What’s the question here - could something convince me they are a God, or The God. I can buy the former, but not the latter. And even if such a being exists, in the words of Admiral Akbhar:
“It’s a trap!”. Gods are not the way.
I agree. First, it’s an intellectual dead end; no one discovers anything by saying “It’s God!” or “God did it !”
And second, believing in or following a God does bad things to people as far as I’m concerned. Even if I believed there was a God or Goddish thing out there, I’d make a point of ignoring it. That’s why I call myself an antitheist, as well as an atheist.
It’s a-the-ist by the way, note the spelling.
I suppose if God parted the clouds and started talking to me, like in Holy Grail, that would be a start. My first thought would be to rule out that I was hallucinating, but continued interactions like that and the confirmation from others that they saw it too would do it for me. I guess I could be hallucinating all of that as well, but in that case I’d be hopeless anyway. Basically, any decent amount of evidence instead of the zero evidence that we have now.
That may have wowed them in Galilee but it wouldn’t be enough to convince me. I can think of several ways that someone could manage that…no god required.
No, I’d need a bit more convincing…or we’d need to do the whole water to wine thingy under some very controlled conditions. Think God would be up for scientific controls and double blind tests on his/her/its miracles? Also, we’d need to repeat the effect with multiple control groups.
I think god would be looking a bit harassed and frantic by the time I was through with him/her/it. 
-XT
What Revtim said.
True, but he would probably get Randi’s money.
I’d be willing to split the money with god…50/50. And then I’d take god on the road, maybe do Vegas…
-XT
Build a ship and get two of all animals and birds on the planet into that one ship!
One who can do that has to be OG!!
Wait a second…
…don’t be too hard on atheists being hard to convince. Catholics are taught to be skeptical of any supernatural display as it could be coming from Satan. I was brought up Catholic by a strongly Catholic mother and that was drilled into me by her and the church.
So someone showing up and doing supernatural things would be looked at with strong suspicion by many Catholics.
I am pretty much athiest. I don’t not believe in God…but see no reason why he should exist. This came from a long process starting around 20 and finishing around 34…it took that long.
While I believe that God most likely does not exist…as that seems right based on the ‘evidence’… that could easily change. Now, I might not be completely convinced without heavy-duty proof…but if things were to start happening the scales of evidence would definitely shift the other way.
Suppose someone came up to me and said that he was God (or messanger of God), touched me and I then had 20/20 sight. Well…it could be many things but you can bet my ‘odds’ on God existing would improve dramatically.
That’s all I need…just some actual things to point to that start making the ‘no God’ hypothesis seem more in doubt. These things have to be hard/difficult to explain away naturally though…and take more than one.
As long as there’s a steady paycheck, I’ll believe whatever you want me to.
The lack of evidence isn’t just what makes me skeptical of this Mr. God fellow’s existance, but the logical contradictions of it. If God appeared to me, I’d have quite a few questions for him/her/it. The main one being, Where did you come from? I’m not buying the “I have always been” nonsense. Well then smarty pants, what were you doing for the infinite amout of time before creating the universe? I’d like to see his holiness come up with a convincing answer for that.
I suppose if he could tell me the exact position and momentum of a particle at the same time, that might get me wondering. More seriously, if he could tell me small particulars about my memories and personality that I’ve never told anyone, and show that he knows me just as well as I know myself, that might do it. Though I wouldn’t rule out that this guy isn’t just me from the future, in which case I’ll smile and nod and call him God long enough to distract him so I can steal his time machine. We’ll see what “God” thinks about a few time paradoxes, eh? Hmm, maybe I’ve gotten off track here…
As an all-powerful being, God could simply snap his fingers and make me believe in him. Of course, an advanced species of aliens could just as easily turn on their telepathy inductance device and make me believe that they are gods. In a sense, by sheer virtue of me being a rather flimsy electro-chemical reaction under self locomotion, any proof of something like that is not trustworthy. Humans are incapable of a reliable belief in deities due to our limitations in comparison to that which is being posited.
And really, if God came down and performed some miracles for me to prove his existence, I still wouldn’t really care unless he had some better tips to give than are found in the Bible, as outside of those that seem impractical, most are self-negated if you compare any two sections.
This would work for me, too.
A sufficiently impressive display could convince me of the existence of a being similar to what the JudeoChristian describes as God, but I doubt anything short of major brain damage would compel me to worship him/her/it, as this is quite contrary to my current mindset.
Similarly, I don’t ever see myself voting for the NDP. No offense, matt.
I beliebe the christian god to be inherently paradoxical, so nothing could convince me it exists as described. It also follows that any claimant pretending to be that God is certainly lying or dishonest as well.
Any sufficiently impressive, consistent, and observed-by-others miracle would be sufficient to convince me that I was dealing with a being worthy of being called a god. This would not make the god worthy of worship, of course.
Why would you want to?
I can (just barely) grasp the concept of converting other theists to a specific religion, but I find the idea of converting atheist to religion appalling, akin to trying to seduce someone who is not attracted to one’s gender.
Change my mind… back?
If after I die I find myself bobbing up and down in a pool of acid as demons poke my eyes with pitchforks I’ll be convinced that I may have made a poor decision or two during my life.
Anything that happens while I am still alive is suspect. For example, if Jesus comes out of the clouds tomorrow and everyone starts to die and volcanoes erupt and zombies roam the streets and monsters with nine eyes and nine horns start to eat my neighbors and the Whore of Babylon is installed as mayor of Indianapolis…well, sure, maybe it’s Armageddon. But maybe aliens have come to conquer Earth and they have analyzed us and have used this imagery to better conquer the Christian regions of the world. That would make more sense to me.
A miracle wouldn’t do it for me. Scribbling a note and having someone else read it in a different room is a miracle to someone never exposed to writing.
I would need a logical argument that god must exist that cannot be refuted.
This seems like kind of a weird analogy to me. I understood the OP to be asking what proof a creator could provide in order to demonstrate their own existence, not whether it is acceptable to convert someone from atheism to religion. Anyway, theism is distinct from religion, isn’t it? Surely the belief in a creator doesn’t necessarily mandate any particular attitude toward such a creator.
Speaking as an atheist, I’d genuinely like to know if I’m wrong. If the universe has a creator who wants to prove themselves to me, they are entirely welcome to give it a shot. Directly, mind you. I don’t care to play the Telephone Game.
Simple answer: A real deity would know exactly what it would take to convince me, and if she/he/it cared about me at all, she/he/it would do just that.