And God gave it to us in strange way...

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After the worldwide Flood disaster, people repopulated and settled in one area that came to be known as Babel.  They had full knowledge of God and the antediluvian world (which had become totally evil) and its fate.  Over time, they joined together to rebel against their Creator, but perhaps the leaders had undue influence so instead of destroying the people, God had mercy and simply scattered them to other areas (in families and clans) and separated their language into many.  As the people spread out and started new empires across the world, they started to forget God; some totally, others in bits and pieces; some on purpose, others not.  When the loss of the knowledge of God in the world reached a tipping point, God reached out to Abraham to preserve the full faith.  Thus, knowledge of God was not lost from this world, but was passed down to Moses and the Israelites, to whom God gave the Law, which Moses wrote down so that it would not be forgotten again.

So, depending on what was forgotten by each people group (or that simply sounds different in the different languages), some peoples and lands remember in different degrees a Creator-God, the first man and woman in a garden, the promise of the "seed of the woman" that would save mankind from the Devil, the man who built an ark to escape the world flooding, and more.

It's not that God is hiding all this--it was all clear at the beginning, but people stray.  So, during times of great forgetfulness, He steps in to remind us, sometimes subtly (hence faith).  Maybe God didn't want this natural world to be constantly full of the supernatural, which is what would the case would be if there was obvious proof of Him staring everyone in the face every day--if He verbally said "Hello" from the sky every morning or if there was video footage of Him at Mt. Sinai or of Jesus walking on water.

God, at least to Christians, IS supernatural (beyond the natural) - your last comment "Maybe God didn't want this natural world to be constantly full of the supernatural" - is like saying God didn't want this world to be full of Him and His.

Marc

Of course, intellectual "proof" like the over 300 prophecies in the Old Testament that point to Jesus of Nazareth as the long-awaited Messiah don't hurt either.

I think we can discuss relevance of the Bible and religions...

Opposing proofs than God exists or doesn't is non sense because faith is not something you can debate. Nothing to do with science.

I'm surrounded by people who believe in various degrees in God.

I don't.

Sometimes I point out inconsistencies and contradictions in the Old Testament.

Even if they can see it they won't lose their faith, you see.

Apparently there is more than just following blindly some old writings...

There is. 

Eric Jansen above has stated that, inter alia, the natural world is evidence of the God he believes in. Not "a" god, but "the" God, i.e., his God. So, when Koroush counters with an undeniably accurate description of the brutal, cruel violence of the natural world, Eric's faith is undisturbed.

Why?

Koroush (the non-believer) and Eric (the believer) would likely agree that morality in the non-human natural world is unnatural. The former without multiplying hypotheses simply observes its absence, and the latter too sees it missing but describes that absence as "fallen" nature, i.e., the brutal, cruel violence of the natural world fits into Eric's belief system because it validates his religious hypothesis.

And what is that hypothesis?

Morality, which (as far as we know) only humans experience, only by choice, as something fundamentally contrary to nature, i.e., as something unnatural remains evident, even if in all divergent ways, among all humans of all times, and must therefore be supernatural. It is a matter of faith, no doubt. (Pun)

It is not shaken due to a believer's observing the brutal, cruel violence of the natural world because a believer does not want to stop there. The believer wants to "understand" reality further, that is, credo ut intelligam, I believe so that I may understand, belief is primary.

Why?

Because if a believer does not believe that unnatural morality is supernatural, then the only way to look at existence is ultimately as something brutal, cruel, and violent. Yet, a believer does not believe (this is faith) that that is the ultimate. There is undeniably, the believer observes, in life... kindness, generosity, caring, love. Is that all a matter of billions of years of evolutionary biology? Apparently, yes. But ultimately, no. 

The believer believes that human life is lived superiorly -- infinitely and even eternally, but even if not that, just as matter of our short time on earth -- by believing that the morality we have introduced into nature is not a mere evolutionary accident but more necessary to the state of reality that all physical laws combined. Believing this, the believer avers, opens the believer up to the glory of existence, not just apparent, but down to the root, and thus not subject to being contradicted by the most obvious inglorious evidence of appearances.

Science has no substitute for that religious feeling because the "proofs" that cannot -- must not! -- be disproved are fundamentally irrelevant to science.

So, while Koroush is most certainly right, Eric in his own certainty can't be wrong -- he, the believer, just doesn't want to be wrong, and while he may not have every possible explanation either to prove science wrong or prove his faith right, he knows -- based on his beliefs, faith being primary -- that the life he's leading as a believer is superior to that of the non-believer.

It's not only a matter of religious intransigence; it's a matter of religious transcendence.

Yes, God broke into my life in amazing ways when I was a teen and not even looking for Him.  It was His presence in my daily life that led me to the Bible, not the other way around.

Koroush: "created just for your enjoyment by a kindly old man in the sky" "A case could possibly be made that a mischievous or malicious God exists"

Oh, these caricatures again.  (They do seem prevalent here.)  I wish I could show you guys the amazing, glorious being I understand God to be, the God that's bigger than your imaginations, not smaller.

And if you're going to criticize the God of the Bible, it's only fair that you look at the entire revelation.  All the death you speak of was not the original plan and only came about, according to Genesis, by Adam's free will disobedience ("By one man, death came into the world...") in an act that he was warned against.  And, according to Revelation, that death will not be a part of the restored world and illness will not be a part of restored Man.  It's all temporary.

A lot of the misconception here is that this world should be perfect and that, because it's not, that's proof that God is either evil or imaginary.  This is not Heaven, nor is it Hell--this is the middle ground where good and bad things can happen.  If death were not possible, then bravely facing death would also not be possible.  Courage can only exist where there are consequences.  Only here, could a David face down a Goliath.  Overcoming and redemption are only possible in a world where bad things can happen to you or by you.  There are a lot of things that only weak, dying, frail man can do that simply won't be an issue in the perfect "New Jerusalem" the Bible says is on its way.  I'm not saying that God planned it that way or wanted mankind to fall, but I can understand why He didn't wipe us out and start over again.  In the whole of eternity, I think the universe can handle a few thousand years of adventure, courage. and overcoming.

When dealing with an omnipotent, OMNISCIENT God... you can't with a straight face say things like "was not part of the original plan."

Marc