Something regarding atheism vs religion - not sure yet

I'm open to a definition of "supernatural". You haven't given one yet. We can probably define "god" without "supernatural". Example: The Christian god is a powerful creature, who is outside of space and time, who is responsible for the origin and creation of spacetime, and who has the ability to interact with space and time at specific points to do things like raise people from the dead, raise zombie armies, cause a human to walk on water, etc. The activities of the Christian god are accurately (mostly) described by the Christian bible. I fail to see how anything is gained by adding the word "supernatural". I apologize for causing confusion regarding the use and seeming acceptance of the words "natural" and "supernatural". I thought it possible to avoid an argument over definitions. I was wrong. I apologize for my impreciseness regarding the Boudry paper. I agree with many of its critiques and points. However, it does not go far enough. IMHO, in common discourse, the "supernatural" is too muddled to make use of. I believe that "materialism" has a different meaning in common usage than "naturalism". "Materialism" more closely resembles the "matter in motion" paradigm described by Galileo, Baron d'Holbach, etc., whereas common usage "naturalism" is much more nebulous. (Again, I am open to specific definitions, and I haven't seen you propose any.) You say that there are flaws in atheist reasoning, but you haven't given any specific examples with correction IIRC. Please point out particular flaws and offer specific, concrete, correct alternatives. So if when using reason and science alone the only thing we can conclude about the existence of the generic God is, 'we don't know,' I am just as reasonable in believing He exists as you are in believing He doesn't. You assert that I believe that a/the god does not exist. I believe this is not a typo. This is dishonest, or grossly incompetent. I have been exceedingly clear on my position on this topic. -Suppose you share a belief with me, and you share with me that you have no good justification for that belief, but I'm later able to confirm your belief as true. I would not be impressed. I would not be impressed because in this story I know that you got it right by luck, and I have no reason to believe that you will get similarly lucky the next time. We should strive to think like scientists and not like fools. I gave my brief definitions of those terms above. Let me do so again. A fool: Someone who does the same thing over and over again, gets the same result each time, and expects a different result next time.A scientist: Someone who does the same thing over and over again, gets the same result each time, and expects the same result next time.Otherwise known as induction, falsifiability. Science is creating expectations about the future by taking our knowledge about the past and assuming that the future will be like the past. The only limitation of science is that it works only on the observable, directly or indirectly observable. If you can observe it, then use science. If you cannot observe it, then science does not apply, but neither does anything else. In this context, there is no alternative way of knowing. I have no respect for someone who makes wild guesses absent supporting evidence. Repeating for emphasis: If divine revelation is real, then it's just another form of experience. Thus: the use of divine revelation is bound by the same rule that distinguish the scientist from the fool. if [...] the available evidence is insufficient to move beyond 'we don't know,' the atheist could say that the theist has failed to convince him a god exists. But atheists today have portrayed theists as not just wrong but as completely unreasonable. And this has to mean that they have sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the probability of God's existence is well below 50%.Suppose I flipped a coin in the air, it lands, and I don't see it. I then declare "it landed heads". You ask "how do you know that?". I answer "Because I have a strong feeling". You should believe that I am reasoning very badly. Suppose I give any of the usual religious responses, such as "it brings me comfort", or "I don't want to live in a world where it's not heads", or "having this belief gives me community". You should still believe that I'm reasoning badly. Saying that you are unjustified in your claim does not imply the assertion that your claim has the truth value of "false". This is borrowed Sam Harris where he talks about a diamond buried in the backyard. Link - perhaps not-stable: http://blog.gaiam.com...And, if we don't know, you might believe the Giants will win while I the Patriots and we might both place bets on our respective teams, and, neither would be more irrational than the other for doing so.Both are irrational. Beliefs and claims without sufficient evidence are irrational. 'Is the position held by person B rational' has to be discussed before determining which position is better.The better position is the more rational position. There are not two separate conversions. It is one and the same. You have a silly understanding of atheists which does not apply to me. I have no preconceived bias against the so-called supernatural in general. I do have a bias against so-called magic and non-materialist religious claims that interact with our spacetime, but that's not a prejudice. It's not pre-judged. That bias is entirely based on my available evidence. It's entirely possible for you to overcome this judgment with sufficient evidence to the contrary. If you have that evidence, please present it. I have been waiting months and hundreds of emails for just that. An alternative course of actions is to argue against my general materialist background assumption and evidence. That amounts to arguing against the most successful scientific theory ever created by humans, quantum field theory. For that, I wish you luck. You will need it. Essentially, debunking tens of thousands of unreasonable supernatural claims is not a convincing argument for naturalism/materialism.Quantum field theory and the standard model of physics accurately describe every experiment that has ever been done on Earth. QFT is by some measures the most accurately tested and successful scientific model ever made. It is entirely reasonable to inductively conclude that QFT is actually correct (in its domain of applicability). There is every reason to believe that a similar process will find a similar model that is entirely correct for all timespace of the observable universe. That's it. Materialism has won. The debate should have been over in the time of the Enlightenment and Galileo and Baron d'Holbach. Today, it's well into "beating a dead horse" territory. The only gap left is the beginning. Unfortunately for you, the Christian god cannot be squeezed into that remaining gap. You should know that your endgame Christian god claim cannot fit into this gap. Further, I've already said I'm open to the idea of a generic god hypothesis, and that I have no bias whatsoever against the generic god hypothesis. In light of this, your continued focus on the generic god hypothesis serves no legitimate purpose. Your tactics are intellectually dishonest - no better than William Lane Craig. Unlike my football example where I could choose not to place a bet on either team, in life, whether I want to or not, I have to live according to one paradigm or the other. Classic Pascal's Wager. The following reply is unusual in atheist circles, and often frowned upon. However, I believe it is the best counter because of my IMAO better knowledge of Bayesian reasoning. A generic god hypothesis with no additional attributes is indistinguishable from a no-god hypothesis. There is no such thing as "living your life according to one paradigm or the other". Pascal's Wager only makes sense when considering a god which has additional specific properties, such as rewarding those who believe in it and punishing those who don't. You are wrongly conflating "a generic god hypothesis" and "a god which rewards believers and punishes non-believers". I might not be able to say anything about a generic god hypothesis, but I can say something about the Christian god hypothesis. Thus Pascal's Wager is defeated. I live my life according to the belief that the Christian god does not exist, but the way I live my life is consistent with a belief that no gods exist and a belief that a generic nondescript god exists. I explained that I have no interest in convincing you of anything. I see my role in any such conversation as purely defensive. Sherlock Holmes once said "If you eliminate the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth". Correcting for imprecise language, that principle is entirely correct. It's a simple consequence of proper reasoning, Bayesian reasoning. Many atheists wrongly believe they do not need to make positive arguments for no-god scenarios, and they only need to tear down a Christian's pro-god arguments to convince the Christian. If a Christian wrongly believes that no-god scenarios are impossible, then they can properly apply the reasoning of Sherlock to say "You have convinced me that the god hypothesis is a worse fit for the evidence than I originally thought. However, all alternatives are still much more implausible, and thus I still believe that a god exists." Mike, you're making a similar error. My background knowledge is Christianity is incorrect with high confidence. You can tear down the no-god scenario, and you can build up the generic-god hypothesis, but that approach alone is highly unlikely to budge me towards Christianity because of my exceptionally strong evidence against the Christian god. To convince me of Christianity, you will almost certainly need to provide a positive defense of Christianity and/or attack my attacks on Christianity. Your current tactics are a waste of my time and yours.