Dom sorry I did not address your thoughts but I think you and I are alike here in that it it quite legitimate to ask important questions, and demand answers, where matters are important

Japov or any Hal Lindsay who proposes something they deem important enough to convince you of must be held to a certain standard of proof that meets your version of how the world and universe works as you know it.

Your side of this mammoth debate is buttressed by lots of fact and I see it in no way invalidated.

I just concluded that so far Marty was ahead in his assertion neither one of you or he or I or Japov can prove or disprove the existence of God or what is written in the Bible as the literal word of God

I see Hal Lindsay as exploiting fear of impending doom for self interests. He's made a bet he will die rich and have lived a "good life" before anything happens and in the meantime he builds a brand. You gotta love free enterprise and speech. If you can "free enterprise" religion that's even better. Ask any televangelist.

AND Dom your questions were fair and appropriate just like Marty's were and I did not mean anything dismissive in my ommision

I believe we are born as observers of the world around us, a genetic package with a birthright of advantages parents anf families can bring, and we become the sum of our experiences with circumstance time and place

I believe our ability to ask insightful questions is out most wondrous gift and expression of our awareness as Homo Sapien.

I believe that our One Shared God of Abraham, the one shared in our collective history, should He actually exist, has gifted us a wonderful universe to ask questions in

But I also what we believe about God, our "story of God" can and does change over time as we learn more answers to our insightful questions

For me science supports the agnostic viewpoint in the sense that our concept of God put Him outside our observable universe , which I have no problem believing started 14 or so Billion years ago with the Big Bang. We have no way of knowing what lies beyond that physical universe creation event horison, to some earlier period, but we are looking at all kinds of neat areas of this universe to learn more of its micro and macro structure.

As for foretelling the future in any meaningful way, no Hal Lindsay prophet of doom has any countenance with me .

I think we are much on the same page???

If writing ever becomes work I think I'm going to have to stop