[tgv]

> At what point to people throw in the towel and say, yup, God’s real?

When He stops acting in mysterious and cruel ways. He could, and this is just an example, have changed the poachers' socio-economic conditions so they wouldn't kill elephants anymore. Or he could have greatly devalued the price of ivory 100 years ago. But no, God's miracle is something that evolution can explain without a hitch. There's really no evidence of a deity at work here.

Did you ever consider the possibility that God's plan is to kill the elephants, and that them loosing their tusks is actually the Devil's work?

[tediousdemise]

We have free will, and the atrocities you mention are acts of men. Why would you blame God for them?

[tgv]

Why would some god come and save a few elephants by evolution after giving man free will and knowing exactly what was going to happen? Are the socio-economic conditions in Mozambique purely man-made? What's so important about free will, anyway? Just one thing in the creation. And there isn't much support for the idea that free will was given on purpose, as a high principle, is there?

But your counter argument is just setting up for more of that "mysterious ways" babble that the clergy have been using for centuries to keep the plebs coming to church. And pay their tithes.

So, if you ask me: what does it take to accept that a particular deity is real: at least do an open, clear, undeniable miracle, not weakly undo something you've set up yourself and have let fester for too long.