A proof for the existence of God

At lunch today I visited a physicist friend on the UNC campus. He's using magnetic resonance imaging to study the properties of metallic glass. For no particular interest (other than curiosity), I asked him point blank whether he believed in God. (I later explained to him that most of my posts here lately have been about religion.)

Being less direct than I am, and rather than simply answering my question with a "yes" or a "no" or an "I don't know," he started talking about how a friend of his, a biologist, had answered the same question. The biologist first said, "No, I don't." But some time later he changed his mind, even "became a Christian." It was all because of a proof he had discovered for the existence of God.

I got all excited. "Is the proof written down? Can you show me a copy?"

It was written down, and my friend had read it, but he didn't have a copy.

I asked him if he thought the proof was valid.

"Yes, it seemed valid." He said it was "a calculation" about something in evolution theory. His friend had started by thinking about the hypothesis, "If God doesn't exist..." and come up with it.

"So, if you thought it was valid...."

"I rejected it anyway. I didn't liked its conclusion."

"You mean, that God exists?"

"Right. For the moment anyway, I don't believe it."

His reaction seemed so familiar to me! I was reminded of my interchange with Tom Sheepandgoats. He tells me that there are passages in the Bible (I believe that's where, and I'm paraphrasing, so I may not have it just right) that clearly establish that man was meant by God to "live forever." I'm willing to read these passages (if I can find them or have them pointed out to me), but I know that I'm still going to have the "so what" demurral about it. So what if the Bible says that? The old "hearsay" problem would intervene. I wrote about the hearsay problem weeks ago and discovered that Thomas Paine had already written about it in 1793 or thereabouts—I had read his very writing fifty years ago (The Age of Reason, a highly instructive book for any young or old rebel). Parts of the Bible might have been a revelation from God to some of the people who wrote it, but to us today it is no better than hearsay. It was not revealed to us. (I haven't thought about this lately, but I think it's still cogent.)

By the way, my physicist friend is Chinese and a citizen of the People's Republic of China. His wife is a Muslim.