Here I was in a bus today, noticing how fast the double-decker was driven under some trees overhanging the road: It proved to me that the tree branches were not growing low enough to smash into the windows because I knew how likely it was that the bus driver knew that road and knew those trees. I was surprised at how those simple pieces of knowledge, combined with a simple observation, resolved in mind into proof of a fact with quite strong certainty.
Then it dawned on me (I'm a bit slow with understanding some things others might find so obvious) that this was similar to how I had also believed with strong certainty that God exists.
As we went on in the bus I saw the human behaviour of other road users and I saw the traffic control systems in place on the road, such as signs which showed the speed of the bus as it approached the sign (and turned either red if it was too fast or green if it had slowed down sufficiently). If I wanted proof of the existence of a government being in power, I could see it by observing the obedience of people to the law (in certain situations where the law was obvious). In general they slow down when faced with the traffic control signs, proving the existence not only of laws (laws and road signs alone would not cause them to obey) but of governments enforcing those laws (the fact the would get a fine makes them think twice about disobeying these special kinds of road sign).
The same way human behaviour regarding well-known laws proves the existence of a government, the existence of God is proven by the fact that so many believe His word and fear Him and behave accordingly.
Now it is more complex than this because social factors are at work which muddy the picture a bit, in that there are many who flout laws despite the risk of punishment. If I were to base my observations regarding peoples' behaviour towards traffic laws on how many cyclists in the UK stop at traffic lights I would not be so well convinced. There are more complex factors. There are 'grey areas'. For example, cyclists might perhaps be governed differently by traffic laws in the UK than the way motorists are: Does the Highway Code fully apply to cyclists the way it applies to motorists? There is perhaps a lack of prosecutions against cyclists in the UK for flouting traffic laws. If I cross the road at a traffic light I have to look out for cyclists and also the occasional motorist disregarding red lights. So some might say the proof of the existence of a government is less clear if you look at some behaviours than if you look at others. In general though there is ease in finding situations which do prove the theory that a government exists such that the grey areas are not a sufficient hindrance to warrant rejecting as unproven the theory that government does exist and does punish illegal behaviour. Fine.
Now with God it is perhaps equally 'grey' in some cases of what might be considered as evidence. However there are still so many who fear to go against what is well-known as being His historically given word (such as adherence to the Sabbath, avoidance of blasphemy and the turning away from idolatry) that the evidence is pretty good on the whole, enough, I would say, to consider it proven. It is made less clear by complications in society such as different interpretations of the word 'Sabbath' (for some it is Saturday and for others Sunday). It also gets complicated because for many there are so few around them adhering to God's word and commands that it is easy to not notice the evidence.
I might sit in my room each day, never go out, never watch TV or hear the radio and to stay alive I can just order take away (that's 'take out' for you Americans) and I can effectively cut myself off that way from evidence that governments exist. This way I might forget or never find out there is indeed any law or government to enforce it. That is a social factor. It doesn't mean it isn't proven or that there is no evidence for the existence of a government, just because I can be hidden from it and remain ignorant. Social factors are at work which can for some, I conjecture, make well-known facts unknown and maybe unknowable.
There is pressure on those who do know and believe regarding God because they themselves and their behaviour are the evidence by which others can find it sufficiently well proven that they too will believe. This pressure has bad side-effects. People watch you to see how you will react so that they can be sure of the same things of which you are sure. They need to know and your behaviour is the way they can know but they behave badly sometimes in the process of coming to that knowledge. That might be because they resist it so hard because it has such ramifications for them and they are afraid they might get it wrong. They may find the very notion of God's existence abhorrent to them, a reminder of the possibility they will be judged and at the same time they feel they have insufficient evidence to believe enough to obey and escape death.
So there are factors against belief, such as the suffering that ensues on believing and the implications regarding judgement making belief painful. Plus factors such as counter-evidence which is not a strong as the evidence but adds to the confusion and requires that we weigh the evidence 'for' and 'against'. The evidence 'for' does, I feel, prove the existence of God. People behave towards God's commands in a similar way to their behaviour towards their government's laws. The second of these behaviours proves the existence of a government and in this same way the other behaviour proves the existence of God.
Yet both have counter-evidence in that some do not obey and there are other complications such as lack of clarity over what the laws of a government are (as in the cyclists example above), just as it isn't always clear what are the commands of God (as with the matter of which day is actually the Sabbath - Saturday or Sunday).
Yet the belief doesn't just come from observing believers, as that would be a little weak on its own and the pressures against believing are great. It mostly comes from personally hearing the commands and promises of God for yourself and combining this with the other evidence.
I think the evidence in science is compelling even if you do not believe in evolution. The notion that mankind is on the way to having power to do greater and greater feats even in space and that mankind may be around for many millennia is almost incontrovertible. The idea that mankind alone would have such power in the vastness of the Universe is so unlikely to be true. The idea has to follow that other beings already can do what mankind might be able to do in thousands of years time. That these powers NOT include building planets and building creatures like those on earth seems unthinkable too, given what we know of human progress over just a few thousand years. To say that planets like ours would not have been purpose built anywhere is against what we know. It is simple to extrapolate and say that planets must exist somewhere which are not only like ours and inhabited like ours but purpose built by beings greater than us. Then it seems irrational to dismiss the possibility that our planet and indeed the human race has been purpose built too. It really just follows from what we know of human progress and the age of the Universe. To say that one being on 'its' own did it is just the same reasoning taken a step further in that there must be beings able to do it so why not assume that one was over all the others in building us and building Earth. Of all the beings with power there must surely be one most powerful and able to be in charge of the particular effort that seems so likely to have built this planet and us. Why not call this being God? Why wouldn't that being make himself or itself known to us in the fullness of time? Then why not accept the testimony in history that this being has made himself known in the giving of the law to Moses and the coming of the Christ? Yet all this is not enough alone to make us believe: Not until we actually hear the words of our Creator and accept this word in the testimony of Jesus Christ.
So maybe the argument I have given is enough to 'prove' on its own that science should be able to support a model of the Universe in which planets like the Earth were created by more advanced lifeforms than we are today, in view of what we should believe we could ourselves become over the coming millenia. I hope I have shown that it is more reasonable to include in our science the power of human beings now and in the future and the almost inevitable extrapolation that before humans had these powers it would be nonsense to believe that no other being had such powers already which we probably will one day have. Yet this very model exposes its own weakness in that such a being would reasonably be expected to be able to reveal itself and if it did then this would add to our knowledge new facts beyond the reach of our present science. In fact there has been revelation and that revelation is far better than the model. The model does not include the possibility of the creator of this world being 'uncreated' and being the creator of all worlds including the Universe. Revelation since the time of Christ does suggest these things are true, "through Him all things were made and without Him nothing was made that has been made" (The Gospel according to John). I rest my case.
