I'll admit I'm still confused by the author's intent and that could be my error for all I know.

>Right, because the piece was written to show the differing definitions of "proof" - how do you prove something immaterial using a material context? You can't, because that'd be attempting to connect two disconnected fields. It's like using math to define a word in the dictionary. The argument between spiritual and atheist people was never "does god exist", but rather "what is god's will (in relation to this phenomenon) / what is the scientific nature of this phenomenon", which is two ways of saying the same thing.

I think all the arguments to pull a scientific atheist from their scientific atheism depend on immaterial factors as being unable to be parsed in science. Going as broad as possible in the question about what kinds of evidence one could obtain to be proof of God has to come before the other questions. Most recently those arguments have taken shape in the form of categorical arguments, like where does consciousness, love or human character come from?

There's a weird rabbit hole appeared in our world where science has tried to eat up metaphysics as the ultimate explanation of the natural world. Science can never succeed at that task, but people are happy to live like Sisyphus it appears. Always trying to reduce the visions that are expressed through metaphysics down to scientific rationalism, but being unable to finally pull the light-bulb from the socket, so to speak.

>the difference between seeing a rock by the side of the road and a watch is that with a rock you wouldn't presume any ultimate purpose, because it's just a rock

The act of the scientific rational atheist of "not presuming" is the same act of J.E. Schellenberg's non-resisting, non-believing atheist. Taking the lesser "ontological cost" in assuming only the world exists and nothing more than that. The argument I make is that God cannot be ruled out in this fashion because the scientific atheist cannot rule out that the Rock has a purpose. I don't have a better argument than that, it's a very difficult argument to overcome in my eyes. I don't know ultimately why someone would be compelled to believing in God's existence, but plenty of arguments that inspire a longing to believe are an easier sell, as logically unsatisfying as it is.

>Then give the author credit and take it as a fun burst of levity, and not as a serious theological argument.

I like the argument, it is fun! But I don't think it was presented in that manner, and again I could be wrong, it just appeared to be support for the author's supposed intention rather than comedic relief.

>That sounds good to me, but how do you distill it? I think nearly as much effort would be required in administrating and preparing the presentation of the conversation as would be in actually making them. And making arguments is the fun part.

The Christian scholastic argument always depends on a two-step dialogue and that could be mapped as threads of support For or Against a specific topic, with the Topic usually encapsulated in a single word, logged as written arguments from authors across time. Like a gant chart filled with popular word topics that are each their own timeline of For/Against arguments.

The discussion about said topics need not be more complicated than a hacker-news clone.