quote:

---

What if I do experiment, have a pleasant shock, but in fact what I experienced was indigestion. That may make me believe in God, when in fact, I shouldn't have.

---

I am wondering what exactly you would lose if you wandered zround following a God which turned out to be indigestion. One part Pascal's wager comes to mind (although I don't like its cynical promotion of belief based on after-life outcomes):

if you were to have believed in God but he didn't exist you would ultimately have lost nothing.

To reformulate the other part to suit my own thinking: if God does exist and you refuse to believe him or be touched by him what benefits you have missed.

Like others here, I think you do not wish to find evidence and would discount what I might provide as evidence. My experiences of God are internal and intimate, both in myself and in others. I find evidence of God in the outworkings of this in his people. But this is easily dismissed if you want to dismiss it.

You say your position is not a faith. Perhaps it is not. What it is is a mode of reading the universe which you have invested a lot of energy into. Most modes of reading are very difficult to dislodge. And you do have faith that your world-view will stand up to any evidences that might be put forward against it, otherwise this would not be sayable:

quote:

---

I will tell you why you are all wrong soon.

---

But then again, something provokes you to spend time testing your viewpoint. Perhaps that is God's way of irritating you into contact with him.

When I said your comments were a strawman, I was not talking about in terms of this particular debate, to which it is relevant (if they are valid), but your comments themselves. You are making the claim that either life is all by chance or God created it.

To say that the only alternative to God is pure chance is the strawman. No scientist accepts that. There is the theory of natural selection which is not pure chance. Natural selection starts working the soon there is something to select.

So, the origin of life is not about evolution. It is about chemistry. The chemistry involved is not known, but what we do know is that the basic chemicals were there and more complex chemicals necessary are built up very easily by natural processes, so that is not chance too.

Gill, sorry abouth the deep theology comment. I know it seems strange, but this is just Theology 101 (as our Colonial cousins call it) at the momsnt, so that we all understand each other.

Evidence for Occams razor. Hmm. Are you being a little facetious? 'OR' is a method it is not a 'thing'. It can be shown to have valididty by examining the Ptolemaic vs the Copernican systems. The Ptolemaic explains the movement of the planets accurately, but it requires so many more hypotheses that on that basis only it should be rejected. Unless there is a feature it explains better. Unfortunately it doesn't. The Copernicam system explains the precession of the equinoxes, and the phases of Venus better, so it actually wins out in those grounds too, but you get the idea.

Wood, the very first message I received on my guestbook at my website is from God who now realises he doesn't exist!

When I say 'falsifiable', I don't mean 'falsified'. Gravity is falsifiable, but it has never been falsified.

David, An example (only an example! I am open to other suggestions) is for someone to pray and get the bonus ball numbers for 10 weeks. Any of you can do this. There are stipulations:
1) The particular 10 weeks must be named beforehand.
2) The numbers should be listed beforehand.
3) Any attempt to ask God and God fails to respond should be noted - that is evidence.

I know you will object to this. All Christians do. So, don't tell me that you do, but use this as a possible example to work with and come up with a better one. I made this one up as a gambit, to provoke discussion into possible tsets, but no other one has been proposed.

Your point about my parameters being wrong seems to be suggesting that my standards are too high for God. That seems a little inconceivable to me.

I am willing to reexamine my tools, but I won't fix something that ain't broke. Unless someone can point out that it is broken and I hadn't noticed it.

The incarnation/resurection thing is a topic about your particular view of God, not on the existence of God per se. I am coming at this from the angle of an atheist, so to tell me that God is of this particular character and expect me to accept that is to me like arguing about the colour of a unicorns horn.

quote:

---

Nightlamp: Why is it easier to say It Just rather than god caused it to happen?.
By making this philosophical statement you have certain Presuppositions ie that atheism is true.

---

I could turn this round and point out that you only say the things you claim because of your presuposition, not because your view have any intrinsic validity. That doesn't get anyone very far, though.

What we are faced with is two models of the universe. The naturalistic and the created. I am trying to see which has the most validity.

We have one that has the laws of science.
We have one that has the laws of science + God.

Occams razor says choose the simplest. Now, this is the important bit. I look at both of the above and before making any presupposition about either of them being false, I can see that the naturalistic one is simplest.

I like your reworking of Pascals Wager. It gets round most objections that can be raised against the original.

Without going into boring details, I had a profound religious experience when I was 17. The feeling I had was so powerful that even now over 15 years later I still feel it. But, I see no reason to invoke anything other than 'indigestion' to explain it. As far as I could tell, it felt like something greater than me, but after having minor hallucinations when I was ill as a child, I am very much aware that ones minds can create things that aren't there.

So, is there an objective, falsifiable test for the God experience? As far as I am aware, no. If there isn't, then none of us can ever know if God is causing these experiences. As a sceptic, I am interested in what I can know, not what I can believe. So, without an effective test, I return to Occams Razor.

quote:

---

No-one yet has been able to show me any OF evidence for God. What I do often get is a critical assessment of my thinking and why it is not effective in looking for the Truth.

---

I put this in the first post of this thread. I can see that the same thing has happened again. My way of examining the world has been called into question, but no-one has provided me with any OF evidence.

That can only lead me to the conclusion that there is only non-falsifiable, subjective evidence for the existence of God.

It is evidence of a sort, but its not very effective. It is the same sort of evidence that can be used to prove the existence of Leprechauns.

quote:

---

An example (only an example! I am open to other suggestions) is for someone to pray and get the bonus ball numbers for 10 weeks. Any of you can do this. There are stipulations:
1) The particular 10 weeks must be named beforehand.
2) The numbers should be listed beforehand.
3) Any attempt to ask God and God fails to respond should be noted - that is evidence

---

Sceptical Atheist:

This is a straw man of gigantic proportions. If it happened, it would only provide evidence of a God who did what he was told.

Indigestion may easily be recognised.
So can God.

However, you won't know until you have tried.

The God I worship will not jump through hoops because a human being demands it.

There is a collection of C. S. Lewis essays entitled, God in the Dock. I think that title is an accurate statement of your approach. You demand that God do things to convince you, but you seem to make no demands on yourself.

That does not mean that things outside science have no validity, just that there validity needs to be explained in other ways.

Exactly what does this mean? Also, why have you decided that the existence of God must be explained in scientific terms?

Evidence for or against the existence of God is even more open to interpretation, because the context includes whether you have faith or not. It also includes your experience. My experience so far has led me to put my trust in God. At some point in my life, I decided to basically put my trust in something which I didn't understand, couldn't see or prove; and so far I have not been disappointed. The evidence is my life so far. But that is also coloured by my faith.

quote:

---

No-one yet has been able to show me any OF evidence for God. What I do often get is a critical assessment of my thinking and why it is not effective in looking for the Truth.

---

I can see that that must be frustrating - however, is it possible that people are trying to point out that your current methodology will never lead you to the answers you are seeking?

To be really honest, I don't understand what the point of OF evidence is.

All I know is, there are times when one just has to decide which way to jump, and do so. I come from a 'Non-Christian' background, was coerced into joining a Church Choir as part of a political coup by my friend (girls weren't allowed unless she could find six of us!) and spent many a happy session mocking them. At 12, I declared myself, "Too intellectual" to be a Chrsistain, not knowing that my Sunday School teacher had just returned from a lecture tour in the States (he's an astro-physicist.)

However, those darned questions just wouldn't go away.

I was not in the least surprised to read that you had had a very profound experience (or not) and I can't help feeling that what you are trying to do is justify your embarrassment at the memory by 'proving' it couldn't have meant anything.

As you're into this two-sided business, one thought worth pondering is, "If we're right and you're wrong, we've lost nothing... but if we are right..."

Is this a genuine quest? If so, you seem reluctant to really discover anything. Is your frustration at not being able to wind us up, or genuine searching?

I will return soon and post replies to what the latest posters have said.

I am left with the impression at the moment that you all think my method for obtaining knowledge is either deliberately designed to reject God or it is not up to the task.

What you seem to be saying is that if I am to understand the truth, I must start from a particular viewpoint. A sceptical/scientific one isn't effective.

Can anyone tell me any other form of truth where one must take a particular stance in order to see it.

Its like saying to a mountain climber by a plain that there is a mountain there, but you are looking for it from the wrong angle. If you were over there, the mountain would be clear.

Try the New Board Addiction thread!

quote:

---

Can anyone tell me any other form of truth where one must take a particular stance in order to see it.

Its like saying to a mountain climber by a plain that there is a mountain there, but you are looking for it from the wrong angle. If you were over there, the mountain would be clear.

---

We come back to my example of the hypothesis that no one is trustworthy. Anyone who believes this is very unlikely to discover that some people are trustworthy.

quote:

---

Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:
Okay,

Let me make that a little more clear. There is an alternative explanation to all the things we know of.

We then have the two world views:

1) It just happened.
2) God made it happen.

Occams razor can be applied and the second one removed.

Of course, Occams razor only applies if two theories explain the same data equally as well. If there is evidence that I have missed that makes God the better method of explaining the world, then this falls apart.

---

What about a third possibility, that "God" exists but doesn't explain OR make the world? I personally don't subscribe to either of the world views you listed, so I'll offer you a couple of versions of mine, just for you to ponder:

3. God (or "It")is just happening.
4. It just happened; it is part of something "bigger".

A big influence on me is the Buddhist non-theistic belief. Everything in existence is part of, comes from, and returns to some ultimate wholeness or Void, but there is no separate, particular God in existence.
So Non-theism is an alternative to A-theism or Theism (such as Christianity).

By the way, while I'm not an atheist, I'm not officially anything else. My emotional human needs make me want to convert to Christianity, but I know how you feel. That 'leap of faith' thing grates on part of me.

Great discussion you started here! Don't feel like you're obligated to refute every post! You'll go nuts. The natives are friendly, if argumentative. (When they don't feel friendly, they retire to Hell for a bit and vent.)

Yes, we keep telling you you're using the wrong tools when you demand OF evidence. I still think you're expecting more of the scientific worldview than it can produce. You've admitted that it isn't comprehensive, and by definition it doesn't allow for the supernatural.

quote:

---

I also enjoy reading my fellow shipmates response because some of them are actually beginning to think rather than blubber on about the etherial

---

'frin

quote:

---

That can only lead me to the conclusion that there is only non-falsifiable, subjective evidence for the existence of God.

---

Yup (IMHO - others will probably disagree with me). But why does that mean that God doesn't exist? Even if there was no evidence at all, you can't argue from silence.

Besides, as I may have said before, to what extent is any evidence 'objective'? Does
'objective' even exist?

quote:

---

David, An example (only an example! I am open to other suggestions) is for someone to pray and get the bonus ball numbers for 10 weeks. Any of you can do this. There are stipulations:
1) The particular 10 weeks must be named beforehand.
2) The numbers should be listed beforehand.
3) Any attempt to ask God and God fails to respond should be noted - that is evidence.

I know you will object to this. All Christians do.

---

I could object on the grounds that this would not even be slightly representative of the God I know, but that's the one you don't want to hear, right?

My objection is the same as it has been all along - you are offering a material paradigm to try and observe a moral agent.

One of the attributes we often assign to God is "faithful", or "steadfast". This would appear to indicate that God is predictable, and therefore verifiable. And, strange thing, it does in my experience. God is 100% predictable, but only in a generic moral sense, not a material sense.

I'm not arguing about he fact that there is OF evidence of God's existence - that methodology only applies to the material, so it is never going to end up with God at the end of the equation. Evidence for God is at a philosphical and moral level, so it is in those terms both internally objective (from an individual perspective) and externally subjective (from anyone else's perspective).

quote:

---

Your point about my parameters being wrong seems to be suggesting that my standards are too high for God. That seems a little inconceivable to me.

---

Excuse me Sir, your bias is showing! It isn't about standards, it's about applicability. Have you ever tried to view the craters on the moon with a particle accelerator? Probably not, but that particle accelerator cost billions of dollars and man-decades of research. It is built to the most exacting engineering standards, and even makes qite a good cup of coffee.

In the end, you better off with your 3-yr old daughter's toy binoculars. It isn't about standards at all.

I am willing to reexamine my tools, but I won't fix something that ain't broke. Unless someone can point out that it is broken and I hadn't noticed it.

Let me be the first to point it out then. If you want to discover a spiritual being, you need a spiritual tool. I know something that you don't, and I know it with pretty much the same certainty that I know anything else. Your tools aren't broken, they're just the wrong ones for the job.

The incarnation/resurection thing is a topic about your particular view of God, not on the existence of God per se. I am coming at this from the angle of an atheist, so to tell me that God is of this particular character and expect me to accept that is to me like arguing about the colour of a unicorns horn.

I understand that, but the events I'm mentioning are the ones that come closest to the boundaries you set for evidence. And even then, as historical events, they cannot constitute OF evidence. However, if there is a reasonably high probability that the events occurred pretty much as reported, then it is necessary to re-examine our assumptions about what is and isn't possible.

The Dragon in my Garage

'A fire breathing dragon lives in my gararage.' Suppose (I'm following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin) I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!
'Show me' you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans an old tricycle - but no dragon.
'Where's the dragon?' you ask.
'Oh she's right here,' I reply, waving vaguely. 'I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon.' You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragons footprints.
'Good idea,' I say, 'but the dragon floats in the air.' Then you'll use an infra red sensor to setect the invisible fire.
'Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless.' You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible. 'Good idea, except she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick.' An[d] so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.
Now, whats the difference between an invisible, incorporeal floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it is true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions that immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the abscence of evidence, on my say so.

Okay, the bonus ball number idea is just an example. Technically it isn't a strawman, because I am not saying that is how God is, but only this is a test to see of God does work like that. As I said, its not a strawman on a technical point only.

So, to examine the supernatural I need a different toolset. Okay. Now, how do you get a toolset that can obtain knowledge of the true supernatural without allowing in other almost believable, but false, supernatural phenomena?

This is really the whole point. My way of deciding if something is believable is to apply the falsifiability/objective criteria (more on this later). Now, everyone says I must drop that and accept subjective, non-falsifiable evidence to count. That means that UFO's, the Loch Ness monster, dowsing, Psychic surgery and superstition must now be accepted as having a high degree of probabillity because they all also rely on subjective, non-falsifiable evidence.

I am not sure what you consider all of that to be evidence of. I can tell you that I do not believe humanity to be independently capable of these things, knowing my own self the way I do. What's the old saying? I know, Lord, that I ain't what I should be, but thank you, Lord, that I ain't what I used to be!!

Those who start with the presupposition that God does not exist will not find him. I am not a Bible-thumping literalist by any stretch of the imagination, but over and over and over again in scripture God makes it clear that those who will not see cannot see.

Here is the quote from you,

That does not mean that things outside science have no validity, just that there validity needs to be explained in other ways,

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Would you please clarify it.

If things outside science do have validity, as you have said, why do you insist on discussing the existence of God in purely scientific terms?

quote:

---

About this requirement for objective, falsifiable evidence: this assumes that the scientific worldview comprehends all that is, an assumption I don't think is warranted

---

I think ( having read throught the entire thread ) that this is the heart of the matter. You seem to assume that a scientific/empirical worldview is the only acceptable and valid one, and that God should therefore be able to be proved within that framework. But at the sametime you reject the worldviews that accept the existance of God - Christian worldviews.

So you do have a fiath - it is a faith in empirical ( OF ) evidence. It might be interesting to see if you take that to it's logical conclusions ( which I doubt - very few people take their faith to its logical consclusions, and most of those who do end up dead ), and I wouldn't want to disagree with your faith principles. But htey are faith, they are tools to measure the universe by that you trust and believe in.

So the lack of any means of demonstrating the existence of God within this worldview ( one that does, I believe, rule out the God I know ), does nothing more than prove that you have a consistent worldview when adderssing the existence of God. So what? I can argue for a consistent worldview that denies that the world is round ( I've seen web sites that try to do this ). I can be consistent, and logical even, but wrong. It makes no difference to the shape of the world.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve:

So the lack of any means of demonstrating the existence of God within this worldview ( one that does, I believe, rule out the God I know ), does nothing more than prove that you have a consistent worldview when adderssing the existence of God. So what? I can argue for a consistent worldview that denies that the world is round ( I've seen web sites that try to do this ). I can be consistent, and logical even, but wrong. It makes no difference to the shape of the world.

]

---

Basically, what we have here is an unfalsifiable claim that OF evidence is the only evidence permissable.

Hell, I sometimes wonder whether God exists myself.

The Bible is of little help here, quite aside from the problem of defending its authority without circular reasoning. It comes from a pre-scientific world view. Its writers wouldn't know objective falisfiable criteria if they got up and slapped them in the face, because these concepts are a product of the scientific age.

Stories about lawyers applying laws of evidence and concluding that etc. etc. mean nothing because there's always someone else who concluded the opposite.

In the end, if God is real, then only He can do the revealing of Himself. And if the Skeptical Atheist is truly open to God doing so, then He may do so.

Where does this leave evangelism, witness, apologetics? In the realm of all other general revelation of God - story. My story, your story, the skeptical atheist's story. That is where God reveals Himself. Hence in the Bible we have a book of stories, not a theology tome. Whenever folk asked Jesus a theological question, He responded with a story. That was the teaching method of the Rabbis of that time, I'm told, and for good reason.

I will try and answer in general terms, but I am sorry I cannot reply to all points. I have said before, my time is limited.

Please, don't accuse me of deliberately ignoring things that don't fit in, Fr. Gregory. I am trying my best. Do as Gill has done, find the relevant point (please keep it quite small each time) and repeat it specifically saying "Why haven't you answered this point?"

Fr Gregory

quote:

---

One can see this agenda at the moment as atheistic cosmologists try and apply principles of homogeneity, simplicity and symmetry to the "problem" of anthropic fine tuning. Oh dear, does the Universe seem designed for life?! Never mind, invent billions of uninhabitable universes so that observer selection removes the need for explanation.

---

Science works on falsifiable things. God is is in principle not falsifiable (I think we have reached that conclusion by now) so cannot be used in a scientific theory. The billions of universes are one possible answer to the problem of Quantum Mechanics and is in principle (in theory at the moment) falsifiable.

If a scientist uses God as an explanation then he moves outside science by definition

Also your comment about "only for eyes that see" is specious. The multiverse hypothesis is controversial, but the basis for the theory is available for anyone to examine and criticise no matter what they bellieve in. It is not necessary to change ones world-view. This is the opposite of religion, where only the believers can see the evidence (as has been made clear by this thread).

quote:

---

That does not mean that things outside science have no validity, just that there validity needs to be explained in other ways,

---

I accept that the rules of logic have validity, even though it is impossible to prove them. I do not think that this is a contradiction to my usual view of OF evidence because they are self-evident. Take the 'laws of thought':

Traditionally these are:
1) 'What is, is' (confusingly called the law of identity) and
2) 'Nothing both is and is not' (the law of non-contradiction);
and sometimes also
3) The law of excluded middle.

(Taken, in this instance, from my current favourite site Xrefer.com, an excellent resource for definitions: Xrefere.com)

The fact that if something exists then it does exist is self-evident. The fact that something cannot both 'be' and 'not be' is self-evident. The fact that something is either true or false is also self-evident.

I accept that universals exist in some form (but I don't think too deeply about how or why). I accept that the universal 'cat' exists in that it will identify all cats and nothing else but cats.

So, I divide the world in the first place between things that are self-evident and things that aren't. In my next post, I will develop this further and bring the relevance of this spiel in.

So, we need to examine the relationship, which involves you and God.

So, how are you aware of this personal relationship? It has been said it is not just a feeling, but a knowing (I think this was from one of the threads in Hell, but I have heard it elsewhere too).

So you 'know' about God. That then leads to the question how are you aware of this 'knowing'? This is getting into pretty deep philosophical territory I know, but I think it is relevant.

Using Descartes Cogito Ergo Sum, we know that we exist. We also know our sense data exists. We do not know what the sense data is equated to, because we only know of it through the sense data. That is the external world. Now back into the mind. We are aware of our sense data. We have the sense data and the awareness that something is aware of the sense data. That is the self. The self-awareness that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom, allegedly. We have a priori knowledge of logic and universals. Sometimes called innate knowledge. We are also directly aware of our thoughts/feelings and our memories, though we know these have the possibility of error.

So, if there are any of you left awake after that paragraph, I think you would class your relationship with God as direct knowledge in the same way that you have direct knowledge of your thoughts/ feelings/ memories but you would deny the possibility of error.

If I am right about the last bit, the question then becomes, as I suppose it always has been in a way, how do you know that the thing you have that relationship with is God?

Taking Once again from the 'Demon Haunted World' by Carl Sagan is the Baloney Detection Kit I would like to pick one of those points in particular, namely

quote:

---

Originally posted by astro:
I sometimes find that a person who says he cannot believe in the God of the bible really has a problem, not with whether God exists or not, but with the consequenses to his life if God does exist. Could you face life knowing that God exists?

Astro

---

Have you actually thought about what that means aiming at someone who tries to be moral and listens to a conscience?

Every day I must look myself in the mirror. I am not perfect, but I must live with the consequences of the decisions I make. I face that as well as I can. I cannot 'leave it at the foot of the Cross'. I cannot expect forgiveness or Grace from the position I take. All of these options are open to you from yours.

I will rephrase the question, are you frightened of living life alone and so are too scared to admit the possibility that God doesn't exist?

quote:

---

Please correct me if I am reading you wrong, but given your dragon story I think that you are looking for physical evidence of the non-physical.

---

I meant the Dragon story as an illustration of falsifiability. The Dragon is non-falsifiable. There is no possible test that the Dragon could fail.

God is like that. Whatever happens, God can be used as the explanation.

Returning to the earlier debate about your world-view precluding an evidence which would convince you of God's existence. Is there not an extent to which your mode of reading, your mode of observation alters the results of the tests you perform. How do you factor Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle into your own non-experience of God or my experience of him?

Thinking further, you also asked what other positions required you to stand within them to see their truth: Postmodernism. Unless you are within post-modernism you will not be able to see with its (non?)perspective.

Although I'm not p-m, post-structuralism suits better. So like Wood, I wonder how one would recognise objective evidence. I suspect an insurmountable level of subjectivity resides inside every observer.

I agree, Philosophy/logic doesn't ultimately solve anything, but it does help in structuring thought and removing deadwood.

I have to agree with all of you, and I think that you have said the same here, Frin, that my preconceptions do colour my judgements.

I do not claim to be objective. I only claim to have a reasonable world-view. All that stuff about Occams razor is showing the justification for my world-view.

So, I will obviously interpret evidence through my paradigm.

Having said that, I can show you the evidence for any of the things that I accept. You don't need to change paradigm to see the evidence. The evidence I accept is also falsifiable.

quote:

---

How can you live your own life without some intuitive dimension which helps you make sense of your experience and the world? Must falling in love only be gauged by the frequency of one's heart beat?

---

I do have an intuitive dimension. I just know that I should not base any major decisions on it. Falling in love for me is measured by the emotions I feel. When I look at my wife, the emotions I feel are close enough to how others describe falling in love for me to safely label them as such.

Notice the cold, emotionless way I can describe it? I am a passionate person, I have an awful temper, I am an emotional animal, but it is still possible to describe theses things in an objective way.

quote:

---

Taking Once again from the 'Demon Haunted World' by Carl Sagan is the Baloney Detection Kit I would like to pick one of those points in particular, namely

---

Sorry, I didn't complete this. I was going to say that there should be another hypothesis put forward to explain this thing that you have a relationship with and call God. Then a method of testing between them can be devised.

Sorry guys, I haver to go, and I won't be around tomorrow. I hope to catch up with you all on Wednesday.

quote:

---

The Dragon in My Garage is an example of something that is non-falsifiable. It cearly shows why there should be some possibility of falsifiying a hypothesis. If a hypothesis can be falsified, and is tested but is not actually falsified then it moves towards being a theory.

---

Sceptical Atheist - may I be the first to say how much I enjoyed that illustration, which I have never heard before.

And the first (I think) to echo Karl's assertion that sometimes he isn't sure if he believes in a God.

In the end, paradoxically, it was the lack of PROOF (not evidence) which convinced me - "Surely, if someone devised a religion, they'd make it hang together?" I thought. I don't necessarily think that way 26 years on... but there is something to it, all the same.

You know, I don't think you will ever get the answer you are seeking - or rather, if I understand, the answer you are not seeking. Which, paradoxically, would be your answer!

You are not asking us to justify our faith in God, or even to explain it. You are asking us to provide you with evidence that will point you towards God.

Well, we can't. At least, perhaps some feel they can. But I don't think so. Your dragon sums up your point admirably. Perhaps this is the nearest you'll come to an answer? That there isn't anything we can offer as falsifiable evidence? The only thing I have which approaches that is that although I am an intelligent, deep-thinking woman, the faith I have will not let me be content at those times when I feel like giving up on God.

I won't patronize you by saying any more about looking for God. Personally I believe that God (if there is one! ) honours seekers after truth far more than people who manipulate and control others in the name of religion, of whom sadly there are many in the Churches.

And don't go worrying about my faith, the rest of you - it's just as I've already said, it's real TO ME but integrity demands that I treat it as a working hypothesis.