I've thought and thought and cannot find true reasons to believe in god.
Well, my viewpoint is that attempts at ontological arguments are usually in vain (then again I'm something of an existentialist; our world is fundamentally shaped by the choices we make, and faith is really no exception to that). No amount of pure thought or thought experiments or formulations will likely give you an answer, and that's also the reason why it's pretty much impossible to have solid evidence given by believers.
The evidence is typically from personal experience, and that kind of experience is difficult if not totally impossible to relate to others in a form of acceptable fact if you don't already accept the premises the statements of faith are based on. If you do, or are at least open to the possibility, then the proof offered can be accepted more easily. Still doesn't change the highly experiential nature of it all.
I used to suffer severe depression and I have been cured by seeking proffesional help. Yet my doubts linger on god. My family is methodist, I have told them my doubts in god and they have not forsaken me but believe i need to find faith. I do not attend church. Please give me some advice, some irrefutable evidence that there is a god, and even if there was, what would he think of me?
I don't know if this is sort of the case, but medical/psychological help and believing in God aren't mutually exclusive. There are a lot of groups that disavow all medical help of the sort and rely on explanations that "if your faith is true/strong you'll be healed" or so on, but those viewpoints are
dangerous, on both sides of the argument. For the record, I was put on anti-depressants in high school (not for depression, but for panic/anxiety - I certainly
felt depressive though, and I did see improvement in that area while I was taking them), and a couple of those years were very dark periods in my life.
For those that swear off doctors, the ramification could be that the sick person dies, and as a result of that, the opinion of that person or their family is tinted with the idea that their faith was not up to some golden standard, which is a horrid thing to think about yourself or others, especially in the wake of someone's death (that doubt can also manifest in those that do seek and get treatment, thinking that if their faith were only stronger then they wouldn't need it, which then causes more unnecessary pain in their spiritual life). On the flip side, who is to say that the methods used by God to heal someone don't come from the realm of medical specialists and those who have used their talents to help others. It largely underlies the faith/science debate, but I won't get into that here. Science (or medicine, or pick-a-field) is the use of our God-given intelligence, if that's the view you choose to have of things, and thus to accept that one can use that intelligence to help others and glorify God is just as much in the spirit of faith and conviction as someone who doesn't hold that viewpoint, or that God can use those who don't believe to do His work just as much as those who do.
Scripturally-speaking, you don't have to be worried about what He thinks of you, as it says in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life", or the parable of the Prodigal Son, He loves us, even if the things we do aren't always right. It's made very clear there that even though we can't possibly live up to the standard set down, believing and making the effort to try is all that's asked of us to be welcomed, forgiven, etc. Maybe that sounds overly simplistic, but a lot of profound things in many areas are often simplistic, even if making the effort to carry them out is not. Depending on who you listen to or how you decide to approach things, the effort may even precede the belief. This comes back to experience being a key factor - how many times is one unconvinced of something before they try something new, or attempt a different way of accomplishing a task? The lessons learned in the pursuit are often the underlying point, even if you don't necessarily know where it's leading.
Talking from experience, Methodists are somewhat of an odd duck amongst Protestants to start with, as we technically weren't part of the Reformation (originating in the late 1700s because of the American Revolution rather than in the 1500s/1600s [or] because of a theological dispute), and being descended from Anglicanism, have a lot of elements that still strongly resemble the Church of England rather than the more stereotypical Protestant embodied in Baptists, Presbyterians, or so on. There is a heavy focus, when you get into the theological heart of it, on Reason and Experience to help in faith, interpret Scripture, and shape the way we observe the world around us. There's also a strong focus on grace and the idea that faith isn't static - that's it's not some one-time thing and then you're set. It's more of a journey and a process of growth, and a large focus on what you're doing
now than what may happen tomorrow or a year or ten, fifty, a hundred years down the road. Fittingly, Methodists also generally don't talk about the end times too much (although this is partly because there's no singular viewpoint that Methodism holds to - I'm a preterist, but I was raised in an environment that was largely premillennialist, and both are fine from the standpoint of the UMC). The way I see things is, if I'm right in where I'm putting my faith, great, and if I'm wrong, then at the very least I did what I felt was right and lived a fulfilling life because of that. There's really nothing else we can do except hold fast to our convictions.
