I am always amazed at the people who insist that nothing is real unless it can be tangibly, physically proven, and that our physical senses are the limit of what can be known. An agnostic says that if it can't be proven, it can't be known; an atheist says that if it can't be physically proven it can't exist at all. Thus, either way, they say, there is no God in the equation of our lives. I feel a little sorry for them, because they have no comprehension of what they are missing in their experience.

One of the modern apostles made an analogy that was so perfect, it has passed into our common lexicon in the Church. He said the experience of feeling the Holy Ghost is like salt. Ask someone what salt tastes like without using "salt" as a reference point, presuming that your person has never tasted salt. There is no effective way to do it. Salt is one of the four hard-wired identifications in the nerves of our tongue: sweet, sour, bitter, salt. 

You can use examples of foods, like bacon, which have salt, but if your subjects have truly never tasted anything salty, you are stumped. Your only real demonstration is to hand them a piece of bacon and say, "This is what I mean; eat this!"

Yet some are so sure that there cannot be any such thing that they spurn the invitation to try the promises of God and His invitation to "taste this." Alma told a group of faltering souls: (Alma 32)

You have to give the word of God a beginning point, be humble enough to suppose that it might be true, and ask God. Alma is acknowledging that you won't have a perfect understanding or certainty right off the bat, promising that the confirming feelings will begin to touch your awareness and that they will begin to be sweet to you.  

The Lord told Joseph Smith, recorded in section 11, verse 13 of the Doctrine and Covenants,

It's an internal process; you can't touch it with your fingers or hear it with your ears (though there have been a few dramatic exceptions on that score). That's because it is an individual process. The answer of God comes to your awareness by feelings which grow into certainty. The scriptures say that that light will become visible through our countenances as we grow in it, in being filled by it.

So you still say, "Humph, I don't believe it for a minute -- you still haven't given me any proof." (God doesn't give proof first, he requires that you give him faith first, or at least hope. It can be just a little. But you have to go first, or you'll find a way to discount whatever he gives you.)

Salt doesn't convince you. You won't buy anything you can't see, touch, hear, or smell. I have a question:

Do you think love is real?  

Do you love someone in your life, or do you know that someone loves you? Can you prove it? No, you're talking about feelings now. You claim they don't count. Evidences of behavior, attitude, those are suggestive. (Look around you and consider the evidences of God.) It's fascinating and intriguing to watch scientists experiment with hormones, responses, bonding, and so forth, but those are only mechanisms. 

The reality of love is universally, intrinsically understood. Orphans in a now-famous study died without someone to cuddle and connect with them. Yes, our bodies and brains work on this process. They are given to us to do so. Love is not just some lucky evolutionary adaptation; it is the first law of heaven, and the most basic part of our divine nature. 

If you really, deeply love anyone, you know in your heart of hearts that it means so much more than evolutionary survival. It is truth and eternal reality. We rely on it. Babies need it and respond to it before they can even identify it.

Love is our first need. It all starts with feelings, and without them we can't learn much. They are bound up with all our other senses, and are very real indeed. Put your Father in Heaven to the test and he promises to answer. I can testify to that.