Humility has taught me to be wise as to how to find truth with an open mind and heart.
I give consideration to all possibilities and if I find a contradiction then I know that it can not be truth. Truth never contradicts itself. To be naive is to innocent, but to be ignorant is to be guilty.

Wisdom and knowledge are the subjects to the nobility of truth, so if thy caution thyself not to be the fool and thy have a boastful tongue, then let it be that which rest upon thy head the Crown of Truth.

The destination of wisdom and the enlightenment of truth is traveled along the path of humility.

I looked up Turin’s biography out of interest and found it fascintating that he embraced atheism as a result of the tragic death of his lover.

It reminded me of another post on here (
http://www.the-atheist.com/the-two-ways-to-become-religious-rise-or-fall) in which Athiest complains that conversions to religion very often take place in the midst of personal tragedy. I think rather we must conclude that these moments often drive us to ask the truly important questions of life –the ones we try to avoid under normal circumstances: what is the meaning of our short lives on earth? is there an afterlife? is there a God? etc… While it may be true for some that these opportunities are answered by the first passing fad, for very many it can indeed be the moment where these questions are examined with a genuine openness of mind that is difficult to achieve in the normal run of things.

These are profoundly religious questions. In a sense the question of the existence of God is not since it is possible to have a completely theoretical concept and “belief” in God without raising them.

As I have stated before many times on this blog site, these questions are not scientific by nature. Another way of putting this is to say that religion is not measurable by science. Thus there are many great scientists who believe in God (and Einstein, in his one way, was one of them). To expect the existence of God to be proven by science is a little like expecting the existence of justice to be so proven. Prove to me that the principle of non-contradiction is true! (You can’t since you must use it just to think. It is the very possibility of thought). Demonstrating the existence of God is of that nature.

You also assert that “The whole god concept is human-made, and obviously false…” It is interesting that every known culture has deities. The questions I mentioned are spontaneous for human nature and need to be stifled to be ignored. Atheism is always manufactured since it always arises out of and in response to theism.

Indeed it is about time that we started asking these critical questions. We get distracted easily about some minor star in some far distant galaxy or drown out our interior existential questioning with loud music and hyperactivity. All this is a bit childish. I agree with your last comment, therefore.

The human race should just grow up.

FACT:There is no God. Disagree? Prove it. There is not one single scintilla of evidence to indicate otherwise. The burden of proof is on the believer in whatever god, fairies, santa to prove they exist. Why can’t the religious and agnostics understand this?

The whole god concept is human-made, and obviously false – full of contradictions, paradoxes, all conveniently ignored by the religious. Both the Bible and the Koran contradict themselves. If it were legal testimony it would be thrown out, (how ironic is it you swear on them?).

Creationism/Intelligent design is nonsense, it isn’t science, just the flailings of the ignorant to adapt their superstitions to reality.

Its a superstition, there are no gods, ghouls, fairies, monsters, bogeymen, elves, spirits, ….

The human race should just grow up.

There are some postulates that are inherently unprovable and the one relevant to this discussion is the proposition that some particular thing does not exist. To illustrate: If I should say that there are no x’s, I have in effect said that I have been throughout all dimensions of time, space and all other yet undiscovered universes and there is not one x in any of them. The atheist may bring forward mountains of evidence to support his opinion but they are never sufficient because they can only be circumstantial. There is, in fact, only one proposition provable of nonexistence: nothingness. Thus the rigors of mathematical logic illuminate the fact that the atheist’s opinion is an act of faith. Interestingly enough, this makes him guilty of the crime he most loathes and stamps him with the label he most abhors for he must accept his position on more or less blind faith which in turn makes him religious.

Good science, based as it is on the rigors of calculated skepticism, is not particularly speedy in its discovery of the true nature of our universe. It too is based on a faith in the virtues of investigation of circumstances, the projection of theories and the testing of propositions. Nevertheless, in the last few decades it has uncovered some truths whose implications are intriguingly intertwined with the proposition that at least there is a creator who just might turn out to be deity. This leads to a question that ought to plague the mind of the atheist: “Upon what basis do I reject the testimony of the astronauts?”

The astronauts, every one of them, and with no dissenters, have returned to earth bearing testimony that the earth is indeed round, that is moves majestically in its orbit around our sun and that indeed our entire solar systems appears to be exactly as modern astronomy has described it. They saw it from a new and distant perspective and witness its accuracy. This gives great credence to astronomy and to the claimed recent discoveries of planets where life is almost sure to exist. If we are to accept the objective testimony of the astronauts and their associates the astronomers, then we must venture into a realm that denies atheism its fundaments. Here’s why.

There is serious discussion among astronauts and astronomers about the existence of other habitable worlds and the possibility; nay, the likelihood of life on other orbs and, of course, that can only lead to the possibility of beings with intelligence superior to our own, perhaps even far superior. Besides that, there are well thought out plans on our table for the conversion of the atmosphere of Mars to an oxygen rich gas that could support human life without any special provision for breathing. These plans include a kind of mega-leveraging of natural processes to cause the planet’s present gas balance to shift to one where oxygen is released and retained. The whole study of this group of intelligent beings is to create a new habitation for our race. This would make these beings creators in at least a limited sense. There can be no other conclusion if we are to adhere to the commonly accepted usage of these words.

It is thence a simple matter to add together the testimonies of the astronauts, the plans of their associates and the postulates of beings of superior intelligence to arrive at the exciting possibility that this earth may actually be the creation of such beings and, by extension, that we, the human race, could actually be their creation, perhaps even their offspring. Furthermore, we are naturally led to the supposition that we may have been placed here as a test to see what we would do in our tiny home in the heavens.

Thus, by scientific discovery and by definition we have arrived at the distinct possibility, nay, the likelihood of the existence of beings whose description falls ever closer to that of deity. Thus the opinion of the atheist has come into serious doubt and atheism’s promise of amorality falls empty at the feet of the ongoing scientific discovery of deity and the true origin of man.

The atheist, upon considering all this may well ask, “If I suppose that this is all true, then why haven’t we been told.” and I answer that we have. There have been many prophets in the world, most of them have self-serving agendas and should be ignored, but there are a few that we may call “holy”. This leads to a final question for the atheist, “Upon what basis do you reject the testimony of the all the holy prophets?”

On the other hand, I love your point that the question of the existence of God is also the question of whether there is inherent meaning in life. I have this niggling thought that the atheist is really trying to distance himself from accountability. There has to be some motivation for him to believe in a proposition that is completely impossible of proof. But then, maybe that’s also the point.