Dovina12 Apr 2006

Of course, you are facetious in saying that we should base a religion on it. Or that we should base a religion on any text about a god who “has tried very hard to leave no evidence of his existence.” Perhaps you have read the long discussion on this topic following my recent poem “The Battle of Fort Bragg.” While that argument got sidetracked on personal feelings and insinuations, I think your comment brings us to the crucial issue: What is the evidence for God’s existence?

God has craftily kept that to Himself, I’m afraid. Or at least He has made it so obscure as to elude impartial observation. It is possible that evidence exists for God's existence, but as yet we don’t know it. Some people claim the miracles as evidence, but I find most of them unverified. Still, I would try not to be hostile to future proofs for God's existence and thereby less objective about attempted proofs.

Having no proof for God, we have little with which to even describe Him. But whether or not something exists does not depend on whether or not it can be described. If something exists, it exists independently of our ability to describe it. Things exist whether or not someone knows they exists, let alone accurately describes them.

Religious belief can be thought of as circular: Because we long for God, such longing must imply the existence of a deity. One might as well say that because we long for immortality, immortality must be possible. As long as humans cannot bear to contemplate their own extinction, there will always be another Baal, and atheism will always be a minority stance.

I respect the atheist position, since my own is based on no more evidence.