Why There Can Never Be Conclusive Scientific Evidence of God's Existence
There can never be undeniable proof towards the existence of God (specifically the monotheistic Abrahamic God). The reason lies in the nature of free will and the story of Adam and Eve.
Also the question of "Why is there evil in the world, why does God allow it?" "Why do bad things happen to good people" etc., etc. is answered.
When God made the perfect land of Eden for his first humans to live in he inexplicably put in the middle of it all an evil, forbidden tree. Why? To instate free will into his humans.
God didn't want robots that loved him undeniably. If you create a creature that has no choice but to love you, does it really love you? The only way to truly love someone is it have the free will to choose to do so, otherwise it isn't a conscious choice, but just a robot following its programming.
So, God placed the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil into Eden so Adam and Eve wouldn't be ceaselessly loving automatons. God gave them the opportunity to screw up so they could make a conscious, free decision to obey and love him.
This is the nature of our world. God exists, but he let's injustice and evil to exist as well. He has put animalistic, tyrannical, sinful urges in us. God has done this so we can choose to hate him. So when we choose to love him it is a choice made by free will.
What does this have to do with there never being scientific proof of God?
If it were possible to prove God existed, we would all become automatons. If we saw or heard some kind of undeniable proof of God's existence we would love God without a choice. The mere knowledge of his for certain existence would strip us of our free will to either hate or love God.
Discuss.
Warp, thanks for bringing my attention to this post. I'll try to be more brief this time and not use philosophical "jibbergabber."
TEM: I agree with much of your post. You make astute observations and good logical use of mythical, lesson-teaching stories. The last paragraph of argumentation, however, seems to suggest to me that knowledge necessitates action; that is, if we know then we MUST act in accord with said knowledge. It is my belief that if an undeniable scientific proof of God is possible (and it very well might be), then people, while still believing, still might make sinful decisions. Knowledge of God's existence (or even, for that matter, absolute knowledge of God's will) is still indeed consistent with action against the divine will. How does this happen? The capacity for free will (which you readily acknowledge), might take to lower, temporal pleasures. Motion toward base things occurs when the rational part of the human being -- which very well might contain hard "facts,"like a proof of God's existence -- does not properly order the other parts of the human being. Passions, desires, and appetite, unchecked by will and even a reason which contains many hard facts can seize control of action.
Even with certain knowledge of things, action contrary to that knowing is possible because apparent goods carry a particularly strong pleasurable nature to them. The problem is that this pleasure is disordered.
In conclusion, most of the post is very good. It simply does not follow, however, that knowledge of God necessitates action which is always in accord with the divine mind. If there is an absolute, undeniable proof God, it is is still very possible that man could choose to act against what God would want.