Proof in its strict sense, refers to a very small set of mathematical or logical demonstrations which work within their own terms of reference. Most things that we believe implicitly are not proveable e.g. the existence of other minds, the reliability of sense data, the reliability of past memory. If proof is the bar for what we can believe, as Descartes demonstrated, there is not much of what we do believe that we can believe.

Science does not answer the all questions:

Why is there something rather than nothing?

Why did the Big Bang happen?

How can we account for 'abiogenesis' the transition from organic molecules to self-replcating organisms?

It is an article of faith that science can explain everything.

Many scientists who have understood Godel's Theorem are more sceptical about the quest for a T.O.E.

The cumulative weight of religious experience lends weight to the belief that God exists. Caroline Franks Davies wrote a useful book about this called 'The evidential force of Religious Experience'

God exists. Human brains are hard-wired for religious experience. This is hard to explain away on a merely evolutionary view. It is difficult to see how religious belief has any survival value in natural selection terms. However it is a pervasive feature of human experience, culture and expression. Dawkins' attempt to dismiss religion as a 'meme' does not completely cover his embarrassment that in a supposedly naturalistic evolutionary world, religion is such a persistent feature.

Cosmologists and physicists are revealing that our universe embodies a finely tuned set of values which are conducive to the emergence of life. These include the gravitational constant, the acceleration of the expansion of the universe, the strong and weak nuclear forces etc. IF any of these values were altered even slightly it would produce a universe, that would not be hospitable to the emergence of like. These are referred to as Anthropic coincidences.

Science can reveal these amazing knife-edge balances in the natural order, but science cannot explain why these specific values are realised. Some have hypothesised that we inhabit a multiverse of minutely differing worlds and that we are simply lucky enough to have hit upon one that is hospitable to life.

However this is a very cumbersome and worldview with weak explanatory power. It posits an explanation which is far more complex than the datum to be explained and it leaves open the even bigger questions how why there would be such a thing as a multiverse. These speculations also seem to exceed the experimentally testable bounds of science.

The anthropic coincidences seem to make more sense within a theistic framework, which sees God as the intelligent and powerful origin of the universe. Clearly Dawkins et al might want to raise the hoary chestnut about who created God, however a few minutes of serious theological and philosophical reflection would expose this question to be meaningless.

Anthony Flew, a lifelong atheist and public opponent of theism, came eventually to accept that certain wonders of the universe and of life (e.g. DNA) pointed more surely in the direction of God's existence than rival theories.

Thank you for your comments.

It is interesting that you assume that the Kingdom of God coming with power did not come about during the lifetime of the apostles. If we think that this phrase means something like the end of this age or the new creation or the general resurrection, then clearly this hasn't happened yet, and as you say, Jesus' statement would hve been clearly falsified.

However there are a number of statements in the Gospels that theologians refer to as 'Realised Eschatology', which regard the Kingdom of God as a present reality, expressed in the person and ministry of Jesus. In Luke's Gospel, for example, Jesus says explicitly that the 'Kingdom of God is within you' - i.e. as a present reality.

I personally think that the context of Jesus promising that some disciples would not taste death until they saw the kingdom coming with power, points most comfortably to the Transfiguration narrative which follows.

If the early church really interpreted Jesus comments as literally as you imply, it seems bizarre that these comments were not redacted out of the Gospels. The fact that they were retained indicates to me that Jesus was not talking straightforwardly about the second coming.