hmmm...so apes and humans share a common ancestor? from where did this ancestor originate? how did the 1st DNA structure come int existence?
Humans
are apes.
Different species of ape did, yes. I've no idea where it originated, other than the fact it evolved from something else. You need an atheist who is also a paleontologist or anthropologist to answer that, and they probably aren't sure.
Probably via RNA, that in turn being formed from less complex organic molecules. By 'chance', yes.
A pigs heart is used during heart transplants? why not use an apes since we have a common ancestor? does this also mean that a pigs and humans have a common ancestor?
No such transplant has yet occured with a human subject. The pigs concerned are
genetically engineered to ensure the maximum possible chance of compatibility with human tissue to minimise rejection. No doubt you could similarly genetically modify apes (including humans) but the ethical problems are rather larger than with the poor old pig, and apes take rather longer to grow to breeding age. The "common ancestor" has nothing to do with it, although they probably have, yes, somewhere in the earlier history of mammals.
Are humans of more intrinsic value than animals? Why or why not?
No, not in my opinion. Why should they be? I suppose you could make that distinction if you used intelligence or perhaps even capacity to suffer as your criteria.
How does an atheist determine what is moral or immoral, right or wrong. Is there any objective standard or principles?
By taking
responsibility to decide for themselves rather than delegating it it to a third party who presents their conception of 'moral' and 'immoral' as that of God. There is no objective standards for those things.
What do you think happens after death? Do you as an athiest care?
I'm not, strictly speaking, an atheist, but death is pretty much it. We return to that from which we came, although the resonance of our thoughts and deeds continues and may even be 'reborn' in another. There is no 'afterlife', the concept is only a comforting fantasy, a placebo, for those who fear death.
Why is it that at the point of death athiests ask for people to pray for them? Why is that when a calamity befalls them they are quick to remember God?
They don't. If you mean exclaimations of "God help me!" and such its just a culture/language thing.
According to the Laws of Physics, something can't come from nothing, energy is always connserved, not created. So how did matter and anti-matter come into existence or the universe? How did the equilibrium, harmony, and order of this universe develop? Does it make sense to say it all happened by chance?
Those laws only apply to this universe, they have no independent existence outside it, as being outside it is a contradiction in terms. There was no "nothing" for the universe to be created from, space-time began with it. As to equilibrium, harmony and order, if it had happened any other way there would be nobody to ask the question, so the concept it could have happened another way is meaningless. It happened that way, fact, probability 1:1.
