Our entire world and our very existence is proof that there is a god. How could anything like our world have appeared by chance? How is it that we could somehow have managed to beat all of the odds, having the right star, a hospitable planet with all we need, and then having the first life form appear on its own (which we still haven't even been able to replicate in a lab yet), and that that one life form would be sufficient enough to multiply and populate the whole planet? The chances are so small, we can't even put a number on it.
As I said, the size of the universe is so big that it more than makes up for the impropabilty for an event like the forming of life. Lets just assume the chance for a planet to be inhabitable is 0.00001%. We assume, there are 100000000 of stars in the universe, and we assume that every star has at least one planet. This way, we have a chance of 10%, if I am right, that one of the planets is inhabitable. Now, this isn’t much, either, I just wanted to show you that the chance for something to happen, no matter how small this chance may be, becomes much bigger if you have lots of occasions where this chance exists.
You see, its not as impropable for life to exist as some people believe. I don’t regard this as evidence for God.
How did the universe start in the first place? Some say that there may be some "machine" somewhere, creating alternate realities and adjusting itself to make each universe different. If so, what made the machine? Where does it end?
The fact that the machine changes means that it has to have a starting point too. But unlike the universe-creating machine, God never changes, and He's the only originator who could have existed in a timeless universe. Since God could exist in the beginning, he doesn't need a creator.
He's the only one who could, in that world of timeless nothingness, purposefully design a universe hospitable for life, and get it right the first time.
Who says that this machine ever changes, or that the “God” who created the universe is anything like you portray them? He could just as well be malevolent or just plain apathetic to our existence. He could have created it and then abandoned us. With your reasoning, we still have no answer why Christianity is true, not Islam or even the lore of Lovecraft.
Now, about the start of the universe, I know that science doesn’t have answers for everything, but neither have you. Science can’t give you an answer of what the universe was like before it was “created”, or on how to create life. Religion, on the other hand, never gave humanity a satisfying answer on how to build cars, travel to the moon or on who killed John F. Kennedy.
But, most importantly, just because we have no answer for something doesn’t mean we can put whatever we want into the blanks. If we assume that it must be God who created the universe in the first place, we still have no idea what he is like, or which religion is true. The only thing we know is that he exists, and nothing else.
If they were religious, what makes you think any of them would be in Hell? Because she committed suicide? The Bible doesn't say that suicide negates salvation. Suicide could be a sign of a lack of faith, and the lack of faith which might disqualify, but everyone loses faith sometimes. Did she kill herself because she lost faith in God, or because she was too overcome by emotion?
I’d say it was the second part, although I don’t know for sure. Well, most of the time, I hear that everyone who commits suicide ends in hell because its technically murder and because our lifes don’t belong to us, but to God.
I don't know the situation your friend's mother was in, so I can't comment on why she didn't have the strength to survive. It may have been that she prayed to God for assistance, but then she did little to help herself. It would be like if I ask God for a job, but I don't go to any interviews. But, again, I don't know what her situation was, so I can't say for certain.
The difference is, God is omnipotent. So what reason does he have for not helping us if we ask?
If God only helps us if we help ourself, then we can just go on without his assistance and do everything by ourself.
