I love this challenging quote. At the same time, I’m mystified as to why atheists consider it so credible, given that it was spoken by a man (definitely a brilliant man) who died in 1931. It’s hardly a stretch to write that there’s been a whole lot of research done since then.
Without getting into boring details of studies and terminologies (anyone who needs that stuff can certainly find it online), I’ll toss out a few interesting tidbits.
On life after death: In 1991, Pam Reynolds had a near-death experience while undergoing surgery for a brain aneurysm.
Reynolds was kept literally brain-dead by the surgical team for 45 minutes. Despite being clinically dead, when Reynolds was resuscitated, she described some amazing things — like interacting with deceased relatives.
According to Time magazine, as many as 18 percent of people brought back from death after a heart attack said they’d had a near-death experience.
On the existence of Heaven: In 2008, neurosurgeon Eben Alexander III suffered an E coli meningitis infection which attacked his brain and plunged him deep into a week-long coma. Brain scans showed that his entire cortex was not functioning.
Against all odds, Mr. Alexander woke up a week later. And he claimed to have experienced something extraordinary: a journey to Heaven.
In his book Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife, he asserts that there is an eternity of perfect splendor awaiting us beyond the grave, complete with angels, clouds, and departed relatives.
On a personal God: The Internet is overflowing with blogs and articles from people who have experienced God in an intimate, personal way. So I’ll contribute two quotes:
- “God even knows how many hairs you have on your head” (from one of the original source documents on the life of Jesus of Nazareth – even my wife, who knows me better than anyone, can’t make that claim).
- “Before I made you in your mother’s womb, I knew you” (passed along by an ancient prophet).
Granted, none of this is the scientific proof that many people demand. But let’s be honest: the creator and master of time, space and universe, who’s responsible for the air you are breathing right now, will ALWAYS be beyond proving or disproving.
God will ALWAYS be past our ability to fully comprehend. Looking for a metaphor? It would be like asking a porcupine to understand the theory of relativity.
So let’s look beyond this to what we CAN understand:
1. God created YOU.
2. God wants to have a personal, eternal relationship with YOU, but there’s a barrier in the way: the wrong things you’ve done (including living your life as if He doesn’t exist) and the right things you haven’t done.
3. You can never do enough to make up for the wrong things you’ve done and the right things you haven’t done.
4. You don’t have to. Jesus, who many people believe is God’s son, did the heavy lifting for you when he died to make up for the moral crimes of everyone who accepts Him and believes in Him.
5. All you need to do is accept the gift of Jesus; make Him your lord and saviour, so you can see your life transformed NOW and have eternal life with Him.
Does this make sense? Yes or no, post your thoughts below and let’s have a conversation.
Frank's Cottage 
Great point, Frank. Trying to measure God as one would measure specific properties of his creation, is like trying to deduce the nature of reality from a two-dimensional image of it.
The limitations are so crippling that it seems clear too many skeptics are less interested in proof, so much as looking for ANY reason for disbelief …
I agree, Brock. Some folks will twist themselves into pretzels trying to justify the way they are living their lives. Thanks for reading and commenting. 🙂
It seems to me that it takes way more effort to argue, in the name of science, that God doesn’t exist than it does to simply believe He does and doesn’t need to prove Himself to any of us.
He cared for us enough to send Jesus, so I often wonder how much His heart must break when His children abandon Him after He allowed His only Son to pay the ultimate price for us.
As always, a thought-provoking post, Frank! Blessings!
Great thoughts, Martha. Thanks, as always, for reading and contributing. 🙂
The problem, Frank, is that all these claims of one unprovable god *are exactly the same* as those of any other unprovable god. And because the existence of one god with such attributes will directly infringe upon the existence of any other god with similar attributes, at least one of them cannot possibly be true.
Look at your points 1-5; with some adjustments to 4, a Muslim could claim the same things about Allah too. However, because Islam disputes the divinity and godhood of Jesus, both Christianity and Islam cannot be true at the same time. I’m sure you would not disagree with this.
So the question is, how does one tell apart the god of Christianity from the God of Islam… when both of them are supposedly ‘beyond scientific proof’?
A Christian like yourself might say, “Well, I know that my God is real because of the things I’ve strongly felt.” But that is not sufficient: do you think that a jihadist suicide bomber wouldn’t have spent his whole life *strongly feeling* that Allah is real too before he pushed the detonate button? His belief, like yours, was also only *reliant upon faith without scientific proof*.
If you think a jihadist suicide bomber, whose beliefs were based on feelings and faith *and not scientific proof*, is wrong, then to be intellectually honest, you *must* also consider the possibility that you are wrong too, because your beliefs are based on similar things.
Here’s the rub: In the face of multiple ‘gods’ all laying claim to divinity, and all of whom are clamouring for people’s belief in them, one cannot reliably determine the real article from the frauds just by relying on feelings or faith. It is *simply impossible* to distinguish between them on those terms.
An atheist like myself chooses not to believe because *I know that in the absence of empirical scientific proof, my feelings or my faith will prove inadequate barometers of which god is real and which others are false*.
Furthermore, I can expect that if there really was one true, real, all-powerful god, he would very likely *not* want people to believe in him based on the faulty mechanisms of feelings and faith – because he will know that feelings and faith can be gamed by the false gods. And also because he will know that the false gods *can ONLY get by on people’s faith, because being false gods they would have no way of proving their divinity*. Why would the one true, real, god use the same methods to reach out to people as the false gods?
Think about it.
I can’t prove or disprove God’s existence. No one can. No one ever will. The difference between my faith and other faiths is Jesus Christ. Even some diehard sceptics admit He lived. And one of Jesus’s earliest followers, in a letter to other Jesus followers, revealed that as many as 500 people saw Jesus alive after His supposedly permanent death.
Finally, it’s helpful to be aware that Frank’s Cottage is not meant for atheists. It’s written for those people who are open to spirituality. 🙂
But I *am* open to spirituality. Let’s set the record straight: I’m as open to the _possibility_ of Christianity being true as I am of Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc being true; the same goes for the spiritual concepts regarding enlightenment and reincarnation.
I evaluate all of these claims *equally*, Frank, and I am ready and willing to be convinced by the truthfulness of any of them if they can provide sufficient evidence; I do not dismiss any of them out-of-hand *just because* they are religious or spiritual ideas.
That’s what being “open to spirituality” means, doesn’t it? Being receptive to the possibility that any individual religious or spiritual idea might be true?
It is precisely because I am open to these that prompted my first comment. Like I said, I treat all religious and spiritual concepts equally, and thus I understand that *in order to be able to differentiate between them I will need a reliable method of discerning*.. Relying on feelings and faith, or – as per your reply – the writings in an ancient holy text, simply does not cut it.
Don’t forget that Islam has its holy text too, one in which was written that Muhammad is the last true prophet and that he ascended to heaven on a winged horse as proof of that. Would you accept these claims as true? After all, they are also written in a holy text which proclaims itself the inerrant word of god… *Just like your bible*.
Don’t you get it, Frank? All religions base their claims on very lousy evidence (like ancient text which are corroborated by no independent sources), and propagate via the feelings and faith of their respective believers. You dismiss scientific proof in this blog post, but actually the scientific process is the *only* reliable means we human beings have in order to uncover the real truth hidden in a sea of competing untruths!
If you believe I’m “dismissing” scientific proof, then that’s your business. It’s about FAITH. It’s NOT about science. I’m sorry that’s so hard for some people to accept or understand.
I understand perfectly, Frank, which is why I keep stressing: faith is simply NOT a reliable way of discerning between a real god from a false one.
You can continue believing all you wish, but bear in mind these words – they apply to any god that has ever been claimed to exist –
Without considering empirical evidence that you and independent parties can test to confirm that your beliefs are true, YOUR GOD WILL ONLY BE AS REAL AS THE EXTENT TO WHICH YOU CAN CONVINCE YOUR OWN MIND THAT HE IS TRUE, AND NO MORE THAN THAT.
The sad thing is that you have already been conditioned to believe that your god is “beyond proof”… I don’t know what else I can say that will make you realise that such an idea is EXACTLY what a false god would want you to believe because a false god would have no way of providing real, solid evidence of his divinity. And on the other hand, if a real god exists, he would probably chuckle at the way you’ve decided to limit the ways in which he might choose to prove himself.
The more serious implication, of course, is that by believing that god is “beyond proof”, you’ve basically set yourself up to be fooled by any false god who possesses the ability to manipulate your feelings and your faith.
I wish you well, Frank, and I leave you to your faith which you’ve chosen to rely on at your own peril.
I wish you well, too, and leave you with your atheism, which you’ve chose to rely on at your own peril. 😦
The only person who has to be convinced that there is significant proof that God exists is me. I then live my life accordingly and invite others to join me. They will only accept my invitation if they too are convinced.
If they are not convinced, then they won’t join in … but may their decision not come about simply because they closed their life off to the possibility. Lots of people miss out on a whole lot of living simply because they have closed off their lives to possibilities.
Although these arguments may have been shared in this blog before, I would also add that although I agree it may not be conclusively possible to prove or disprove the existence of God – at least the way the world would like – I have read that within science, there are strong arguments for the existence of God. Noted apologist Ravi Zacharias often made reference to them.
Now as to whether God is revealed in the Bible, again I have heard there are strong arguments to be made when considering the accuracy of archeology and prophecy in it, the age and the consistency of texts themselves, and the fact that those resurrection witnesses were willing to die for the faith, something unreasonable if it was untrue. Google searches would expand on this.