of the Gaps" is that the latter is untestable, while the former is. Furthermore, he used the term "chance" in an overarching generalization; but let's assume the main statement he is making is about evolution. Evolution through random variation of individuals within a species is a mechanism that can be tested, and has been already (just Google and you'll find links to many.).

Q2: Why should there be something instead of nothing?
I don't know. At present, science did not claim to be able to answer that question. Perhaps it will be able to answer it in the future, but at present, not yet. So this probably brings to the natural counter argument, which is "Science does not give all the answers, so we must turn to God". If science does not give answers, doesn't mean turning to somewhere else will provide correct answers. Another way of putting it is this: just because we can't find an explanation doesn't mean we cop out to alternative explanations - we try harder.

A second way I might answer this question is with another question: "why should there be nothing instead of something"? Or, why is the burden of explanation lies on "something" rather than the "nothing" part of the question. It sounds a non-question that does not justify either side of the argument. Sure religion claims it can answer this question, but is their answer to the question true?

The person in the video goes on to say that the Earth seem to be fixed just exactly to make life possible (typical intelligent design argument). This one may appear very convincing at first, because Earth sits precisely at a very small range where liquid water can exist, and we are very lucky to happen to have such a planet. That is because life began on a planet with liquid water. Other (theoretically) possible forms of life can be silicon-based, or where the required chemical substrate is liquid ammonia. When life springs up there and they evolve intelligence, they will say "oh, my planet seemed fixed just exactly to make me possible! There must be an Intelligent Designer!!!"

Q3: Where do you get your morals from?
It appears that this person does not understand the evolutionary model of the origin of morals. If we use evolution to explain morals, the correct description is that we evolve our brain to consider "how we ought to behave" so that a stable society can exist. Evolution naturally selects individuals who think twice before stealing your friends' food, etc. Because chaotic society with no morals will not last very long in the wild.

Q4: How did morals evolve?
Huh? Wasn't that the third question? Well, in this part he did mention more about why do people feel guilty when doing something wrong (hence morals), which, could not have evolutionary advantage. Well, humans are social beings, if we do not feel guilty killing people, then our society will be in chaos and we will be long extinct. In any case, the true explanation of the origins of human morality is probably more complicated that that, I'm just using the above argument to refute his claims.

Q5: Can nature generate complex organisms when previously there was none?
I thought that has been covered elaborately by evolution. Otherwise in this question he seemed to be repeating the same argument about intelligent design, which can counter by the same argument.


I'm pretty sure this doesn't confirm me to be an atheist (yet), but merely attempted to refute his arguments. Of course, I readily admit my own arguments above are not well-posed or elaborated, because of space constraints (I'm keeping in mind that people probably won't like to read long-winded, talky blog posts, so I tried to be concise here). So I'll come back to these points again some time in the future.