What specific evidence would people require to believe in God's existence?

I was an Atheist for the 1st 18 years of my life. To me, anyone or any book that even mentioned God was stupid. I never considered that there might be a God, why would I? I was smart and everything I had was better than yours. I didn't need a crutch like God, that was for fools.
Then my luck and my life changed. I now know it was God coming to call. I started wasting money on cocaine. Gold that I owned went down in value. Someone stole all my thousands of dollars in silver coins. An investment I made turned out to be with a crook that stole the money, I had an uninsured car accident that was my fault and ended up costing me alot of my savings and my car. I broke my Dad's car screwing around in it. I got a drunken driving ticket. There were alot more things but these are the ones that stand out now, 25 years later. It was as if everything I held dear, was being taken away from me. I had the worst possible luck, for the longest time. I remember my father saying,” Wow, I’ve never seen such bad luck.” It was true and with everything that was happening to me, it didn’t even seem possible. How could all this stuff keep happening to me over and over? I felt as if I was being crushed. At the end I remember thinking; life didn’t even seem worth living.All these things that happened to me were the biggest blessing of my life. The things that I thought were important were getting ripped from me, one painful piece at a time.One day there it was. The miracle I needed to save me. It didn’t look like a miracle. It looked more like one of those religious pamphlets, those stupid religious people leave around. It was on top of the telephone I was using, in a telephone booth. I had never read one of these before but I was feeling particularly low that day and thought, "what the heck, it can’t get any worse".I can’t tell you exactly what it said, except it talked about my life being a mess, which I agreed with. Then it said, all I had to do to fix everything, was say a little prayer that went something like this,” I take Jesus Christ into my life to be my personal savior.” There was more but I can’t remember that part. I closed my eyes and prayed earnestly for the first time in my life, exactly like it said and I tried as hard as I could to mean it. Anything was better than the life I had at that moment. I remember opening my eyes and everything was the same. I thought, well that didn’t work and laughed out loud. I think I expected a miracle to be unveiled right then. Little did I know what was in store for me?You can learn to have faith as I have and change your life from one of unhappiness to to one of joy. The only essential part of this story is to open your mind to the possibility that there might be a God. Then you have to ask him to show himself to you. Because if there is a God, he has to show himself to you. He will, I know he will because he has shown himself to me so many times. The big thing you have to remember is there will never be any proof. You will never be able to prove his existence to anyone else. The funny part is you have to have faith in him, to let him show himself to you. If you want to doubt what you are shown, you are given that choice also. Both ideas of faith and doubt will be given to you if you open your mind. If you haven’t yet opened your mind to the possibility that there might be a God, you can’t even hear any arguments that faith might put forth. To the unopened mind all these ideas are stupid. I know, that’s what I used to think. I used to believe anyone that believed in God or anything that can’t be proven by science was a fool. But the entire point is that God’s existence can be proven but only to you personally. And in ways you will never expect or be able to show anyone else. All you will be able to do is share your experiences and thoughts that proved his existence to you. To the doubter it will mean nothing and you will be a fool in his eyes.Let me give you an example of what I mean. One of my first steps was to read the Bible. I admit I didn’t get much out of the Old Testament but many parts of the New Testament made sense to me.Anyway, I had just read the part where Jesus says,” pray for your enemies.” That same day, I let one of the 19 year old neighbors into my house. A guy that had never been inside before. The next day, the house gets robbed and something inside me just knew it had been robbed by the guy I had let in the day before. So I thought,” okay if there is a God and this is his word, and then when I do what he says, something should happen. I asked God to prove his existence to me and you can too. Then I got down on my knees and prayed for the guy next door. I can’t tell you what I prayed, just that I did, and I thought of him as my enemy for ripping off my house. First before I tell you what happened, you need to know what kind of person I was at the time. I owned an AR 15 sub machine gun and used to tell people that if I ever heard anyone stealing my car out of the garage below my apartment, I would pump a million bullets through the floor and kill them. I was serious. I owned alot of guns and would kill to protect what was mine. Forgiveness was for idiots. So just getting on my knees and praying for someone that stole from me was a big step. But I had to know if there was a God.
The day after I prayed for the neighbor, he sees me outside and comes over. He starts to tell me about this car he had seen over at my house on the day of the robbery and what these guys looked like. Out of my mouth came something completely foreign to my way of thinking at that time. I said,” I just hope they got whatever they needed.” The guy immediately turns red and looks at the ground. Like lightning, the thought of, “there is your proof” comes into my mind. Stunned, I think my mouth fell open.So here is faith and doubt saying two different things to me. Faith says,” Wow, you would never say anything like that. God spoke through you to show you his existence. By your forgiveness and caring you actually helped the other guy. He couldn’t run from his actions. When he came over to talk to me, he was looking for your rightous indignation and a tirade about what jerks had robbed you so he could feel okay about robbing a jerk. But by caring more about the thieves than yourself he was embarrassed by his actions and looked at the ground.Doubt says,” That didn’t mean anything. He probably wasn’t even the one that robbed you. God didn’t prove anything.”I have two choices here between doubt and faith. They both say different things. Only one can be true. Which one do I choose? It was obvious to me and yet there was no proof I could show anyone else. But I knew in my heart. I could FEEL the truth of what faith had shown me. Faith’s thoughts felt good and loving. They made me feel better. Doubts thoughts made me feel worse and that my rightous indignation was justified. So there are the two choices. One makes me feel better and one makes me feel worse. If there is a God and he created me, wouldn’t it make sense that my feelings would point in the right direction?And by choosing faith, it made me want to change. By choosing faith I made the situation better. I hope I helped the other guy, but that’s up to him. At least I tried to help. I like that.

Did my story sound like I'm disappointed or unhappy by what happened to me? Did it sound like I think God is an jerk because of how he led me to open my mind?
Doubt says," that God really wrecked your life and you're HAPPY about it? What are you dumb!
Faith say, "You needed to open your mind to the possibility of his existance and until you did you couldn't hear faith's voice. By God taking away what you THOUGHT was important, he helped you to open your mind to the most important idea you have ever known. Now look at your life and see if what he's led you to has made you happy."
Would I change a thing, not a chance!

I'd like to relate another story, since you asked if I could have been ready to make the changes by myself.As I grew closer to God I realized my drugs and alcohol use was keeping me from becoming the man I wanted to be.I would say and do things under the influence, that I would never do when I was sober and in control. My ego would come out and I would have to be on top again putting other people down. My stuff was better, I made more money, my girlfriend was prettier, blah, blah, blah. It was pathetic the kind of person I would become. I decided I didn’t like the person I was when I was using and drinking. It was easy to decide I wanted to stop, but stopping, now that was another story. Then I began to hate that I couldn’t control myself. Self loathing started whenever I was coming off a cocaine binge. The power of cocaine was something I could not control. Trust me; I tried many, many times. After having a few lines it was such a struggle to control it. The inner battles were terrible because I always lost. Even if I stopped for that night, a few days later I was back doing the same thing, getting high. Then the inevitable come down. After a weekend of coke and booze, the coming down part was the worst feeling I have ever felt. Once I actually thought of killing myself, just to end how bad I felt at the time. I knew I was insane to do the same thing over and over and end up feeling so pitiful. Why did I keep using? That’s a good question I can’t answer. All I do know is that I couldn’t control it and it felt as if I were being dropped into a deep black pit with no hope of ever getting out.I reached out to the only thing I knew to save me. God was in my life, if he exists, he had to save me from myself. At the end of one of my last cocaine binges I was awake at 2 PM AGAIN, not being able to sleep, gritting my teeth and feeling horrible. I prayed for help. I remember the prayer as something like this,,” God help me to quit doing this to myself. I hate it. I hate myself for not being able to control the drugs. But I can’t control it. I don’t care what it takes to quit. If I have to go to jail or have a seizure, I don’t care anymore, just help me to stop.” I had tried to stop many times before but had always failed.
So a few weeks after my prayer of utter hopelessness to God, I was back at doing drugs again, this time with the soon to be mother of my children. We used to party together alot and this time something different happened. We were at her house doing lines of cocaine when I looked up from doing my line and there across from me was the devil. I saw his face and it scared the heck out of me. I actually got up without saying a word and ran out of her house. I have no idea what went through her mind at the time and I didn’t care. I was scared that the devil was trying to get me. I got in my car and raced home. I jumped out of the car and sped into the house. Locking the door behind me, I ran through the house, shutting all the blinds and curtains. Then taking the telephone off the hook, I crawled into bed, scared to death.The next day I thought, “I have to quit now, that was horrible.” I called one of my using buddies to see if he wanted to quit with me. He said,” come over we’ll talk about it”.On the way to his house a miracle happened. Some guy was hitchhiking on the road to my buddy’s house, I never pick up hitchhikers but for some reason, I pulled over. Then the entire drug story came out, about how I wanted to quit and was a mess. He was a drug addict and in recovery. We talked and it helped give me some resolve that I could do it. As he got out he tells me, “It’s funny I never hitchhike.”As it turned out, my friend didn’t want to quit cocaine but the next day I talked to a co- worker about my addiction. He tells me his wife had a terrible problem with cocaine and that’s why he is raising his son alone. She is now in CA, Cocaine Anonymous, and he could have her call me if I wanted. Of course I wanted her to call and she did that night. By the next day I was at a CA meeting and by two weeks later I was through with all drugs and alcohol. They told me in CA that I had to stop using all mind altering substances to completely quit using coke. I didn’t care at this point what it would take and did whatever they told me to do. By the Grace of God, I’ve been clean and sober over 20 years now.Let’s go back to what doubt and faith say to me about what happened to me.
Faith says, “Your prayer worked, God exists and helped you. He helped you in the most merciful way that would work for you. You didn’t have to lose you home, job, health or go to jail, like some people need. All you needed was to be scared enough to get started. He put a man in your car that never hitchhikes and you never pick up hitchhikers. The man lifted your spirits and gave you hope that it could be done. He led another drug addict to call you and offer a way of out with Cocaine Anonymous. It all worked and you’ve been clean and sober since. God exists and he has proven himself to you again. Have faith in him and he will help.”Doubt says something all together different,” you never saw the devil, that was just a hallucination, nothing but a hallucination caused by the drugs. It was all a coincidence with that hitchhiker and the other drug addict calling you, that doesn’t mean or prove anything. And yes you’ve been clean and sober now for awhile because you could have controlled it all along. It’s all you, there is no God helping you.Faith has something to say about this point of view, “well since it was all you, go ahead a have a drink and see what happens. If you don’t have faith that God did it for you when you couldn’t, he will show you again but it will be a painful lesson, just like last time. Do you want that pain? Why would you, you already know the truth.”I’m not stupid, my drug addiction was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with. Why would I listen to doubt about how great and powerful I am and how I controlled the addiction by myself? When I can listen to faith that there is a God and he has been helping me and will keep helping me. All I have to do is turn my life and will over to him. I’ve been trying my best to do that for a number of years now and my life has improved tremendously. Why would I change what works?

I don't understand what you asking me. Can you phrase the question differently? I will surely try and answer your question. Good for you for quitting drugs. I tell my kids now,” why would you want to be different than you are naturally. If you don't like something about yourself or are unhappy, then change it. Of course all the changes in my life, I attribute to God doing all the work and take no credit for any of them. I guess that makes me weak in some people eyes but that's okay with me I used to feel the same way about God people when I was an atheist...All of them were weak.

I reached out to God when I was desperate. Christianity was just MY path at that time. I've since looked into other religions and believe they all point to the same God. You can call him Allah or whatever you want but they are all the same. An idea that there is something out there greater than ourselves and we are it's children. My life's goal now is to get out of the way and let his plan flow through me.
So to answer your first question, yes I think I would have accepted ANY kind of help from God. But to me, the any, is all the same thing.The second question was, how do I know it was God? Because he has proven himself to me in many, many ways. But like I said in my earlier post, he can only prove himself to me because I asked him to and have an open mind about what the proof is. The proof will NEVER be something that can make a doubter believe. How could there be a choice if there was ironclad proof that could be shown to the world. So then instead of choosing faith of a person's own volition and goodwill it would be forced on them because all mighty God told them to do whatever. But by my faith, that he has proven himself to me, my life has improved. That means something to me. My life was adrift and a mess before I learned there is a God. Now I feel good about myself and my life.And to your last question, I can only speak for myself. I HAD to hit rock bottom to crack my mind open a little. I would never even consider there was a God while my life was going well. Anything or anyone that mentioned God to me was stupid and I didn't want to hear it. I was in control of my life, why would I want a God? There's no proof so it must all be B.S. But since I was in such pain, I was willing to reach out to anything, even if I thought it was dumb, it was still worth a try. So I reached out and God has been proving himself to me ever since.

I can't find your email address here and I just tried the chat. Opps I can't get that to work either. I would like to talk to you about why you don't think different places are safe for me, so can you email me please. georgeculolias@hotmail.com

If there was "ironclad proof" how is there choice and freewill? Let’s say it was somehow proven that God exists to a doubter, that doesn't want to believe. Now he had better do what God says or else. That is not freewill or choice, that is coercion and force. God wants us to learn how to choose the right things without coercion or force but because it is in our God given nature and he stands ready to help us choose if we can open our minds to him. I've found he has helped me, and to me the proof of his existence is in the results of how I choose to live my life

Do you believe that Adam and Eve stuff? I don't.

I opened my mind to the possibility of there being a God. He has proven himself to me when I asked him to. The proof would never convince anyone except me, as there always has to be choice and freewill. Doubt always is there telling me, "that doesn't mean anything."
But faith tells a different story and as I've listened to faith's voice, my life has improved. I've changed into someone I like better than I did before. Now I can I hear the quiet reassuring voice of faith when I couldn't before I opened my mind to the possibility of God? And my life has improved when I listened to it instead of listening to doubt.

I have no opinion on any of the Christ story. I only know what worked for me.

God proving his existence to the doubters would only prove that his own children couldn't find their own God given nature without indisputable proof. So the proof would prove he and his children are weak. We are not weak and neither is he, so there can be no proof that will EVER satisfy a doubter. But the choice of finding our God given nature is open to everyone that seeks for it, as I have.

God HAS made a special effort to let his children find their God given nature and him. He has given us his voice of faith to lead back to him in time. God hasn't lost us, his children have lost him and decided of their own freewill to be afraid of their God given nature. That is our choice and our right as freewill beings but because of the way we are acting being against our God given nature it makes us unhappy and out of touch with God. That's why we have lost him. I've found as I try to find out what my nature is and follow it, I've been happier.
I don't understand why you don't think it follows, God proving his existence to the doubters would only prove that his own children couldn't find their own God given nature without indisputable proof. It makes perfect sense to me, but we can agree to disagree and I’ll leave it there.

I'd like to answer, from my own experience, this part of the question, "The people who ask for evidence are in a position to ask why their requests are denied." I did exactly what you are talking about, I asked for evidence of Gods existence, after I opened my mind to the possibility that there was a God. He did give me evidence of his existence; of course I could doubt the evidence. It was up to me to believe the evidence I was given or to doubt it. There will never be proof either way, as that takes away freewill and choice. By believing what I was shown and having faith, my life has improved and I'm happier. To me that is evidence in itself but to a doubter that means nothing.

Is the existence of life possible evidence that there MIGHT be a God? It's not proof, as some doubters can and do choose to believe that all of nature's intricacies and even their own lives are derived from nothing and were only a coincidence of luck. Some doubters believe everything just happened and still happens for no rhyme or reason. But could this same doubter CHOOSE to believe that all this intricacy, beauty and so many other things we don't understand in this world might actually be evidence that there is something else at work? My question is not whether it is or isn't evidence of God's existence. My question only asks if it COULD be evidence that their is something else at work. If it could, doesn't that put US in the position of CHOOSEING between faith or doubt?Edited by georgeculolias, : No reason given.