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RE: his status is one of a true agnostic, and although he does not deny God, he does not believe in Him either.
You might try sympathizing with your friend and try to understand his point of view. When an intelligent person evaluates the Bible objectively, from a scientific perspective, what they see is both mystical and mythical, so that people who accept it without question simply have to be quite gullible and naïve to do so.
There exists no empirical evidence that will satisfy an agnostic in regards to the existence of a supreme being other than a close encounter of a third kind; and even then, I've no doubt they'd find some way to debunk it.
But even if an agnostic were to be convinced of the existence of a supreme being, an even greater subsequent task would be to convince them that the Bible's God is the supreme being rather than some other.
Christians are really no more sensible than Muslims in that regard. Who is Allah? Who is Yhvh? They're believed to be supreme beings but who can really prove those two gods are any more supreme than Siva, Brahma, or Vishnu?
Humanity has a propensity to superstition; and most of us not only believe in a supreme being, but even if there wasn't one; we'd invent one; and why would we do that? Answer: to give our brief, pathetic existence some meaning and purpose.
Nobel Prize winner, author of several best-selling books, and recipient of at least a dozen honorary degrees, Physicist Steven Weinberg (who views religion as an enemy of science), in his book, The First Three Minutes, wrote: "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless. But if there is no solace in the fruits of our research, there is at least some consolation in the research itself . . The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of a farce and gives it some of the grace of tragedy."
What a dismal evaluation. To a brilliant, secular mind like Mr. Weinberg, the human experience is an exercise in futility. The universe? It's devoid of meaning: just a three-dimensional mural that people find fascinating and interesting —cosmic entertainment; so to speak. The quest for knowledge seems the only thing that gives men like Weinberg any purpose to exist at all.
Mr. Weinberg feels that religion is an enemy of science. I disagree. Religion provides answers to the questions science cannot answer.
There are big questions that many philosophers and scientists have been unable to answer. What makes things alive? What is the origin of the spark of life? Man can build anything; even go up and walk on the moon; but he can't make anything come to life, and he can't figure out why living things live, nor even why they should get old and die. Everything in the universe is deteriorating, including the universe.
How does the human brain, a 3-pound lump of flabby organic tissue, produce the phenomena of memory, consciousness, and self awareness? Why does Man have a sense of justice, of fair play, and a desire for revenge? Why does he prefer to be right rather than wrong? Why be right and/or wrong at all? Why does Man want his life to count for something? Why isn't Man amoral like the other creatures? Butterflies are free, why aren't we? And why does anything exist at all? Why not nothing, instead of something? Satisfactory answers to those questions can only be found in the existence of a creator.
Religion gives meaning and purpose to human existence; which would otherwise languish in science somewhere between a farce and a tragedy.
Galileo believed that science and religion are allies rather than enemies— two different languages telling the same story; a story of symmetry and balance . . heaven and hell, positive and negative, right and left, up and down, night and day, hot and cold, God and Satan. Science and religion are not at odds; no, in reality, science is just simply too young to understand.
Alexander Friedmann's theory of an expanding universe was lent some credibility by Edwin Hubble's discovery that galaxies, in all directions, appear to be moving away from us. Some felt that the effects of universal gravity would limit the cosmos' expansion and make it slow down; eventually stop it from expanding, and make it shrink back to its original state and bang all over again; perpetuating a never ending cycle of banging and shrinking.
But we now know from the Supernova studies of Saul Perlmutter and Brian Schmidt, that the universe is not only expanding, but contrary to expectations, the velocity of its expansion is accelerating; viz: gravity is not slowing the expansion down at all, it's actually speeding up, so the cosmos will never of its own accord stop expanding in order to shrink itself back into one solid glob of highly condensed nothing.
This discovery was very discouraging for cosmologist Alan Sandage since he was once a proponent of the theory that the universe would some day shrink upon itself; and called the discovery of the ever-increasing velocity of the expanding universe a "terrible surprise." In a special 2002 collector's edition of U.S. News and World Report, a paragraph says that at a 1998 cosmologists conference in Berkeley California, Mr. Sandage told the gathering that contemplating the majesty of the big bang helped make him a believer in God; and willing to accept that the creation could only be explained as a miracle.
Dr. Robert Jastow, founder of the Goddard Institute for space studies at NASA, in his book God And The Astronomers said; Strange developments are going on in astronomy. One of these is the discovery that the universe had a beginning. And that means there has to be a Beginner. The scientist has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak, and as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
C.L.I.F.F.
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), I do believe her answer would have been different. It seems to be a matter of "well if I am wrong, then what?" Does anyone have any advice? Any bible passages that could lead me in the right direction?? Thanks!! 
