Here is the original article.

You can read the comments if you’re interested.

I’m not going to cut and paste a bunch of stuff.

There is no video from the conference.

I will summarize the primary points I made during my presentation:

1. Atheism is nothingness that masquerades as insight.
2. Everybody brings some bias into every discussion.
3. Skepticism isn’t just for non-believers.

I want to give a hat-tip to Alallt for at least trying (apparently) to answer the questions.

Imagine a winky face emoji [here] for all the other contributors…

As promised, I will take a shot at answering the questions.

• Why don’t we say animals are evil when they kill humans but we accuse humans of evil when they shoot a gorilla?

An atheist offered the following:

“We tend to reserve moral judgement for persons that we assume are capable of making moral judgements.”

That’s not bad.

In fact, it’s pretty good.

It stops short of the point of the question.

“If we’re just evolved gorillas why do we have this ‘moral sense’ and why follow it?”

But I didn’t ask that question specifically…

• Why did single cells evolve to become more complex?

Because God didn’t want the universe to be inhabited by single cells.

Single cells aren’t much fun at parties.

They don’t appreciate sunrises either.

God wanted some intelligent beings capable of enjoying the cosmos.

• Does evil exist?

Of course, evil exists.

Even atheists believe this.

(They’re not cool with slavery, murder or Bible camp.)

Evil is anything that isn’t sanctified by God.

But if God doesn’t exist, then neither does evil.

That leaves atheists with no identifiable source for their outrage.

• Why should we follow the golden rule at those times when it makes our personal existence uncomfortable?

Because how we treat other people is how we treat God.

Jesus said whatever you do for your neighbor, you’ve “done unto me”.

The Golden Rule makes other people more important than ourselves.

• Why should we feed starving people in other countries when it doesn’t directly benefit us?

Kind of a repeat of the ‘Golden Rule’ question.

An atheist suggested that self-interest drives humans to obey ‘goodness’.

There is merit to that thought.

We may directly benefit from every act of goodness whether we know it or not.

• What’s the purpose of living?

“He hath shown thee, O man, what is good: and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”

To take a walk with the Creator of space and time.

Better than a backstage concert pass or an invitation to the Oval Office.

The atheists suggested that purpose doesn’t exist outside the individual.

So if you feel like you don’t matter, you don’t.

If you feel like the most important creature in the Universe, that’s only true for you.

• My Dad committed suicide. How would you cope with this?

There isn’t any easy way to cope with devastating loss.

This is painful for theist and atheist alike.

But the theist can suggest:

Knowing that you’re NOT the product of mindless biology changes things.

You’re not a gorilla.

You have a responsibility to your neighbors.

Your life has a purpose outside of yourself.

Nobody commits suicide when they understand this reality.