Here is a thread for you to attack atheism and atheists.

Originally posted by adjensen
reply to post by Golden Boy

 

What you're failing to understand, in all of your arguments, is that you are extending the invalidation of a claim to invalidate something else.

No. You are the one misunderstanding my position.

My claim has never been that I could disprove every god. But it is quite easy to disprove gods with certain attributes.

Your observation that Bob didn't show up merely invalidated your claim that he would.

No. It invalidated his existence, because Bob is defined as a god who undertakes a certain action. There may be another god who is identical to Bob in every way except that it is not defined as taking that action, and I have never argued that I disproved that god.

You are strawmanning. I don't think it's on purpose, but you are.

Your challenge was to disprove any god, including any one that I defined. I did so. I disproved the existence of a god who was defined as "the god which takes this action at this time".

Is it possible that there was another god who saw my challenge and decided not to answer? Yes. But that is not the god that I disproved.

You can argue all day about one thing or another in scripture, but you're apparently oblivious of a glaring hole in your argument. God is not defined by anything in the Bible. God is what he is. If some aspect of the description of him isn't valid, that means nothing, apart from the description being wrong.

Exactly. That is what I am saying.

I get the feeling that you're arguing against me on basic principle, but, in fact, I think we hold the same position. I'm just framing it in a way that you've never heard before.

Let me try again.

The Bible defines its god a certain way. The Biblical God is the god who performed all the actions described in the Bible. That god does not exist, because those actions were not performed. Is it possible that there is another god out there, who uses the Bible as metaphor rather than a literal description of its actions? Yes. But that is not the god that the Bible talks about. The Biblical God - the one described in the Bible - does not exist.

You cannot make an absolute conclusion which is based on non-absolute observations. I really don't understand why you don't get that.

I'm not. I really don't understand why you don't get that.

reply to post by NOTurTypical

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
How am I being dishonest? That's quite rude to assert.

By the attempt to set up a false scenario. You are attempting to force me to phrase a negative position as a positive assertion. This is dishonest. Exodus 20:16

Of course every statement of the sort I made is under the obvious assumption, as is pretty much any other statement made by an individual in this manner, that there is the implied addendum "That I am aware of".

You cannot speak for others Madness, but if you hold the belief that your knowledge is limited on the issue I can agree with that.

It is assumed that all speak only in the frame of reference of what they are aware. My statement stands. Of course, your knowledge on this and other topics is also limited, as is evidenced by your claim that the Bible is inerrant and that the KJV, which mistranslates an extinct cattle like creature to "unicorn" is the most appropriate.

Stop being childish with such silly questions.

I don't consider the question childish.

Well, your consideration is false. It is childish.

You and anyone else is capable of saying whether or not God exists.

Not with any level of certainty. You are unable to provide an epistemologically sound answer to that question no matter what your position is.

And to purposefully word the reply as a negative position lacks integrity IMHO because the person making the statement knows full well for them to claim the positive means their belief would be illogical.

Yes, of course phrasing a negative position as a positive is illogical. Thank you for stating the obvious. Please return to the Department of Redundancy Department.

Oh, and it is not the belief. It is the opposite of a belief.

And where is the lack of integrity in being logically consistent? Where is the lack of integrity in understanding how logical assertions are made?

Yours is the positive position. If you are making the positive assertion that a deity exists and I reject that along with all other such claims of deities existing, then I am not making a positive assertion. This is elementary logic.

You do realize that I actively seek the possibility of evidence of the existence of deities, right?

Actually no I don't, it's been my experience with you that you routinely refuse to review presented materials.

For the purpose of thread discussion I refuse to reply to lengthy videos and webpages with wordcounts in the thousands. I do, however, actually view apologetics videos on YouTube (for various religions and denominations), read apologetics websites (for various religions and denominations), etc

When was the last time you read or viewed and Islamic apologetic material?

Hell, the only works of CS Lewis that I ever read were his apologetics (I never got the fascination of other kids with Narnia, it felt boring to me).

Your common response is that you don't have the time in your schedule to do so.

I don't have time to review material and respond to it on ATS. And you do realize that the timeframe you're talking about is when I don't have all that much time in my schedule, right? I've been back on ATS since Octoberish (not 100% sure and I'm not going to bother checking right now). My current academic year started.....in October. October 1st. Of course, this doesn't mean I don't review apologetics, it just means that I don't do so for the purpose of replying on ATS. I'm taking a crack at some of the works of the Catholic church soon, on the urging of a friend of mine.

However, in the summer I do a hell of a lot more reading.

The idea sounds nice when you make the statement, but I have yet seen you demonstrate it when I've presented you with materials to actually review.

Because I'm busy. I mean, I've actually watched maybe 1/3rd of Kent Hovind's videos in their entirety and without commentary. If you include the works of the ExtantDodos and other YouTubers critiquing his claims, I've watched maybe half. I've watched debates between theists and atheists over issues, most recently the Hitchens/D'Souza debate.

I'm actually going out there and asking other people to show me that my atheism is incorrect.

That's shifting the burden of proof.

I'm sorry, but asking the positive claimant to show that the skeptical position is incorrect is the appropriate burden of proof. The only way to overturn a skeptical position is to provide positive proof.

But then again, since you refuse to affirm the positive then you really don't need to supply proof now do you?

Refuse? I cannot logically assert a skeptical position. How is skepticism a positive position?

Again, Exodus 20:16.

You can word your response in the negative to make it free from you having to do so, how convenient.

Convenient? It's honest. When I make a positive claim, I make a positive claim. If I claim something in the Bible definitively didn't happen (like the flood of Noah) or is physically impossible (like Noah's ark being sea worthy or being able to fit and sustain 2 of every species), that is a positive claim.

You are making a positive claim, I am skeptical of your claim. End of story.

Exodus 20:16 again. The straw man argument is a grave sin according to your own religious text. All statements of the sort I made obviously imply 'to the best of my knowledge'. Stop splitting hairs to create straw men.

I'm not. And furthermore, you haven't shown that I have done so, just asserted I have.

I already told you that any statement an individual makes is made with reference to their body of knowledge unless they claim omniscience. I just showed that you did. You are trying to pretend that I didn't necessarily imply 'to the best of my knowledge', when that would be logically impossible to not apply unless I made a statement to the contrary of that claim.

Of course, it's not the most limited knowledge.

It certainly is limited knowledge compared to omniscience, which is one attribute required to assert the non-existence of God. The point I'm making actually.

And I've actually made that same point to. Which is why I don't assert the non-existence of any deity. In fact, I don't assert the non-existence of anything.

Hell, it takes omniscience to assert the non-existence of Zeus, Krishna, Freya, or any other deity as well, but you don't seem to have a problem with that. All I've claimed is that my knowledge isn't the most limited, not that it isn't limited.

I've examined every Earthly claim that I've come across and there has yet to be a verifiable claim of the existence of any deity.

Again, evidence doesn't need to persuade to be logically sound. You know this Madness.

Evidence doesn't have any properties of logic, proofs do. Logic fail. And a logically sound proof doesn't have to be necessarily true. That's something you learn in basic logic. You can have a logically sound proof that derives from false premises, thus making the proof invalid. A proof can be both logically sound and invalid.

Hell, a logically sound and logically valid proof can still be incorrect.

If persuasion was the litmus test for evidence to be sound logically then I can immediately state Evolution has zero evidence since I have not been persuaded by it.

Again, logical soundness is not a property of evidence, it's a property of logical proofs and speaks nothing to validity.

You were repeating yourself and Exodus 20:16. Dishonesty doesn't become you.

Demonstrate my dishonesty then Madness. That's pretty offensive and rude.

I have. You keep trying to skew the argument by dishonestly attempting to have people phrase a negative position as a positive one without demonstrating how this negative position could even possibly be considered a positive one.

It's an unanswerable question.

No, it's not unanswerable. You can certainly tell me your belief on the matter.

I do not believe in the aforementioned deity. That's my lack of belief on the matter. This is not a reality claim.

One must be omniscient to answer such a question with definitive epistemological certainty.

No objection there.

This shows that you didn't bother to read my post before you started replying and that you didn't bother to reedit it.

My personal answer would be irrational and I am not prepared to make a purely irrational statement on the nature of reality.

No objections again, so ask yourself why you purposefully claim the negative position to avoid the obviously irrational stance on God's non-existence.

Which is why I don't assert the non-existence of deities or the impossibility of them, there is merely no evidence in favor of the positive claim that any deity exists.

I do not believe in any deity,..

Finally, so your belief is that no deities exist. Thank you.

Exodus 20:16....again. You are actively twisting my words, this is dishonest.

I do not believe in any deity is not a belief, it is a skeptical position on the position of the existence of deities.

but I would gladly do so if presented with the evidence for the existence of any one.

I disagree, you can always fall back on a rescuing device. Persuasion is relative, there are people walking the Earth today who have not been persuaded the Earth revolves the Sun.

I honestly don't care if the being(s) exist or not. If you gave me ample evidence of Yahweh, I'd believe in Yahweh. If you gave evidence of Zeus, I'd believe in Zeus. Same for Kali, Sussanoo, or any other deity. I have no stake in their not existing.

You, on the other hand, actually have a stake in the non-existence of other deities. Your positive claim is multifold. Your claim is that the trinitarian deity commonly referred to as "God" interchangeably exists and that no other deity exists. It goes far further as you claim that a specific book (with which you practice a form of idolatry) is authorized by this deity and is infallible in a language that is not the original and a specific interpretation is the only valid one despite the often nebulous nature of the language used within.

I'm going to restate this again in another form: Though I have ventured to seek it, I have yet to encounter sufficient evidence for the existence of any deity.

That's because persuasion is relative. One either has a rational standard or an irrational one.

I do have a rational standard, it's yet to be met.

Do I think your deity exists?

I have a lack of belief in His non-existence.

Hey look, further dishonesty.

You are trying to make a negative position be phrased as a positive one. I will further explain why this is dishonest. If you were true in my position being a positive one then there would be no such thing as a negative position.

Unless you can demonstrate to me what a negative position is and how my position fails to meet the standard of one, please go play somewhere else where logic doesn't apply. The arts are great for that. When I get sick of logic I like to doodle.

Well, I have no good reason to accept your positive claim that it does.

No, don't you see that I refuse to make a positive claim, therefore I'm free from providing evidence for my beliefs?

Nope, all I see is further dishonesty. I'm not refusing to make a positive claim, my position is not positive.

And why are you singling out your deity?

Only my deity can account for the preconditions of intelligibility and the uniformity of nature. Others cannot because their natures are not presented as such.

O rly? Please tell me why a deity must account for the intelligibility and uniformity of nature. Hell, tell me how your deity accounts for the intelligibility and uniformity of nature when it itself is neither intelligible nor uniform and is subject to whim and contradiction.

Yahweh: You have free will....except for this Pharaoh guy, I'm going to make sure to change his mind *ahem* harden his heart....

There are millions of others that I'm rejecting as well, most far older than your desert deity.

What is your rational reason for rejecting the others? Absence of evidence is only evidence of absence if you're an omniscient and omnipresent entity.

I'm not claiming the others are absent, I'm claiming that the burden of proof for their existence has not been met. Ancient Greeks might cite lightning as evidence for the existence of Zeus, but I know enough about friction and static discharge to know that they're incorrect.

I can no more claim that their deities don't exist than I can claim that there aren't invisible, intangible, inaudible, odorless, heatless beings dancing the samba in my room right now.

reply to post by adjensen


Your deity, "God", doesn't have free will. It is omniscient and is therefore aware of all actions it will take in the future and is unable to change this during action unless it wishes to retroactively violate its omniscience.

Omniscient beings of any sort are not able to have the character of free will.

...thus the being is not omnipotent either as a being without free will lacks that power. Omniscience and omnipotence are mutually exclusive attributes.

Now incredibliscience or 'near complete knowledge' (I just made up the term now) would be another story.

reply to post by Golden Boy


You can answer all the typical stock arguments for a deity ( as you have) but they are not considered as reasonable nor logical arguments in the eyes of the faithful.

This is what separates the two worldviews. There can be no reasoning for a God other than subjective experience or looking to scripture made by men who were ignorant of many things that science has uncovered since.

With that in mind, we still have to accept we can't prove a source/creator deity.

Again, i think this is a dishonest argument from ignorance that is formed by no reasonable or logical means.

A scientist will never make up a hypothesis and then expect everyone else to prove him wrong.

Anyone can do that, Even I can do that:

"Invisible unicorns are everywhere"
"There's a teapot buried in my garden, i havn't even verified my claim"
"The universe is infinite"
"The afterlife is just a sea of jam"

it's dishonest, it's just a pseudo-scientific conjuring trick.

I didn't read most of the replies cause there were so many. I just wanted to say I am Christian but do I hate or bash atheists? nah. I don't care about beliefs or unbeliefs of other religions either, I don't argue with people who say they don't believe what I do or make fun of the fact that yes I believe the bible as truth. I don't try to push my faith in other people faces which in my opinion is a huge turn off & I do get that some people have been put off by a bad experience or just don't care to hear anything about any religion.All I know is what I believe & if you have belief or rather unbelief about something why should you get mad when someone attacks it if you believe it as truth? I can respect atheism and expect the same, I don't make snide comments or make fun of it or other religions but am expected to defend myself when someone does it to me .Don't get me wrong I really don't care if someone makes fun, I'm open minded and can listen to others like an adult I wish I could say that about everyone including christians.

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
reply to post by Golden Boy

 

With that in mind, we still have to accept we can't prove a source/creator deity.
.

True It can not be proven but can not be disproven either

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
reply to post by Golden Boy

 

You can answer all the typical stock arguments for a deity ( as you have) but they are not considered as reasonable nor logical arguments in the eyes of the faithful.

They're not considered reasonable or logical by anyone who understands reason or logic. Neither are any of the other arguments for God's existence.

This is what separates the two worldviews. There can be no reasoning for a God other than subjective experience

Which is not evidence.

or looking to scripture made by men who were ignorant of many things that science has uncovered since.

Which is also not evidence.

With that in mind, we still have to accept we can't prove a source/creator deity.

Agreed.

Originally posted by ItsMeCB

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
reply to post by Golden Boy

 

With that in mind, we still have to accept we can't prove a source/creator deity.
.

True It can not be proven but can not be disproven either

It can't be disproven, but we also can't disprove the existence of an exact duplicate of Earth out beyond the observable edge of the universe.

Originally posted by Golden Boy

Originally posted by adjensenYou cannot make an absolute conclusion which is based on non-absolute observations. I really don't understand why you don't get that.

I'm not. I really don't understand why you don't get that.

Yes, you are:

The Biblical God is the god who performed all the actions described in the Bible. That god does not exist, because those actions were not performed.

Absolute conclusion: "That god does not exist"
Non-absolute observation: "those actions were not performed"

For your "Red Sea" example, have you consulted with the author of Exodus to determine whether the text we have now is the same as what he wrote? If so, did you determine if it is meant to be literal or allegorical? If literal, did you go back in time to witness whether the event took place or not?

Barring doing those three things, your observation that it did not happen is not based on absolute observations, they are your opinion, based on other people's opinions. Never mind that, by allowing for a supernatural being, you allow for supernatural influences on natural events -- in your Bob example (whom you've yet to disprove the existence of,) by allowing Bob to be omnipotent, you allow him the ability of wiping the memory of his appearance from your memory, so your subjective claim that you didn't see him doesn't mean anything.

I'm not a fundamentalist, so I don't personally believe it, but disprove the claim that the Earth was created a few thousand years ago, with all evidence of the billions of years of existence created "in place". Heck, prove that the Universe wasn't created twenty minutes ago, with all your memories, and everything that leads you to believe that it wasn't, implanted in your brain upon said creation.

Regardless, as I said, God is not defined by the text, so his existence or non-existence is independent of it. Your expectation of him may be wrong (as per the line in my .sig) but that's your deficiency, not God's.

Some reasons why these blasphemous and heretical atheists should seriously consider converting to religious fanaticism.

1: Atheists don't get to spend eternity with the Christians. They will be eternally deprived of sermonizing, preaching, chanting, hymn singing and church attendence.

2: Atheists don't get to spend eternity with the religious schizophrenic, Jesus; they will be eternally deprived of hs exorcisms, fake miracles and fake cures for leprosy and blindness and his rantings that he is the "only" way, and is always right about everything.

3: Atheists will be deprived of having to spend all eternity with 72 Islamic virgins. It might get boring having to have sex with the same 72 Islamic women for all eternity anyway; they would probably nag a lot.

4: Atheists will be deprived of being able to spend all eternity with famous dead Christian celebrities such as Pinochet, Ratzinger, Elizabeth Windsor, Mussolini, George "God told me to invade Iraq" Bush and numerous Popes and Christian tyrants.

5: Atheists will be deprived of being able to spend eternity with numerous paedophle priests and the paedophile prophet Mohammad and will be deprived of being able to perform eternal psychophancy, prostration and grovelling in their holy presence. .

I could probably think of many more reasons as to how these atheists will be eternally punished in the afterlife, but I hope that all these reasons will convince these naughty atheists to immediately recant their heretical and blasphemous ramblings and to cease and desist from talking in a rational, scientific manner and to immediately convert to the propagation of the deluded religious ramblings of primitive and savage religious fanatics like Jesus and Mohammad.

As long as atheists are fully commited to anti-religious activism, my offer of 144 virgins (twice what the Muslims offer) in the afterlife, and my "I will beat any price on eternal salvation (or your money back in the afterlife)" offer applies, and they still don't have to spend eternity with the Christians.

Lux
Blasphemy, Heresy, War, Revolution, etc.

Originally posted by Golden Boy

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
reply to post by Golden Boy

 

You can answer all the typical stock arguments for a deity ( as you have) but they are not considered as reasonable nor logical arguments in the eyes of the faithful.

They're not considered reasonable or logical by anyone who understands reason or logic. Neither are any of the other arguments for God's existence.

Understand, I'm not arguing for God's existence, I'm arguing for your inability to prove his non-existence. As I have said before, my view of God is not typical, it is my own, it is purely subjective, and I would be disappointed if it was otherwise.

Originally posted by adjensen

Originally posted by Golden Boy

Originally posted by adjensenYou cannot make an absolute conclusion which is based on non-absolute observations. I really don't understand why you don't get that.

I'm not. I really don't understand why you don't get that.

Yes, you are:

The Biblical God is the god who performed all the actions described in the Bible. That god does not exist, because those actions were not performed.

Absolute conclusion: "That god does not exist"
Non-absolute observation: "those actions were not performed"

No. An absolute conclusion would be no god exists. My conclusion is that the god which is defined as having performed those actions does not exist.

For your "Red Sea" example, have you consulted with the author of Exodus to determine whether the text we have now is the same as what he wrote?

It is irrelevant. The original text is not the text being used now. All that means is that the god which is defined by the current text is disproven, rather than the one with the original text.

Barring doing those three things, your observation that it did not happen is not based on absolute observations, they are your opinion, based on other people's opinions.

Nonsense.

If I say that there was no 9.5 earthquake this morning, it isn't opinion. It's fact. There was no 9.5 earthquake here this morning. Therefore, any definition of "god" which requires that there was a 9.5 earthquake this morning is disproven.

Never mind that, by allowing for a supernatural being, you allow for supernatural influences on natural events -- in your Bob example (whom you've yet to disprove the existence of,) by allowing Bob to be omnipotent, you allow him the ability of wiping the memory of his appearance from your memory, so your subjective claim that you didn't see him doesn't mean anything.

Then I redefine it to include that he didn't erase my memory. You've pointed out a flaw in my definition, not in my argument.

Redefinition games aside, if you want to define your god as a god which leaves no evidence of its actions, fine; I admit that it can't be disproven. But I never argued that all gods could be disproven, so I don't really see the point of your objection.

I'm not a fundamentalist, so I don't personally believe it, but disprove the claim that the Earth was created a few thousand years ago, with all evidence of the billions of years of existence created "in place".

Again, I never argued that all gods could be disproven. But I would like to point out that a god that works in this way leaves us absolutely no reason at all to believe that it exists. Not only is the god not making itself apparent to us, it is going out of its way to conceal its existence. Why believe?

Heck, prove that the Universe wasn't created twenty minutes ago, with all your memories, and everything that leads you to believe that it wasn't, implanted in your brain upon said creation.

I can't, and I never argued that I could.

Regardless, as I said, God is not defined by the text

Your god may not be, but I was speaking specifically about the god which the text describes. You are talking about another subject entirely.

reply to post by NOTurTypical



You wrote:


["No, don't you see that I refuse to make a positive claim, therefore I'm free from providing evidence for my beliefs?"]

In this present context you refuse to make positivistic claims. Elsewhere you do it repeatedly. I can thus only agree with Madness, when he writes:

Quote from Madness:

["I'm sorry, but asking the positive claimant to show that the skeptical position is incorrect is the appropriate burden of proof. The only way to overturn a skeptical position is to provide positive proof."]

I have elsewhere asked you to present your methodology by which you support your theist claims. I'll just move my inquiry to this thread, as I didn't get an answer on the other one.

reply to post by Golden Boy


I'm not arguing your case. I can't disprove or prove a deity because it's an unfalsifiable hypothesis, i'm not a Gnostic Atheist. I don't claim to be unless someone begins to define God, and

I agree with the points you have made, it's a just a waste of time arguing user's who have a complete lack of respect for reason or logic. I'm agnostic in regards to the cause of reality, therefore i'm atheist towards man-made definitions of God. Subjective experiences are not critical evidence.

I consider faith whether it be Deism or Theism to be irrational, one more so than the other. Pantheism is just a labelling game and polytheism is just anthropomorphism.

reply to post by Golden Boy


You wrote:

["Except when that evidence is absent in a situation where one would expect it to be present."]

IMO opinion a central point, which can make the forest visible in spite of all the semantic trees.

reply to post by adjensen


You wrote:

["Then your argument is based on faulty assumptions, because you're attempting to use mortal qualities to assuage the divine."]

By introducing an element of 'higher magic' (I don't mean anything derogatory by that expression) ANY position can be 'validated'.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


You wrote:

["Now incredibliscience or 'near complete knowledge' (I just made up the term now) would be another story."]

Brilliant!

The concept actually already exists. In Jain philosophy, later used by R.A.Wilson and the a-doctrinal group associated with him.

Originally posted by Golden Boy
No. An absolute conclusion would be no god exists. My conclusion is that the god which is defined as having performed those actions does not exist.

Your statement is an absolute. It doesn't matter whether you are being specific or general, saying "this is this" -- "God exists" or "God does not exist" or "the God in the Bible does not exist" -- is an absolute. I'm not really sure where you come up with "only 'no god exists' is an absolute."

absolute (ˈæbsəˌluːt)
—adj
1. complete; perfect
2. free from limitations, restrictions, or exceptions; unqualified: an absolute choice
3. having unlimited authority; despotic: an absolute ruler
4. undoubted; certain: the absolute truth
source

Barring doing those three things, your observation that it did not happen is not based on absolute observations, they are your opinion, based on other people's opinions.

Nonsense.

If I say that there was no 9.5 earthquake this morning, it isn't opinion. It's fact. There was no 9.5 earthquake here this morning. Therefore, any definition of "god" which requires that there was a 9.5 earthquake this morning is disproven.

So how have you managed to make absolute observations about events that are supernatural in nature and which are said to have happened thousands of years before your birth? If my friend NOTurTypical says that God certainly did part the Red Sea, I'd bet your response would be something like "well, that's your opinion!" So why is his position not only an opinion, but wrong, while yours is not an opinion, and correct?

Redefinition games aside, if you want to define your god as a god which leaves no evidence of its actions, fine; I admit that it can't be disproven. But I never argued that all gods could be disproven, so I don't really see the point of your objection.

Where is it said that God cannot leave no evidence of his actions? What is the text in the Bible that you are citing to support your claim that he must leave such evidence, and that the absence of it is an indication that he does not exist?

I would like to point out that a god that works in this way leaves us absolutely no reason at all to believe that it exists. Not only is the god not making itself apparent to us, it is going out of its way to conceal its existence. Why believe?

When you have sorted out the answer to that question (and, no, I don't believe that God intentionally covers up his tracks in order to deceive,) you will understand faith.

Originally posted by bogomil
reply to post by adjensen

 

You wrote:

["Then your argument is based on faulty assumptions, because you're attempting to use mortal qualities to assuage the divine."]

By introducing an element of 'higher magic' (I don't mean anything derogatory by that expression) ANY position can be 'validated'.

Which was my point, thank you.

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
reply to post by Golden Boy

 

You can answer all the typical stock arguments for a deity ( as you have) but they are not considered as reasonable nor logical arguments in the eyes of the faithful.

This is what separates the two worldviews. There can be no reasoning for a God other than subjective experience or looking to scripture made by men who were ignorant of many things that science has uncovered since.

With that in mind, we still have to accept we can't prove a source/creator deity.

Again, i think this is a dishonest argument from ignorance that is formed by no reasonable or logical means.

A scientist will never make up a hypothesis and then expect everyone else to prove him wrong.

Anyone can do that, Even I can do that:

"Invisible unicorns are everywhere"
"There's a teapot buried in my garden, i havn't even verified my claim"
"The universe is infinite"
"The afterlife is just a sea of jam"

it's dishonest, it's just a pseudo-scientific conjuring trick.

You're quite right, and all such debates as the present one, eventually get to the point of cutting through the semantic jungle, and then 'accepting' theist claims for the time being as working hypotheses, and either demonstrate the self-contradictions in whatever methodology the theist uses or by profiling a confrontation between e.g. a scientific model and a theist model.

The latter often ignored, if there's no 'public' to persuade.

Hence the often recurring theist reluctance to be specific. A vague systematic methodology can't be analysed or challenged.