(December 20, 2016 at 6:41 pm)RiddledWithFear Wrote: A little while ago I was debating about the term "God doesn't exist" and someone said that one says it because it's easier, instead of saying something completely unneeded like, "Due to complete lack of evidence, a god concept should be thought of as highly improbable and therefore should be exist. That got me thinking. Would the "claim" "God doesn't exist" be thought of as more of a conclusion that God doesn't exist, i.e. "Due to lack of evidence, one can safely conclude that a theistic God shouldn't exist," which would be shortened to, "God doesn't exist"? Thanks in advance.
For specific definitions of God, you can conclude that God doesn't exist. The Sky Daddy Christians talk about is an incoherent concept and therefore can be said not to exist.
Lacking a specific definition, then "God doesn't exist" means "Nothing exists which might reasonably be referred to as God." That's a pretty hard claim to make, even for an atheist. For example, you could say that whatever philosophical or existential quantity or principle allowed for a Big Bang would be God, at least of our universe-- but that's not a discovery, it's a definition.
