Prove that God exists

[DélioPT]

Final-Fan said:

Well, I'm not sure you can blame it on me if by "with a broken heart" you meant "with humility", but anyway. 

Basically, I grew up Catholic and had no reason to go against what I was taught, no rebellion against my parents etc.  But as I got older the whole thing seemed like it made less and less sense to me.  I realized that if you take the Bible word for word, it just doesn't hold up; and if you start throwing pieces out or "interpreting" them fairly loosely so that it all still makes sense, then it opens you up to questions about how reliable it all really is.  It left me wondering how much of the stuff in the Bible is actually accurate.  It was all written by fallible men, after all. 

The position I ended up at was that I don't know for a fact God doesn't exist, but I don't know He exists either, and if He does I don't know how much He resembles the (seemingly contradictory) descriptions in the Bible.  If, after I die, I find myself in some sort of afterlife, I'd certainly hope that if God is there He will understand that my doubts were reasonable and sincere and not send me to hell just because He elected not to make things more indisputable in this day and age (unlike in the Old Testament where Godly intervention happened all the time, allegedly).  Why should Doubting Thomas be the only one to get evidence? 

If you want something more specific, I don't know how much I can tell you about what specifically changed me over the years.  I do remember one thing:  reading the Book of Job, it seemed to me like God would have to be a humongous dick to act as depicted.  Gets in a pissing match with Satan, why?  Pride?  To prove how incredibly loyal his followers are?  It's not easy to reconcile this with the loving God we know from Sunday school. 

I did enjoy the Superbook cartoons as a kid though.  Couldn't get enough of them. 

I`m not going to tell you i already read the Bible from beginning to end or that i have perfect understanding of it and you don`t. And i hope you don`t take this in the wrong way.

"I realized that if you take the Bible word for word, it just doesn't hold up"
There are parts os the Bible you can take word for word and there are other parts who speak more than just words.
When Jesus told the samaritan woman about the "living water" it`s not to be taken literally. It`s to show how faith in God, how love in God is all humans need to fulfill themselves. Just among one interpretation of living water.

"Why should Doubting Thomas be the only one to get evidence?"
Do you really believe that makes a difference? What about the others who saw what Thomas saw and still didn`t believe? That case for example: if Jesus was so evident with all the miracles why was it that people still didn`t believe?
But you do have evidence (Bible, miracles, apparitions, people`s own experiences). The real question never is, was, will be, about if there`s something in front of you to be "seen", the question is do you believe them? And what that says of a person.
Still i would point out the Marian apparitions here in Portugal if you want more evidence.

About the book of Job.
In what way was Job different from you and me or even Jesus? Don`t we all get tempted by the devil? Even Jesus, the Son of God was tempted.
The Book of Job is about ourselves, not just Job, and how despite all things God`s there for those who stand by Him. Job was rewarded with more than He started with.
In other words, those who lose themselves, find themselves in God. That`s what happened with Job, Jesus and all those who want God.
The obstacles in our life are not enough to stop us. We can overcome them.