Double-post for rebutting this website:
http://www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html?gclid=COvdvPqXw58CFRQhnAodcXmO0w
"The Earth...its size is perfect" - Misleading. A habitable terrestrial planet needs to fall within a certain size RANGE. Venus is smaller than Earth, and it has an atmosphere.
"If the Earth were any further away from the sun, we would all freeze. Any closer and we would burn up. Even a fractional variance in the Earth's position to the sun would make life on Earth impossible." - Strange how the Earth's distance from the Sun varies by 3% over the course of the year then. Again, there's a habitable RANGE. It's fairly slim, but it's not ridiculously small - and anyway, it moves outwards as a star warms over its life, boosting the chance that for some time period a planet will be habitable.
"And our moon is the perfect size and distance from the Earth for its gravitational pull. The moon creates important ocean tides and movement so ocean waters do not stagnate" - Ocean currents are driven by many forces, not just the Moon's gravity. And again, there can probably be allowed a fair bit of variation.
"on our Earth, there is a system designed which removes salt from the water and then distributes that water throughout the globe." - so the way heat evaporates water leaving salt behind, and that water vapour can then condense and fall as rain having moved to a different location, is "designed" now? I rather think one would struggle to design a world with oceans but WITHOUT a fluid cycle.
"The eye...can distinguish among seven million colors. It has automatic focusing and handles an astounding 1.5 million messages -- simultaneously." - and yet many animals have eyes that better ours on some or all aspects.
"evolution alone does not fully explain the initial source of the eye or the brain -- the start of living organisms from nonliving matter." - and to expect it to is to show an ignorance of scientific theories in general
"There is no logical necessity for a universe that obeys rules, let alone one that abides by the rules of mathematics." - in an atheistic perspective, such a Universe seems essential for life. By contrast, for a theist, God would be entirely capable of maintaining life in a disorderly Universe. A disorderly Universe would thus indicate a higher power keeping us alive and protecting us from the disorder - an orderly Universe is not evidence for God.
"Natural, biological causes are completely lacking as an explanation when programmed information is involved" - this is not entirely true; there are ideas, but they are sketchy. However
"You cannot find instruction, precise information like this, without someone intentionally constructing it." - this is dogma.
"I was..." - personal accounts of this nature are not evidence for God
"What proof did Jesus give for claiming to be divine? He did what people can't do. Jesus performed miracles." - people who wrote well after Jesus's death said he performed miracles. Not what one would generally call reliable sources.
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In science we evaluate a hypothesis by two means. Firstly, we make predictions based on the hypothesis. The predictions are of future OBSERVATIONS - they need not actually be of future events. (In geology, palaeobiology, and cosmology, we predict future observations of past events). If the predictions turn out true, the hypothesis is strengthened. But it can never be proven 100%, since it's possible another hypothesis would predict the same result (within measurement precision) in the case.
Note that it is not valid to base a hypothesis on observations, and then use the fact that those same observations fit the hypothesis to claim the hypothesis is correct. One must make new observations to test the hypothesis. (If you go 30 battles without meeting a Zubat in Mt Moon, you may suspect Zubat's aren't as common as they should be, perhaps because your cartridge is glitched. But you must forget about those 30 and start counting ANOTHER run of battles in order to test that hypothesis.)
On the other hand, if we make an observation that contradicts the hypothesis, and the observations are valid, then the hypothesis may be disproven. Note that merely being unable to explain a result in terms of a hypothesis does not disprove it, it may simply indicate some details need to be worked out. (This is more common for general and/or qualitative hypotheses, than detailed mathematical ones.)
A hypothesis is thus strengthened in two ways - by making successful predictions, and by not being disproved. (They are two sides of the same coin really).
For evolution, there ARE observations that would disprove it. "Fossil rabbits in the Cambrian" as one scientists put it. Basically, any fossils where they really shouldn't be would at the very least throw a huge wrench in the theory. Alternatively, definite evidence that a species had over time worsened in ability to survive in a constant environment. For example, keeping an antibiotic-resistant bacterial strain in a culture with antibiotic present, and finding it change to a strain vulnerable to the antibiotic.
None of these observations have been made and validated.
Applying this to God, it seems there are few if any predictions one can make based on the existence of God. (Revelation's pretty predictive I suppose). But worse, there is no way to DISPROVE the existence of God. A hypothesis that cannot be disproven is not strong: rather it is very weak, for it is then deprived of the ability to be strengthened by NOT being disproved.
