PERENNIAL QUESTIONS 
QUESTIONS ADDED: DEC. 16, 1997
Are there not greater minds than yours that believe in the existence of God?
It is certainly true that there are.
And there are greater minds than mine that don't.
And, there are greater minds than mine that find it politically or socially practical to give the impression that they do.
But, they do not wish to reveal their disbelief.
And there were popes and clergy in the history of religion who did not believe in a divine being.
The real issue, of course is not which minds, what kinds of minds, or how many minds believe in a divine being.
Such minds verify nothing.
Truth, knowledge, and evidence can never be determined by some number of votes of the "greater minds."
Only evidence can verify what claims to knowledge are true or false.
History has shown us repeatedly, through the presentation of evidence, whatever its degree of
probability, that some of our finest minds, because of their conditioned convictions, stubbornness of character, tenacity of pet beliefs and theories, paucity of experience, narrowness of mind, misinterpretation of evidence, need for control, ambition for power and fame, whatever, have been embarrassingly wrong.
For thousands of years those "great minds" have failed to agree on some of the most important issues ever to affect the minds of man.
These "great minds" also seem to be totally unaware of the implications to be drawn from the fact that minds as great as, or greater than theirs, completely disagree with them.
William Buckley is a case in point with his book, NEARER MY GOD, wherein he becomes an excellent example of a manipulator of unverifiable claims and terms which he misconstrues for evidence and rational thought.
Nothing so admirably attests to the truth of the above than the evidence presented by the almost countless number of books in their war of words proselytizing the thousands of sects of conflicting religions and their theistic and non-theistic dogmatic (unverifiable) pronouncements.