There is no evidence, and no tenable arguements, for the existence of any gods.

Through our discourse, I've learned to consider more thoroughly the aspects of faith and personal experience. I hope that this debate has been as fulfilling for you. Let me address your final points and summarize. >>>>>Yes, eye witness testimony is evidence. Remember that even with corroborated testimony, there are two other factors at work here: 1) that the opposition fails to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the testimony couldn't have happened, and 2) that what the testimonies claim are REAL, PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE, REPEATABLE occurrences that have been known to exist and occur and do not require further explanation. Again, when ten people tell me that they saw you eat a snickers bar yesterday, it's reasonable to believe them. But when ten people tell me they saw you fly on the back of a unicorn yesterday, then BEFORE I can even consider whether their testimony is truly corroborative, I first need explanations on the existence of flying unicorns. Their testimony to that effect is meaningless; such a claim requires far more than the testimony of even millions of people. At the very least, an explanation of how one can test for the existence of such creatures should be presented. (Don't forget that when Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the earth and thus bolstered the theory that the earth was ROUND, in c. 200 BC, he didn't just CLAIM that the earth was that much around, he provided the method by which he arrived at his conclusions. Any attempt, then, to use round-earthers of the past as an example of how many people who believed in something correct could be called crazy is a poor example, as it ignores the well-established method by which any of those people could have tested their beliefs. ) >>>>You wouldn't know the same details about ice. If you experienced it, you could only say that exists and nothing else Nonsense. I could describe in great detail the properties of the ice, how it behaved under a myriad of conditions I could put it in. In short, I could EXPERIMENT with the ice. Such experiments can, if they provide the proper data, correlate with other phenomenon that we DO know exists. That was the whole point of my melting example. What experiments could a theist do to test his experience of a god? >>>>No, you would still be wrong for the right reasons. It doesn't matter about the avenue, since it could just be said that we don't have access to it. If we don't have access to it, then there is no reason for me to believe that you witnessed it, since you are part of "we". If YOU witnessed it, then WE can witness it as well. There is a way. There is a method, even if it is unavailable at a given moment. HOW is this whole ice example in any way analogous to experience of gods? I know that you are arguing for personal experience, but WHAT avenues exist AT ALL that can arrive at the same experience of the existence of a god? >>>>>You are the claimant here. I am the one taking the con position. By saying there is no evidence or tenable arguments that god exists, you are saying you can refute any reason for believing in god. Nonsense. There are any number of reasons for believing in gods that I could not refute. A person could tell me they believe in a god because they saw the ghost of their dead mother bring them a cake that had "Believe in God" written on it in icing. Clearly there is no way I can refute such a claim. My argument is that, even though millions of people have given humanity millions of different reasons for believing in supernatural beings, none of those reasons are rational. I can't refute the reason, but I can show how it is not rational to arrive at the conclusion that a god MUST exist simply from such reasons. There are better explanations for every reason that has been presented. Meanwhile, there are NO explanations for the experiences provided by so many testimonies. Until these testimonies provide an explanation for their claims, I am under no obligation to accept them as evidence. I am only the "claimant" with respect to the rationality of a claim, not the claim itself. >>>>No evidence from YOUR experience has been presented for the existence of gods. No. .. . no evidence has been PRESENTED. To present evidence implies an interaction with others. Once others have experienced the evidence, then it's out. .. there is no "your" or "my" experience. That is precisely why evidence is so important; it removes proof from the subjective (your or my "experience") and places it in the objective (the evidence now stands on its own strength, divorced from personal interpretation. ) >>>>>>We can only take what we know and our personal experiences and weigh them against other people's claims and sort out the probabilities of each one being right. Or. .. we can observe our experiences, gather data, do some research and create working models that will predict future experiences in controlled environments. Then, every time the predictions are made successfully, we can mark it down as evidence. After a long enough time and with enough independent corroborations, the evidence will stand on its own, without a need to sort out probabilities of correct personal experiences. >>>>Just because our experiences are different doesn't do anything to discount god. Sorry, but once again, we do not need to discount god; there is no need to discount something that has not been shown to exist. >>>>What exactly he encountered is for him to sort out, but you can not refute it outright from your vantage point, only make inferences from what you have experienced and know. There is no attempt here to refute experiences. I am only claiming that belief that such experiences were real cannot be the result of rational thought. Sure, I can make an inference: my inference is that his belief that his experience of a god was REAL is an irrational one. >>>>With the ice example, ice couldn't be falsified to you, Of course it could. One could search for it, using as a starting point the scant testimony that we have about its location. It matters not whether we are "capable" of doing so at that time. .. we're not capable of searching the nearest neighboring star system for the existence of life. But as long as that is a viable test that would merit an answer YES or NO, then it is falsifiable. Gods, as I've explained in previous rounds, are not falsifiable. In summary, I think our proverbial wall has been hit because you strongly suggest that personal experience alone is sufficient to believe the supernatural actually exists. I am having difficulty debating this with you because you consistently imply that a) I am trying to refute one's personal experience, and b) you use examples of natural things that can be falsified. I am not trying to refute one's personal experience, only that personal experience ALONE of a SUPERNATURAL event does not merit reasonable belief, but rather "faith-based" belief. I consider one's personal experience of a god to be neither tangible, for it cannot be reproduced or falsified, or philosophical, since personal testimony is insufficient to explain such an extraordinary claim. We have evidence of anthropological need for belief in gods; we have evidence of the human brain creating very real images and experiences that are not real. We have NO evidence that gods exist. It is irrational to oppose the former and believe the latter. As a final argument, I want to tell you about an interesting thing that happened to me last night: I, Pazmusik, experienced every dimension in and outside the universe last night in a meditative state. My experience showed that there were NO gods, anywhere, period. Is it REASONABLE for me to believe my experience was real and accurate? If yes, then both theist and atheist positions are valid; a contradiction. If no, then neither is it reasonable for the theist.