[Sir Douglas Chapwire]

To state that God can be proven or disproven empirically is a fallacy. Empiricism relies on the scientific method and is intrinsically linked to science. For it's part, science is merely the study of the physical universe; as such, to claim that science can explain the so-called "supernatural" would also be a fallacy, as the supernatural would fall outside the realm of the physical universe.

It's sort of like someone who doesn't agree with big bang theory demanding of one of it's proponents, "What came first? Where did the Big Bang come from?". That's a useless question to ask a scientist - the moment of the big bang itself was the beginning of time, ie t=0. Science begins to describe the universe at the moment that time and space actually spring into existence, at that very point. What came before it lies outside the realm of the physical universe, and as such also lies outside the realm of science. It's like asking, "What continent lies outside the Earth?". It's an illogical question.

Of course, this isn't exactly ideal (as it doesn't relate to the supernatural), but hopefully it gets the point across.

Now, I mentioned that one can't prove the existence or non-existene of God by empirical methods - but you can disprove things like the story of the "Great Flood". I'm sure you've heard more than enough arguments as to why such a flood couldn't have happened, but here are just a few points:

-Animal species which are dependent upon non-European localized ecosystems would have become extinct, since they would never survive the migration back home after debarking from the Ark. For example, the South American trapdoor tarantulas would have had to somehow journey all the way from Europe to the Amazon jungle, over an ocean and through environments which are much too cold to support it. The polar bear would have had to journey back to its arctic home, through thousands of kilometres of temperate zone. The giant panda would have had to journey from Europe to the bamboo forests of China, despite its poor mobility and extremely specific dietary requirements. What did it eat until it reached the distant bamboo forests? Species like this should have become extinct, but they didn't.

-The distribution of recent fossils should follow a radial pattern from the point where Noah unloaded his Ark, irrespective of species. Consider the fact that all of the Earth's creatures had to migrate outward from a single point. This would leave obvious fossil patterns, which we have failed to observe. Instead, the fossil patterns seem to be consistent with a pattern of long-term migrations and evolutionary adaptations.

-How did Noah build the Ark? A simple examination of shipbuilding techniques and manpower requirements reveals that a wooden boat of that size will not be seaworthy because of excessive leakage, and that one man couldn't possibly build it. The act of procuring the necessary wood alone would have easily overwhelmed him.

-How did the ice caps form? They would have been broken up and melted during the flood, and there hasn't been enough time for them to form since then. Moreover, Greenland ice cores show a progression of yearly patterns since well before the Flood, even though the entire mass should have been broken up.


I think you get the point.