A pastor tells his flock three things to ask an atheist. You don’t even have to read it to know that a lot of stupidity will follow. But I’m game, give it a shot, believers, and ask me those three things — I’ll try to answer through the incredulity and laughter.

What do you do with your Guilt?

What guilt? I don’t have any guilt at all about imaginary things, so I’m not at all distressed by imaginary Eve eating magic fruit in a fantasy land. When I do feel guilty about wrongs done to real people, I try to make amends to them — casting the debt onto the shoulders of a 2,000 year old dead guy really doesn’t help at all.

What about you? Do you think it’s enough to pray silently and ask Jesus to forgive the bad things you did to real people?

Where did the Universe Come From?

I don’t know. We’ve got a long chain of natural, material causes going back over 13 billion years, though, and a wealth of detail revealed by science that has no foreshadowing at all in your holy books. I think it’s more reasonable to go with the validated methods and predict that we’ll find a natural process at the beginning, with no need to prestidigitate a Deus ex machina into existence.

So…where did your god come from?

Can you prove there is no God?

Nope. But there is a long list of things I don’t believe in — fairies, leprechauns, demons, ghosts, winged monkeys, Donald Trump’s hair — and I don’t need to ‘prove’ their absence, it’s up to you to give me evidence that they exist. I’m willing. Show me some verifiable, credible evidence that the Loch Ness monster actually exists, and I’ll accept it. In the absence of anything but badly done fake photos and enthusiastic tourism boards, though, it’s sensible to disbelieve.

On this one, the ball is in your court. Show me evidence for your god that doesn’t trigger a sneer on my face.

I’m also going to suggest that you get a smarter pastor, one who can actually come up with good questions that might challenge an atheist.