What happened to this thread? Again, it's been broken down into a debate between religion and science. Why can't you all just answer the fucking question?
Science is advancing. I hope you all agree that this is a factual statement. There are some people, like myself, who are athiests and thus this doesn't pose any challenge to my beliefs. Then there are those of strong faith, who believe in a higher power regardless of what science does to disprove 'his' existence...
Finally, there are those who believe in a higher power but without the level of conviction that those of strong faith display. With regards to religious belief, there is no black and white, no 'I believe' or 'I don't believe'. Yes, there are shades of grey, degrees of belief - where do you stand? I am an athiest, but I could never claim that God doesn't exist because I just don't know, we CAN'T know! However, just as athiests must recognise that there is a chance, no matter how small, that God DOES exist, those of faith must also realise that there is a chance that he DOESN'T exist. What scientific evidence would shake the foundations of your belief? What would make you stop believing in God?
e.g. what if, over the next few years, great advances in paleontology took place, enabling us to find a direct, sequential series of fossils showing a direct pathway between humans and apes? or if we discovered a new species of humanoid in a remote jungle, with the intelligence of a child and the combined physiology of humans and apes. Would you believe in evolution? Would this belief in evolution remove the reason why you believed in God in the first place?
On another note, what if cosmologists and physicists developed a simple mathematical formula that explains our universe - the elusive Theory of Everything, or 'TOE'. This amazing new theory explains everything that we observe in the universe, including planetary motion and gravity, the weak and strong nuclear forces and electromagnetic force, quantum mechanics, black holes and points of singularity, like the one which supposedly gave birth to our universe in the big bang. Would this cause you to stop believing in God?
Could your faith be shaken, or is it too strong? What would it take?