Religious faith — not ordinary secular “faith” (for example: “I have faith that Joe will do the right thing”) — entails believing in things for which no evidence is presented. Science doesn’t work this way. By way of reason and logic, a hypothesis is presented — Hmm, it appears that certain microscopic microbes may cause disease; let me check this out — and then through tests and observation, a fact emerges (certain germs can cause disease) and from the establishing of that fact, a theory (explanation) is propounded: the germ theory of disease. No religious faith of any stripe from any religion — not Christianity, not Hinduism, not Islam — works in this fashion.

There is no evidence of a spiritual “realm.” But are humans spiritual beings? Yes. You may want to read Andre Comte-Sponville’s The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality.

You didn’t answer Sam Harris’s question. You proposed a belief. However, you asked a good question: “How did the universe get here?” No holy book or text or scripture has any answer to that question. Science has done a good job of explaining some aspects of the nature of existence (the Big Bang, evolution by natural selection) even if it hasn’t yet given us answers to even bigger questions.

The Bible doesn’t “teach us about God”. It presents faith-based assertions (claims) about the alleged existence of Celestial Being. In other words, the Bible is a sprawling presentation of humankind’s belief about a Celestial Being and the consequences that believers believe issue or stem from that belief (or, for those who believe in Hell, from disregarding that belief). In that sense, yes, the Bible teaches what people believe.

Evolution does indeed account for altruism — or to use your word, sacrifice — which is a form of altruism. Do see The Moral Animal by Robert Wright for more on this. No religion has anything to do with morality. Or to put this another way, no religion “owns” morality, as if to say that without certain religious beliefs humans can’t be moral. Sure, certain religious beliefs may amplify certain moral feelings, but in terms of understanding the “raw” base of morality — why humans can be moral at all in any regard — religion brings nothing to the table. I like this quote by Patricia Churchland: “Morality seems to me to be a natural phenomenon — constrained by the forces of natural selection, rooted in neurobiology, shaped by the local ecology, and modified by cultural developments.” That’s a good summary.

I don’t “believe in” in evolution. I accept the fact of evolution. Similarly, I don’t believe that certain germs cause disease. It’s a fact the certain germs cause disease, and the germ theory of disease explains that fact. It’s a fact that life evolves, and the theory of evolution explains that fact. Facts are accepted, not believed in (although it’s true that some people use “believe in” colloquially as a stand-in for accepting something). Genesis has nothing valuable to say about the nature of existence. As a metaphor (story), I suppose it may have some naive charm, but it does nothing for me.

It’s true that people have gone after Lawrence Krauss for his non-consensual sexual behavior (groping, apparently), but that doesn’t diminish his scientific work. If Neil deGrasse Tyson or Sean Carroll have ridiculed Krauss’s work as a physicist, I’m not aware of this.

What do you mean when you say the “soul” doesn’t whoosh? My use of the word “whoosh” is just a playful way of say this alleged ethereal thing leaves the body at death. People are told this all the time: The soul leaves the body at death. Oh? What is this “it” that is doing this “leaving”? Obviously, this “it” is some ethereal thing that believers believe in. Are humans something beyond a collection of atoms (that originated in stars)? There is no evidence to suggest that there’s some mysterious essence that exists in us that has nothing to do with the reality of us existing as mortal, corporeal beings.

I don’t think you know what a straw-man argument is or what the term means. I see this error made by many believers all the time. Put simply, a straw-man is the presentation of an idea held by someone else that mischaracterizes the idea in order to make it easier knock down (hence a man made out of straw is easily knocked down). I accurately described what the Catholic Church says about Transubstantiation. Therefore, no straw-man. Feel free to look up the Council of Trent as well as other aspects of Catholicism that explains this ludicrous belief.

Have a good day.