Answering a Christian-Fundamentalist's "Gotcha" questions.

In yet another social media discussion group
which has nothing at all to do with Christianity, 
a Christian fundamentalist is going around threatening people with Hell 
and pushing absurd culture-war polemics.

The admins,
having an unstated favoritism towards Christianity, 
allow all sorts of nonsense from them;
while blocking contrary threads. 

Fortunately, they usually allow pushback in the comments. 
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 So now this random fundie is asking me some questions.

Here are my answers to those questions:
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1. "Then can you please tell me what is Truth?"
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Truth is whatever is subject to rational standards of falsifiability
but then is rigorously tested, and is (as a result) demonstrated to be correct.

This is why your religious beliefs are not true.

They were tested; by the same rational standards we humans can-and-do test everything by.

They failed all the tests.

Thus, it is now ignorant and dishonest to call those "true".
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2. "What is Life?"
--

You want me to define "life" for you?

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3. "Where did Life come from?"
--

All of the necessary chemical structures for life
were deposited on this planet by meteorites, billions of years ago.

We don't have access to study whatever planets they came from.

So we're still studying both chemical and biological evolution, to solve this entirely-scientific mystery.

As for where and how the first life in our universe emerged?

We only are reasonably confident it all arose from from natural chemical processes.

We don't have all the pieces of that puzzle in place yet.

But it's really unhelpful for your "totally not a religion" to just give up and say
"Magic Man In Sky did a big magic".
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4. "Why are we here "
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For the same reason an infinite of not-existing people are not here.

But since they are not here, they don't get to ask the question.

It would be like a tree asking "why am I here?".

Life happens.

Your individual life wasn't hand-picked by a Magic Man In Sky as more worthy to exist than an infinity of people who will never exist.
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5. "And can Engry (energy) be destroyed."
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These are some pretty random questions.
But ok.
Fine.

Within the context of our limited observations,
within the context of our known universe,
we're pretty sure that:

The energy within our universe is never created, never destroyed, and that no mechanism exists within our universe to every do such a thing.

If this is true. then ~it stands to reason~ that all the energy this universe consists of ... has always existed in some ever-changing form.
 This is, btw, what the early Stoics believed.

Although, that's a macroscopic observation.

It might not be true at a quantum level.

Virtual particles do pop in and out of existence;
constantly, in the space between protons, neutrons, and electrons.



They are some form of energy.

They do seem to be constantly created and destroyed, by natural physical processes that we don't yet understand.

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6. "Where will your spirit and soul go after we die."
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We don't even know if we have a spirit or soul, in the sense of the word(s) you are using.

In fact (yes; fact), Bible writers did NOT believe in your idea of a "spirit" or "soul".

They meant it differently.

But if we do have a "spirit", then:
those spirits go
wherever they go.

Your "totally not a religion" is just guessing about it.

Your guess is no more valid than anyone else's.

My hesitation to guess,
my refusal to let other fallible men guess FOR ME, 
along with my refusal to pretend my guesses are "divinely revealed" ...
is (all) actually a CREDIT to my personal character.

It doesn't reveal me to be "wicked". 

It reveals me to be thoughtfully reasonable. 
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7.
"Do you really believe nothing made everything."
--
Nobody thinks that.

It's a strawman apologists use to make their position seem more reasonable
(compared to the strawman's position). 
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8.
" And why do we have a conscience?"
--
Chemical and biological processes,
along with how those are shaped and triggered by physical environment, social environment, and personal experiences ...
generate the mental states we call "conscience".

Only most humans experience it.

Only some few humans experience it greatly.
 You are not among that smaller group. 
But I don't say this to be insulting.

 My conscience is (evidently) greater than yours.

 BUT my conscience is lesser than some people's.
 For example, I don't lose any sleep over eating slaughtered sentient animals. But I should.

 It is a form of murder. 

Far-future humans will certainly ban killing animals for sport and for food. 
And then they will look back at humans today 
and shake their heads in disbelief @ at how savage we were.

Other animals experience conscience too.

I can get a lot more specific.
I can impart a greater body of insights about this, if you wish.
But that's going to be a much more exhaustive conversation. 

My point, here, is:

 You think your questions are all "gotcha questions" that reveal how "atheists" are building an illogical worldview out of non-answers, compared to your logical worldview that is built with real answers. 

But that is simply not the case. 

Also, most THEISTS think your answers are crap. 

Exactly NONE of these matters 
are Theist vs Atheist issues. 

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9. "I don't believe in Religion"
--
You have a religion.

So if you've embraced something you don't see truth or value in, then that's very ... unfortunate.
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10. "I believe in a relationship With God's Son Jesus."
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Sure. You have some rather specific and very strange religious beliefs.

But I find that boring and irrelevant to my life, except in the ways your "totally not a religion" causes problems for everyone who is stuck sharing a planet with your "totally not a religion".