Take a look at the following list, which shows just a small selection of the methods used by religious people to 'prove' that their God exists:

• Cosmological argument
• Teleological argument
• Ontological argument
• Anthropic argument
• Moral argument
• Transcendental argument
• Witness argument
• Majority argument
• Argument from a Proper Basis

There are many, many more, and I recommend taking a look at the Existence of God article at Wikipedia, which is a good starting point. Many of these 'proofs' are incredibly detailed, using extremely complex philosophical arguments and logical acrobatics to make their case. Theists go to enormous lengths to prove that God exists - some of the greatest minds of the last 2000 years and more have taken up this challenge and set out their ideas as to how God must exist because of their particular proof.

Isn't this a little odd?

Surely the fact that so many great (and not so great) philosophers have tackled this problem speaks volumes about the truth of the statement 'God exists'. If God exists, why would anyone actually need to go to so much trouble trying to prove it? Take a look at any of the 'proofs' in the list - they all link to quite lengthy articles, quoting such lofty minds as Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas... these are no two-bit Christians making YouTube videos, they are serious intellectual heavyweights whose writings have stood the test of time - after all, their arguments are still quoted today, so they obviously knew what they were talking about. And yet they each had to put in huge efforts to make sure their argument of choice would be totally water-tight, would have no room for doubt, contain no flaws of logic, so that there would be no way to refute their case.

The complexity of these arguments suggests two things to me:

1. The more difficult it is to prove that God exists, the more unlikely it is that God does actually exist. (Although note that this is not at all proof that God does not exist.)

2. More importantly, it seems to show a lack of faith. Who exactly are these people trying to convince? To re-work a common saying, 'Methinks the philosopher doth protest too much' - if God is so obvious, why is it so difficult to prove his existence? And if his existence isn't so obvious... why not?

God, if he existed, would be the most important 'thing' ever, bar none. That much is plain. If he exists, would there be any doubt at all about his existence? Would there be any need for teleological, ontological or anthropic arguments to be formulated? Moreover, these arguments, being highly complex in some cases, are not so easy to understand - many people are not able to grasp the finer details of Aquinas' great theological treatises, for example. You'd think that something as big as God would need to be proven beyond doubt to us 'lesser mortals', those who don't want to study theology for years in order to prove God's existence.

If God existed, wouldn't he just be, well... obvious? You'd think that someone who apparently wants us to believe in him, and who will punish us if we don't, would not require the efforts of history's greatest theological minds to convince us that he is actually there. Surely something a little simpler would be enough to provide this proof?

Someone once asked me the following question. I had taken great pains to dismantle all his so-called 'proofs' and 'evidence' for the existence of God, and finally he became exasperated and asked:

If there was some evidence which could be put in front of you which would convince you of the existence of God, what would it be?

My answer was just a single word:

God.

This can all be distilled very neatly into something which I proudly present to the world as (wait for it):

The argument from potato
1. I have a potato in my hand.
2. I can prove to you that I have a potato in my hand.
3. Here it is.

When someone can bring God forward and put him where I, and indeed everyone else in the world, can see him, only then will we have a valid proof of God's existence. If you're out there, God, just come out of hiding - it would save us all a whole lot of time and trouble, believe me.