Update, May 2018: When I first came across this YouTube video in early 2017 the comments section was disabled. But I now see that the section was activated a few months ago. Great for others but no matter to me. I wrote my answers in April 2017 and here those answers will remain. Here we go, again (with some minor revisions [and more in September 2020]).

1. Does science answer everything? No — or at least not yet. There are plenty of things we don’t understand about existence. But maybe you meant to ask, Can science answer everything? Here’s what I say to that. There is no other method outside of employing observation, experiment, reason, and logic that can give us answers about the nature of the world and the universe. Sam Harris once offered a challenge on this point: “I challenge you to think of a question upon which we had a scientific answer, however inadequate, but for which now the best answer is a religious one.” There isn’t a believer of any religion on the planet who can mount a persuasive response. History shows that when it comes to understanding ourselves, the planet, and what we know (so far) about the cosmos, science works. Religion doesn’t.

2. Why do atheists care if people worship God? Ricky Gervais once said that believers will sometimes say something like this to him: “For someone so against religion, you talk about God an awful lot.” To which Gervais replied, “Yeah, I know a detective who talks about crime a lot. Mad, isn’t it?” Actually, we don’t care if people worship God. Believe what you want. What we do care about are religious views intruding on the public square. Politicians, for example, should never talk about God, at least not in their capacity as lawmakers. As John Adams once noted, “The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” But if believers want to worship whatever god they believe in, go right ahead — but with the proviso that you do so on your own private time.

3. Can nothing create something? “Nothing” is not how you probably define it. Lawrence Krauss discusses a salient point about the Higgs boson in the preface to the paperback edition of his book, A Universe From Nothing: “Associated with every background field [in a quantum world] is a particle, and if you pick a point in space and hit it hard enough, you may whack out real particles. The trick is hitting it hard enough over a small enough volume. And that’s the rub.” And it happened, on July 4, 2012. It was on that date that the world discovered that “nothing” is something. Empty space looks like empty space. But it isn’t. There’s a “field” that we can’t see that connects all the particles of “nothing.” Yes, you read that correctly: something — not nothing — is there in “empty” space. It’s bizarre, it’s weird, the idea seems counter-intuitive — and it’s true. As to how this will all play out in terms of what caused the Big Bang and for answering the perennial question, Why is there something rather than nothing?, well, all that can be said for now is that science is onto something. In the meantime, creationists will forever ask scientists and nonbelievers, “How can something come from nothing?” It’s a question they should ask themselves. Or as the author of this meme puts it:

Also, it seems that this God fellow created everything out of nothing. Think about it: There’s an untold number of stars and planets in the Universe. There are galaxies and superclusters (Earth exists in the supercluster called Laniakea). Where did God get his materials to create all this stuff? Did God get His materials out of… nothing? Looks it. Huh.

4. How do you know that God doesn’t exist? I don’t know that God doesn’t exist. I don’t believe in gods. I don’t understand why many believers have a difficult time grasping the difference between saying “God does not exist” (something I wouldn’t say) and saying “I don’t believe in gods” (something I do say). The former is an assertion that I would have to back up; the latter is a stance that needs no backing because “I don’t believe in gods” isn’t a claim. Note: I also won’t say “I believe God does not exist” because that would put me closer into claim-making territory. I’d be stating a belief that would require some measure of evidence to give it credibility. Here, have a helpful meme:

5. What is the origin of life? Nobody knows. All we know is that life emerged (somehow) and then it began to flourish and propagate. Some scientists think they’re getting close to an answer; others say we may never figure out this problem. Ideas abound though: Some have suggested that life emerged via our sun; others suggest that the mystery may have an answer rooted in thermodynamics. But if an answer does come around, I’ll believe it — accept it (with evidence), that is — when I see it. In the meantime, “God did it” is an empty statement, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

6. Where does our morality come from? Evolution by natural selection accounts for it. What are the grounds for believing that my capacity for love or friendship was installed in me by some unseen Celestial Being? There aren’t any. But once you accept the principles of evolution (a prerequisite to understanding morality), you’ll understand why kinship, cooperation, and altruism would develop. Imagine a world where no cooperation exists at all. In such a world civilization wouldn’t exist — but it does exist, and we’re not savages (or at least a good many of us aren’t), and evolutionary psychology explains why. See Robert Wright’s The Moral Animal for more on this.

7. If you had evidence of God, would you become a Christian? No. Why would I privilege Christianity over the thousands of other religions that make an earnest claim for God’s existence? (“Those other religions are wrong” misses the point. There are earnest believers of other religions who will argue that their belief is the correct one — and Hindu theologians also have zero evidence to support their claim for the existence of their gods.) I would just accept God’s existence and do nothing except to just live normally as I do and go about my day, living my life as I see fit without harming other people. But if this were a tyrannical God (see: The Bible) who demands to be worshiped and venerated, I would tell God to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.

8. Why are there no observable transitional forms in the present? There are. Here you go: Observed Instances of Speciation. But before you open that link and dive in (there’s lots to take in there), permit me to clarify a couple of things. For starters, stop asking why do apes exist if humans come from apes. The problem with that question is twofold. One, it assumes that humans represent a pinnacle of all life forms on Earth, that evolution is a biological process that builds toward us as an end point. Evolution has no such goals. It’s a “blind” process that has no direction. Nor is it, for those who do accept evolution, a biological process guided by God. True, this belief of “guided evolution” is now supported by the Catholic Church, but it’s a proposition that makes no sense. Number two, humans have not evolved “from” apes because humans are apes. I’ll let the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and the Australian Museum take it from here. As for transitional forms in the past, there is fossil evidence for fish that became amphibians, amphibians that became reptiles, and reptiles that became mammals. Neil Shubin can tell you more about it. Jerry Coyne, too.

9. Do you live according to what you believe or what you lack in belief? I believe the sun will “rise” tomorrow and that death is final. And, to quote Nick Lowe, I also believe in peace, love, and understanding. But how exactly could I live a life guided by what I don’t believe? If you, dear reader, call yourself a Christian, do you live your life according to your lack of belief in Hinduism? Does your disbelief in Lono guide you in your life in any way?

10. If God does not exist, will you not lose your soul when you die? The problem with this question is that it presupposes a belief in an invisible, ethereal “thing” that will whoosh out of me at my death. There is no evidence that such a “thing” exists in my body or in anyone else’s. But your question points to a larger issue that needs addressing. Atheists don’t believe in gods, which means we also don’t believe in the super-natural trappings (deliberate hyphen for emphasis) or accoutrements that are associated with a belief in God. For example, there’s “Transubstantiation.” How is differential diagnosis achieved? That is, how does one determine the difference between an ordinary admixture of flour and water with an admixture that has been “blessed” and, ghoulishly, contains the flesh of Jesus? “Holy” water is another. Once again, how is differential diagnosis achieved? That is, how does one tell the difference between ordinary water and water that has been “blessed” and made “holy”? And then there are “angels” (“fallen” or otherwise) for which evidence for their existence has never been provided — which is to say that to not believe in God implicitly means that atheists also do not believe in the existence of invisible, winged humanoids. And so to answer your tenth question directly, atheists don’t believe in souls — in exactly the same way we don’t believe in gods.

I think that covers it. I’ve no doubt that some readers will accuse me of engaging in “scientism” (a ludicrous word invented by creationists). Should that happen, I will refer such complainers to Sam Harris’s challenge, which is still waiting for a response from anyone. Good luck with that. You’ll need it.

Barry Lyons is a freelance writer living in New York City. Here, have another essay on an entirely different subject.