anonymous,

"1. Origin-- How do you think life came into existence?"

This sounds reasonable, don't you agree?

"Once upon a time, there was no time and that was when there also was no gods and no man walked the surface of the land. But there was the sea, and where the sea met the land, a mare was born, white and made of sea-foam. And her name was Eiocha.

Creation continues on. From an oak tree that grew in the land there sprouted a plant. This is where Eiocha gave birth to the first god Cernunnos. Cernunnos mated with Eioch and begot more gods; however, the gods felt lonely because they did not have anyone to command or to worship them, so from the wood of the oak tree they created the first man and woman, as well as other animals. Giants, too, are born from the bark of a tree that Eiocha hurled into the water."
https://www.ancient-origins.net/human-origins-folklore/celtic-myths-crea...

@ Anon

1. Origin-- How do you think life came into existence?

I have no idea. I am too busy living to concern myself. I am sure a scientist will one day win a Nobel Prize by answering that one.

2. Purpose-- Is there any ultimate meaning to life?

Live, be happy, make others as happy and as content as you can. Try not to waste a minute of this life.

3. Morality--How can we know what is good and evil?

It is a human societal instinct and largely dependent on the group survival. It evolves with society, e.g slavery is now considered evil, it is bad for the well being of humanity...latest studies bear this out. Morality is evolutionary.

4. Destiny--What do you think happens when we die?

Depends on who is charge of your body...nah, seriously ultimately our atoms will recycle and become a part of something else.

@Arakish Re: "Just as Tin-Man does. I flip a coin."

Hey! You too?... *big smile*.... *fist bump*... But, uh, just between you and me, though, I cheat... *looking around to make sure nobody else is listening*... *talking in a whisper*.... don't tell anybody, but i use a two-headed coin.... shhhhhh... *finger to lips*....

@ anonymous

Question 1.
I admitted I didnt know how life began because I dont know. Honesty is always the best policy.
As far as the hypotheses go, you make them sound like a bad thing. Scientific hypotheses and theories are the best expressions of truth and reality, based as they are on research and experimentation. Am I to understand you believe you already have the answers to everything because of your understanding of mythological tales and unsubstantiated stories of the bible? One book?

I am a little offended that without knowing anything about me, you automatically decided that I havent already thought things through after having spent more than sixty years considering and appreciating my life and the events in it. Is that because you have compartmentalised me as "an atheist" and you feel you already know all my weakenesses? You are revealing a lot of the hubris and arrogance I have learned to expect from fundamentalist theists.

Not to worry. Give yourself more time and broaden the scope of your education. You have obviously yet to realise that knowledge and wisdom have just as much to do about things you have yet to learn as things you think you already understand.

Specifically and of more urgent need, you need to spend more time on comprehension and reading skills. You claiming to have read things I have not written, but that just might be a little of your biased judgement. I made no mention of the Big Bang or astrophysics, or particle physics, and never intended to explain any of those things, I only sought to answer your exceedingly limited simple questions at your request. However what I have studied on just these three subjects could not be adequately presented in the detail to do them justice, here on a small forum such as this and I suspect it would not be of any use to you and would probably outlast your attention span.

I will though challenge your ignorant canard that I supposedly believe everything came from nothing and chance, the theists' favourite and false sticking points against science that they do not understand. I suggest you not use that terrible microwave/milk jug/firecrackers analogy again. We are not left guessing how stupid it makes you look.

Question 2.

Comprehension and reading skills, please! I did not admit my life has no purpose. I have lived a rich, meaningful and rewarding life that has been full of value. It is a gross and impudent accusation. I will spare you the details, more because your low demeanour prevents me from 'casting pearls before the swine'. Familiar with that line?
Your fatuous declaration about evolution and atheism broadcasts your total ignorance on both counts. You realise that neither evolution or atheism have anything to do with the other? There are prominent evolutionary scientists who are devout christians and I personally know atheists who flatly denounce evolution. And it might be a surprise for you to learn that not all christians are young earth creationists, so no, my question wasnt a logical fallacy, but your response was a desperate side step to avoid answering my question which was largely rhetorical anyway.

Question 3.

Why would I care? Because despite your preconceived bias, I, even as an 'accursed' atheist, am still human. I possess empathy and sympathy and morality, intelligence and a sense of fair play, without having to defer feebly to an imaginary god. I have the strength of character to know I do not need a god to tell me or threaten me that murder, plundering, raping, stealing or lying is wrong. I have heard many theists boast they would become ardent lawbreaking criminals without their god's objective laws to lean on. They dont know themselves and I can not believe them.
"If somebody gets the urge to do it, it's moral for that person to do it. Right?"
No, absolutely not, what tremendous lies do they teach you in that college about atheists? Consider the morals of christian clergy of all denominations all over the world, recently and humiliatingly exposed and convicted in courts of law for raping children in their care. Each and every church was guilty in covering up these damn awful crimes. Objective morals served no purpose nor saved the children from their urges. So much for the timeless unchanging laws of a loving god.
The rank hypocrisy of your charge against non beleivers beggars understanding.
To beleive all morality is subjective is not to deny morality. Like the legal systems in most western countries, I do not apply judgement to anyone or any event, without considering all aspects of evidence. To do otherwise is symtomatic of a barbarous code.
Daniel talks of the Hebrew concepts of eternal punishment but the early christian church adopted a formalised rigid blueprint for the horrors of an afterlife in hell for perceived crimes of puny mortal humans against an all powerful omnipotent deity. Such merciful justice . It was definitely a human invention. Hell or more correctly Hades, is not mentioned in the OT. It is part of the Pauline version of christianity, along with the concept of the Antichrist, and it was all invoked to induce fear and promote subverviance amongst backsliders. Its not inaccurate, its evidenced history.

And thats my short appraisal of your responses. A lot of arrogance, ignorance, intolerance, unwarranted judgementalism and of course a dearth of reading and comprehension skills. You must read carefully and avoid attacking claims not made.
I understand now that I was led into a trap with plaintive pleas to help with your precious assignment. I answered your limited simple questions, honestly as you at least noted and was then subjected to insults to my humanity morality and intelligence. I feel used and abused.
Good luck with your grade. Even if its good, it cant be your finest achievement.

@anonymous

Question 1. On the origin of the universe, it seems to me whether you are on the religion side of the question or the atheist side, makes little difference: we are both hypothesizing something from nothing. There are two possibilities: supernatural origin or natural origin. If you start with the God Hypothesis, then the deity must create something from nothing. How did He do it? Your supernatural explanation, does not provide the answer. I have learned from past encounters that Christians don't like the assumption that God created matter through magic. If not by magic, then how? If you assert God created matter from nothing by natural means, then you have arrived at the same conclusion as the atheists. If God can trigger the appearance of matter through natural means, then perhaps matter can appear naturally without God?

There is one further problem you must contend with: where did God come from? You want to claim that God is the First Cause, but you ignore the equally important question: what caused God?

PS. You did not ask about Earth's origin and so no one spoke to that question. Earth is far easier to explain than the origin of matter in the universe and science does have a pretty good handle on how planets form. As of this month (Feb 2019) there have been 3,976 planets discovered in 2,971 star systems (Wikipedia: Exoplanet). Yes, most of these planets are gas giants as we simply don't have the technology to observe Earth sized worlds, but that day is coming and when it arrives you might have to rethink a few of your biblical assumptions.

I thought you were here to listen, now you appear to have already made up your mind and your questions are meaningless.

anonymous "So we are left guessing and cannot find any logical explanation to our existence."

Precisely correct, welcome to reality.

" You admit that as an atheist you have no purpose in life. "

Not what he said at all, you asked if life had a purpose, not if a person attached purpose to their life, they're not remotely the same thing.

anonymous "Christians would believe in a young earth, which according to the Bible narrative God revealed himself to the very first humans not thousands of years after their existence."

Who cares about the unevidenced claims of archaic bronze age superstitions, it's risible nonsense. The age of the universe is approximately 13.8 billion years, and all living things evolved, and those are objective facts.

anonymous "You said that morality is subjective. Then you ask loaded questions such as would it more moral to kill a witch etc. Why would you care, if morality is subjective? If somebody gets the urge to do it, it's moral for that person to do it. Right? So you gave a moot point."

You have dishonestly ignored the question, he asked you if you thought it was moral to kill a witch, why are you too scared and dishonest to answer this?

anonymous "Mathew 25:46 would be one of many verses that confirms life after death. "

A made up claim assigned to a made up author, please demonstrate some objective evidence that any living thing can survive it's own physical death in any meaningful way? Subjective anecdotal claims, biblical claims included, are not evidence.

"So that is just a short appraisal of your answers. A lot of misinformation and logical fallacies. "

What logical fallacies, you didn't actually cite any?

"Your answer provided a logical fallacy though when you stated, "why would their god wait the better part of 14 billion years of geological time and 300 million years of homo sapien history, to introduce the idea just a few thousand years ago to a remote bunch of Greek thinkers and even more remote ignorant sheep-herding desert dwellers."

See you made a claim his answer contained a logical fallacy, what logical fallacy, you never actually cited one, you just went on to make an unevidenced claim for the risible creation myth in your religion?

You know that known logical fallacies have names don't you? Like the argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy you have used several times, by trying to assert something based on an appeal to or argument from ignorance. For instance the way you ask how life originated, and then when atheists have answered we donlt know tried to assert this validates unevidenced creationist myths.

Yes, Bob, I saw what s/he wrote. It’s just some food for thought for the OP.