@Matt and MB: Ahh - now here is an interesting bit. Certainty is rather speculative. Certainty is not the same as proof, of course. Certainty is entirely in the mind of the beholder ... well, you know what I mean.

God cannot be proven. But those who discount the possibility of some sort of divine being or power are missing the point. It is possible. You cannot disprove God, because God is mostly a concept. How you see him is up to you. But when you have the concept of a supreme being, it cannot be disproved because part of the argument is that "he" is unknowable. You can have a relationship with god, but you cannot know him.

I have said this before - creationism and evolution are not mutually exclusive. The Creator may have set the foundations of the universe, designed the rules by which it operates, and then let it go.

Science and religion do overlap. They serve different purposes, and both can do great good and great harm.

@Matt #41 "We can be certain 100% that there is no God"

As a former evolution acceptor, I am certain 100% that there IS a God, which counters your argument just nicely.

When all is said and done, the whole topic is not about "Science", no one really cares enough to fight tooth and nail over scientific data. The heart of the matter is that Evolution/Darwinism/Dawkinsism is nothing more than a convenient bandwagon to jump on if one wants to reject God and rationalise an otherwise immoral lifestyle.

I am not sure what worries me more about Garth's behaviour. His handling of driving situations, or the attribution to incidents to God.

Then there is his violation of the Conan Doyle comment (Garth - you do know that Holmes is a fictional character, right?) Someone praying and the thing being prayed for must mean that God exists to answer the prayer? People really need to stop trying to use logic to prove the existence of God.

lol @ 79 Divine intervention at it's finest! Praise Jebus!

@Garth Jones #79

Garth, I will take your story at face value and assume you are not joking. If that's the type of experience you need to believe in a God then I think most will agree that you are setting the bar just a tad low when it comes to miracles. Yes, I think your incident was an obvious coincidence.

There is no leap of faith involved in believing an amoeba evolved into a human. There is plenty of evidence to back that belief up. The believer in God is the only one in your example making a leap of faith.

Consider this: If there is no God, then no sign ( such as healing or other answer to prayer) can, by definition, possibly occur. Right ? (If there is no God, there is no being to do such an action).

On the other hand, if any such sign does occur, then, also by definition, God must exist. God must be present to do such actions. Remember Sherlock Holmes' dictum: "if you have eliminated all other alternatives, then what remains, however unlikely, must be the truth".

Like numerous other Christians, I have personally prayed to God for things which have been answered instantly - too instantly to have been blind chance. Here is a simple example, not massive and miraculous, just practical and true: I was driving on the motorway. Another driver closed up behind me and tailgated me, very close, for some distance. I tried various things such as flicking on tail lights to simulate braking, but the car behind stuck there like glue and caused me some concern. So I prayed "Lord, please take this car off my tail". The car behind IMMEDIATELY dropped back several car lengths. As our journey continued, the car behind never closed up again - a sudden complete change of driving habit. Coincidence?

Why do people find it so hard to believe there is a God who is active in our existence ? Do you find it easier to believe that an amoeba developed into a nuclear physicist? Who is making the greater leap of faith?

Garth

Thanks Sam for one of the rare rational comments on this post.

I worry for the future of the planet when we have people say "God must exist - look at everything around you - there can't be any other explanation for it". I equally worry that there are so many people who say that God can't possibly exist because they don't understand how it could.

There is no rational explanation for the origin of all things. We all believe whatever we will. I am perhaps an extreme agnostic. God might exist, or she might not. There might be many Gods. Maybe God is simply the sum of all consciousness. Maybe it is just Fate, or The Lady.

It does not matter in the long run. We live our insignificant lives with our petty beliefs in our microsecond of existence.

I found this letter to be extremely shallow. There is not much content contained within beyond "we are a group of doctors that disagree with Richard Dawkins and we believe faith is a positive virtue".

I can't decide whether to be more amused or annoyed by the fact these people felt the need to emphasize they are doctors. The implied message is clear: "We are doctors and therefore smarter than the average person so our voice should carry more weight". The authors should be reminded that the pattern in the scientific community is in fact the opposite; the higher up you go, the less faith you encounter. There's a good reason for that.

http://freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Scientists_and_atheism

@ Phil (#59): "So I now have a question for you Sam. What gave the universes first cell the conscious desire to split its self? To see if it could multiply? And then what made a fish one day decide it wanted to try and breathe air, or walk on land?"

Firstly, these questions show you really don't understand evolutionary theory. Nobody with even the most basic grasp of evolutionary theory would ever claim evolution is a conscious attempt to 'improve'. Yet you act as if you know that evolutionary theory is false based on "flagellar" (sic) motors (post #37).

I can't answer your question on how life started with a definate answer. People simply don't know at this point in time. But this doesn't confound anything. Just because I don't know (and can't answer the question) does not mean it was therefore God that created it, because there is absolutely zero hard evidence for this. Yes, maybe 'it is written', but so is The Cat in the Hat.

"But if you wanted 'evidence', you yourself would have to visit the church, with an open mind, and perhaps even chuck up a little prayer along the lines of 'God, show yourself to me', and see what happens." There are literally millions of Gods that people believe in, and each of those people will feel that God/s has/have 'spoken' to them. Considering a lot of these people will be monotheists (believe that only one God exists) how can they all be right? I'm sure you will feel that anyone who believes in a different God is wrong, and they will feel you are wrong.

As for your diamond story: well, I'll let people make up their own minds on that one...

Daniel #71 On the contrary, this letter shows you cannot.