Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> The "burning bush" that Moses saw could have been anything - it could've
> been something red and glowing that, I don't know, aliens used as a
> communications device.

It could've been only in his own mind, indeed.  His very personal experience of
the divine.  Still, it has led us today where we are.  Believers or
non-believers all drawn into the same whirlwind of events chained by the Jewish
Christian sect being adopted and spread by the Roman Empire and decidedly
influencing the course of human history...

> Personally, I don't believe any of it, but can I (or anyone) prove it
> didn't happen?  Not really, no.

see?  In the end, it's all a matter of faith, either believing or not.

> I don't know that even those theists you point to in history would really
> have that - many/most seem to have taken the approach "God must have
> meant for this to happen" as a way of working around the bad that happens
> in the world (and that happened to them).

The bad that happens in the world is a fact of physical existence, just as the
good.  So, of course it's all part of God's plan, which we witness in very tiny
pieces and doesn't make any sense at all.

> I do know some
> atheists whose list consists of things like "God can do something that's
> impossible" - and with that, there's a certain degree of faith that that
> will never happen - and it's that faith in the impossible not happening
> that provides them with the comfort of their beliefs.

of course, that faith is always broken whenever a new physical law is
discovered.

> > (There's actually a number of interesting SF books I've read wherein
> > God's existence is scientifically proven.)
>
> I like what Adams (an avowed atheist) wrote about it, as a conversation
> between man and God:
>
> God:  I refuse to prove that I exist, for proof denies faith, and without
> faith, I am nothing.
> Man:  But the babel fish is a dead giveaway, it proves you exist, and so
> therefore you don't.  Q.E.D.
> God:  Oh dear, I hadn't thought of that. (vanishes in a puff of logic)

I love the HHGT books too!

But sure, the babel fish here is the instant translator fish that lives in your
brain, a very unlikely and useful creature.  Thus, I wouldn't call it exactly
"scientifically proven", more like "fictionally proven".  Still, this is such a
big universe that anything is possible,  :)

> Put another way, if there's
> evidence, you don't need faith.

if you saw God opening the river in two, yes, you wouldn't need faith: you are
then a direct witness, like there were many in those early days of the
covenant.

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