OK, so the storm is brewing after all, small phrases and soldiers only showing their flags from their trenches. How many times has the existence -- or superiority of mine against yours -- of God has been debated in the history of human thought exchange from 50,000 years --when it is believed that religion and art first appeared-- .
I think that Diane has a lot of emotion invested in the idea, not only of God in general, but in the message that he allegedly left to us in the Bible. We can see that whit words like "Wow, what a dumb thing to say". I have the exact same reaction when talking with my mother, whom I very much love, and is from the Virgin Mary belt down there in Latin America. She doesn't want to get in to an argument with me anymore and I respect that.
Basically the way I see it is that there are two world that can co-exist with relative facility: the materialist world and the metaphysical one.
In the material world there are laws that govern everything from simple to complicated and nothing happens against this. To us humans some laws are known and others are yet to be discovered, but the fact that we don't know them doesn't mean they don't exist.
On the other world things happen by miracle and in a fantastic way. This world is full of poetry and tradition, exists in all or almost all human cultures from 50k year ago and depends on people to believe in a voluntarily way. You can't force people in to be part of this non material world of believe -- there are cases when societies impose this in to reluctant members by means of torture and/or death --.
The way I see it is that the Material world should accept and respect the metaphysical, but it should be a the same in the other direction.
It is difficult to "prove the inexistence of God" obviously God exists in the culture of most civilizations in the world.
On the other side, the moment that you prove of the existence of any part of the metaphysical world you are denying a fundamental quality of that what you have just taken in to the material world.
In other words if you prove that God exist, then you cannot continue to have faith in God because you will know of God.
Uncertainty is the other side of the coin of believing. And certainty is the other side of the coin of the material world.
What Nikolai said was: I don't believe in the Bible. Diane answered: that is s "dumb thing to say". Implying that it is because she --and most everybody in her tribe of the Bible belt of the nation (of the US) believe that in the Bible. But it is not dumb to believe in the Bible or NOT to do so. (It is probably not a good idea to say that the Bible is worth nothing because it is not true, it has an enormous importance in human culture)
I could go on and on, but since this is a photography forum I will not get carried away and let you go back to your work...