In article , "Harold and Susan Vordos" wrote:

Yep! You know that, and I know that, but have you tried to convince a god
freak that he has no proof? They absolutely refuse to listen to reason,
having been firmly brainwashed and sold on their particular belief. It's
as if logic has no value, nor does any and all scientific evidence that can
be provided.

Be charitable, Harold, we're not all like that. :-) I freely admit that I have
no proof that God exists, but I'm convinced of it all the same. It's rather a
long story, and quite personal besides, so I won't get into it here, but I had
a "conversion experience" about twelve years ago -- following more than 20
years of vigorously articulate atheism -- for which I found the hand of God to
be a more persuasive explanation than anything else I could imagine. However,
I certainly can't, and don't, expect *you* to be convinced by *my* personal
experience.

My grandfather was fond of saying that "a man convinced against his will is of
the same opinion still." Nowhere is this more true than in matters of
religion: belief, or non-belief, is intensely personal, and not readily
altered by mere words.

I had one of those morons tell me that the earth is only a
few thousand years old, and fossils were planted by God to confuse us. Sad
thing is, he believed it.

snort Yes, I've run into a few of those too, and don't have much higher an
opinion of their thought processes than you seem to; they don't seem to
realize that they're casting God in the role of the Supreme Cosmic Practical
Joker. I have a rather higher regard for Him than that.

The other thing they don't realize is that the Bible is not a science
textbook.

Too many folks at your end of the spectrum, though, don't realize that not
everyone at *my* end of the spectrum thinks like those guys. A large number of
us see science and religion as two separate and non-overlapping spheres:
science teaches us about the natural world, how it came to be, and how it
operates, while religion teaches us about our relationships with each other
and with our Creator. As long as neither one tries to meddle in the other's
domain, I see no reason why science and religion cannot peacefully coexist.