(April 17, 2015 at 7:16 pm)abaris Wrote:

(April 17, 2015 at 7:14 pm)noctalla Wrote: But again, I can't think of any rational justification for making the claim. The sole reason seems to be to absolve the claimant from having any burden of proof.

What makes you think that theist arguments have to be rational? They believe in the supernatural, which in itself is irrational.

The particular theist I was arguing with took a 'more rational than thou' tone. He was very condescending. I rarely debate with theists, but after he opened with: "You'd be better off not parroting New Atheism bromides. This is rudimentary stuff." I knew I had to take the guy to task.

(April 17, 2015 at 7:27 pm)noctalla Wrote: The particular theist I was arguing with took a 'more rational than thou' tone. He was very condescending.

And yet he's an idiot believing in fairy tales.

(April 17, 2015 at 7:14 pm)noctalla Wrote: It seems to me, that a theist might respond that God is able to act within the Universe and that the effects of God's actions can be experienced or observed, but that the God itself remains outside the realm of experience or observation. But again, I can't think of any rational justification for making the claim. The sole reason seems to be to absolve the claimant from having any burden of proof.

Exactly. In that case, the person not only always fails to provide evidence for their claims, but more importantly, they're arguing in a logically invalid manner. There's no rational justification that "God exists" on the basis that some event occured for which we simply have no explanation, and otherwise known causes means we can point to a preceding event through which the known laws of physics or chemistry or biology are precluded as necessary or sufficient conditions for the consequence.

(April 17, 2015 at 6:38 pm)noctalla Wrote: I recently had a debate with a theist who made what I thought was a strange claim. In response to me saying I saw no evidence for a God, he asserted: "God is not an empirical being, so asking for empirical evidence is a simple category error." Although I pressed him to explain what he meant by this, all he did was to repeat the claim in various ways without elaborating or giving an argument to support it. Despite the fact that I had not said the evidence had to be empirical in nature, I felt the claim that God is not an empirical being needed to be justified. I said that empirical evidence requires observation and experience. If a God exists, I saw no reason we could not observe or experience said God, therefore this is not a category error. The theist eventually lost interest and stopped replying.
I was wondering:
1. Has anyone else had encountered this claim?
2. Is there an argument that supports this claim?
3. What are the counterarguments?

Okay, so this guy is familiar with "Show me the evidence," and is prepared with a philosophical-sounding answer.  But word salad should never give way to the ideas the words represent.  Whatever he wants to call God, he should provide a reason for you to believe the God idea represents a reality and not a fairy tale.  If God is not seen or heard, then on what basis should someone who isn't already Christian be expected to change their world view to include the God idea?

Funny thing about ad hoc hypothesising god to avoid testability is that most theists appeal to religious experiences and such to support their theological views. So it actually is testable. 

That's right. If they are saying they can differentiate between "God" acting on the world, and a natural process or a different supernatural causation, then they are saying that God has some empirical attributes after all. Otherwise, they are simply making an argument from ignorance or incredulity fallacy. So they undermine their entire position when they say God cannot be tested or measured.

They are hiding God so that he becomes unfalsifiable. All unfalsifiable claims are useless because their truth can never be determined. If they do have some knowledge about an unknowable being, they have contradicted themself.

This is religion's bread and butter: unfalsifiable claims. As soon as they step outside of that fallacious circle of misguided smugness, reality smacks them down. Religion has never made a single testable claim that has been proved correct. For example, prayer fails like a motherfucker if you put it under scientific conditions. It only "works" when people are free to interpret the results however they want and confirmation bias takes care of the rest.

More ad hoc it becomes the more unlikely it becomes because more unsupported claims are made. This is roughly an informal version of Solomonoff's theory of inductive inference.

It means he has no evidence and expects you to take his word for it.

(I wouldn't, if I were you.  He sounds like a nut.)

This is a good one:

"So in what way does this God actually exist outside of your imagination?"

Or:

"How did you come to the conclusion that God is not empirical?"

The only response is something along the lines of:

"I know God exists, but there isn't any evidence, therefor there can't be any evidence." Typical question begging.

Another question: How strong an analogy is there between god's mind and a human mind? 
Theists assume so much about what a god's mind would be like without challenge.