Atheism is a more reasonable position than theism

In trying to show my perfectly reasonable analogy to be poor, it is interesting that Con should bring up "explanatory power". Con specifically reminds us what it is that God is meant to explain: the very existence of the Universe. In other words, Con is simply repeating The Cosmological Argument. I concede that God, as an explanation, has great explanatory power. Suspiciously great explanatory power. Infinite explanatory power, in fact. The fact that "God did it" could be used as an explanation of absolutely any question should tell you all you need to know. Also of note is that "Fairies did it" is universally replaceable. Anyhow, even if you go along with Con and agree with the Cosmological Argument, you may have confirmed Desim, but not Theism. You haven't gone any way to showing that this God who you think you've proved must have a personality... must think... must be capable of judgements and of getting involved - these are the claims that theism makes, which I contend it cannot be based in reason to accept. The argument from Personal Experience is a remarkably poor one. Amongst the anomolies that must be explained by people who think that it is reasonable to draw conclusions from Personal Experience are these: + Why should we believe personal revelation in an epistemological sense? + How come different people have different personal revelations? + How come earnest and committed believers sometimes lose their faith? Thus I rebut both challenges to my analogy and repeat: we should treat the debate about the existence of God in the same way as we treat the debate about the existence of the Yeti. We should remove our emotional outlook and ask for demonstrable evidence. THIS is the rational, reasonable thing to do. Going on and on about the Burden of Proof achieves nothing. The Burden of Proof (see http://en.wikipedia.org...) is simply the idea that one needs to back up a statement by evidence or reason; believing a thing without evidence and continuing to believe it in the face of challenge whilst hiding behind "haha, you can't prove my belief false" is what is known as "shifting the burden of proof". It's a trick that I accuse Theists of doing all the time. We have an interesting situation with this debate, which will require voters to make up their own minds; essentially the claim that the title makes is logically equivalent to the claim that Theists cannot live up to their burden of proof. Now I own a burden of proof to show that Theists cannot live up to their burden of proof. My task is made easier by the fact that most Theists actually agree with me; this is evidenced by the line "you've got to have Faith". That faith is considered a virtue seems to me the perfect expression of the idea that there is no evidence for God. If God made himself known, the argument goes, we wouldn't need faith... that's why, some theists contend, God does not make himself known (i.e. there is no evidence for His existence). Believing through faith is almost by definition not believing through reason. Faith picks up where reason ends. If one is using faith to believe, then one has essentially admitted to not being able to live up to the burden of proof. So, Con, do you have faith? If so, your belief is not rational. If not, since you believe, you do actually have to provide positive arguments for God's existence here and now. You see, it is one of the options available to you; you could either take the line that faith in God is rational and based in reason... something like Pascal's Wager, I suppose... or you can take the line that faith is not needed to believe in God and provide evidence (there is none) or reasoned argument (there are a few and they are all more logically leaky than a supernatural sieve)! So how's about you stop repeating "Burden Of Proof" and stop avoiding yours?