Proving A Negative God

SOMETIMES FOLKS POST what they evidently consider to be very clever arguments, but aren't. The topcs, as usual, are usually politics and religion. One read: "Prove that there is no God". One can scarcely imagine how impressed its author must have been with his self perceived briliance and cleverness! How could anybody beat this? Other than merely pointing out that a negative can never be proven, that the burden of proof is squarely on the believer-in-God. Ask the believer to prove that the ancient Greek and Roman gods do not exist, and see what he comes up with, other than nothing. Brlliant challenges like this usually come from the same people who brag that there is one, and only one religion with a living savior. All the others are dead. (A little bible school can be dangerous to the human mind). Here the reply should be that only one religion has enough audacity, temerity, and arrogance to make such a claim, and that this religion is divided into thousands of religious sects, which they call "denominations". Which one is the true denomination, the true religion? Or are they all true? The Christian religion, and religions generally, are called "faiths", not "proven facts" for a very good reason. This is why it has always seemed puzzling to me why people ever try to prove the truth of a religion using science and logic. I have good friends who spent their hard earned vacation time gathering together at the excavation sites of dinosaur skeletons, tens of millions of years old. Their intent was to prove, using hard evidence, that the bones were in fact no more than about six thousand years old. They wanted to prove the biblical age of the world, using empirical science. And to think, these are intelligent, well educated people. Far as I know, they never succeededIf they had, you and everyone else would surely have heard about it by now, which I assume you haven't. Their project happened in the late seventies. I can only guess what they would say about it today. Their beliefs about their religion, that it is factually, provably true, they undoubtedly still harbor,as fervantly as ever. What they would say about dinosaur bones and the age of the Earth would probalby be something to the effect that God, as Goethe said, gave usthe nuts,but will not crackthem for us, and that sometimes, a nut can be well hidden, very difficult to crack. Assuming, or course, that they have heard of Goethe, which is highly doubtful. People with strong religious faith simply cannot resist the temptation to venture into the world of scientific reality, trying to prove their faith true. They'd be a lot better off just accepting and sayng that their beliefs are based entirely on faith, that they require no tangible proof of their deep faith, and do not feel any need to prove anything to anyone. Sometimes we fail to see the obvious.