by Christopher Wiegering

Created on: June 09, 2009   Last Updated: June 13, 2009

When reading up on the question if people think that God is or is not relevant in today's world, I came upon a curious observation. Most of the people that said that God is not relevant in today's world addressed this issue by trying to justify why they think God does not exist rather than actually responding to the question at hand. Of course his existence or non-existence has a strong bearing on how you judge his relevance in the world today, but I believe it doesn't answer the question per-se thoroughly enough.

Regarding God's existence, the first thing I would point out is that it cannot be 100% rationally proven. I think most believers admit that. However, I think it is equally impossible to rationally prove his non-existence. Atheism is as much based on personal and subjective arguments as any religion is. Not being able to prove something's existence doesn't mean its non-existence has been proven. Consequently, an alleged 'lack of proof' isn't sufficient 'proof' for disbelief either. Any intellectually honest person regardless of their own beliefs should be able to admit the logic to this argument. For example, there is no evidence of life outside our planet. Does that mean that it is proven that life doesn't exist outside the earth? No. Even more so, should I be 100% sure that the existence of life outside the earth is impossible because we can't find any? No. I personally don't think life exists outside of our planet, but I am able to recognize that this is a personal assumption. My assumptions can be based on favorable findings but they will remain as assumptions and certainly not as proven facts. In the same way our belief or disbelief can, of course, 'feed' on many rational arguments but I find it hard to respect someone's opinion when he or she states that he can bluntly 'prove' his position regarding God's existence.

I would add one last comment about God's existence: It seems as though the strongest argument for the non-belief in God today remains that his existence can't be proven. People say, "there is no objective evidence" for God's existence. What the argument boils down to is that if God isn't tangible then he doesn't exist. That's amusing if you think about it because the very condition they put on recognizing God's existence goes against the very definition of God's nature in the first place. It's as if God had to cease to be God for people to believe. "Yes, God, I will believe in you if you become another object I can dissect and measure

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