Not to sound like I am taking the side of religion in this, but it is really rather silly to say how religion is not scientific and is unprovable, and even next to impossible to offer much, if any, real evidence.
But by the very nature of religion, proof is something that is totally noninclusive. The basis of religion is in faith, faith in what is not provable. If you could Google and find God's website, email address, home address, home telephone number that would pretty much completely do away with any and all need for faith, because you do not need faith to believe in something that is known and provable to exist.
If such an all powerful entity did create everything he would darn well be intelligent enough to be able to cover his tracks so no true proof of his existence and actions could ever be found so faith and faith alone would be all his followers would have to rely on or cling to.
So, you have this all powerful entity. He is omniscient, he always has been and he always will be. He can create matter of all kinds from absolute nothingness. Through the Big Bang or the 6-day creation story he created everything, man included.
Well man was his design, he knows it's limits. Also, having always known everything, and since he always will know everything, it is not as if he would not know the extents or limits of man's mind and science.
Don't you think a being so powerful and so intelligent could throw a few monkey wrenches in the works to keep man from ever discovering his actual existence?
OK, one of the big arguments between Bible thumpers and the heathens (joke there) is how long the earth has existed. The heathens have various beliefs, but then tend to run in the billions of years anyway. The Bible thumpers have the age of the earth, around where, something like 6,000-years? It has people and dinosaurs living together like "The Flintstones."
So now you have this all powerful entity that can create all types of matter from absolute nothingness, that (for the sake of argument) created everything, including man/woman, and he knows their limitations, he knows just how smart they can ever become and how advanced their science could ever be, and that is of course because he is and always was and always will be all knowing.
Do you think that maybe, just maybe an entity that intelligent and that capable might be able to play a few tricks, like lets say one with carbon dating and other forms of dating. He would have to know how they would be done one day, so maybe he throws in a wrinkle where when dating something, after whatever testing is being done, once a certain point is reached the answer given/found is no longer accurate, like things ages increase at a growing exponential rate, but he makes sure that it is done in a way that human science will never even wonder about it, let alone discover it, this making something maybe 5,000 years old appear to be 10 billion years old, or whatever. That throws science a curve and it helps retain the need for faith, because if science dated the earth at pretty much the same time The Bible did, then that is pretty good evidence that the Bible is correct and suddenly the amount of faith needed diminishes.
Does anyone actually believe that a true all knowing all powerful ever existing entity would be incapable of such things?
If such an entity exists he might be laughing his butt off watching all the scientists out to prove he does not exist chasing their tails and following dead end or totally misdirecting leads.
Remember now people, you're not just thinking of the smartest guy that ever graduated from M.I.T., or all of them together, plus a bunch others. You are talking about an eternal being of infinite power/ability and wisdom.
Shouldn't that be enough to outfox all the smartest humans in the world?
Anyone who does not believe that to be the case has, in their mind, elevated man to a point of almost equal, if not equal, infinite power/ability and wisdom, or else they would have to admit that such an entity could in fact fool all mankind for all time to protect the need for faith to continue to exist.
That's just a little something to mull over in your mind the next time you finish a bowl and then go and do a little deep thinking .............. that or I guess you can just take a newspaper along to read while you take a dump. It's your choice.
) strife.