Thomas Metcalf

rdalin:

While I don't think one can conclude lack from a pure lack of evidence, I think there are usually good ways to conclude that any specific god doesn't exist.

The lack of evidence for God isn't just a lack of evidence, as you seemed to allude. There is indeed good reason to suspect that if God existed, we'd know about Him by now, especially because He's such an important guy.

As for the deist god, some cosmology makes a creator impossible or unlikely.

rdalin

I feel that there's a sufficient lack of evidence (an awkward phrase, I know) to be able to draw a reasonable conclusion. My arguments generally center around what I call supernatural gods; that is, entities that can at will violate the physical laws and constraints that govern the universe. Rather than deal with God A or God B, I argue that there's no evidence that any such thing as the supernatural exists. On that basis, no supernatural gods can exist. I rarely argue about specific deities such as the Jewish God or the Christian God, since these are so clearly anthropomorphic inventions that they're not worth discussing.

There are those who argue that God is by nature incomprehensible. While I tend to agree that we'd know about God by now if he existed, it's by no means an open-and-shut case.

I don't advocate the deist god; it's just the concept seems a little less unlikely than most of the others. I think it ultimately fails over the question of where this god came from, and why it's legitimate to posit a god as first cause but not the universe itself (or something completely different).

Sorry I took so long to answer you, but I didn't use my computer at all this weekend (and I'm now suffering from withdrawal symptoms).