"God doesn't Exist"- Claim or Conclusion

[SteveII]

Theists dismiss the existence of other gods, leprichauns, fairies, unicorns and Santa Claus without ever troubling themselves over such questions as to whether it's rational to do so without absolute, certain evidence.   The theist treats the skepticism of the atheist in special terms.  To my mind, negative claims do not carry the same burden of proof as positive existential claims.  That's being consistent and rational.  All that I require is that there be a reasonably plausible explanation for what 'evidence' the theist is capable of presenting.  So far I have that, and so I am satisfied with the nonexistence of God in the same measure that the theist is persuaded of the non-existence of the aforementioned mythical creatures.

There seems to have always been a near universal belief in some sort of supernatural--it seems we are hardwired for it. We look for purpose and meaning. This common trait opens most up to consider various religions and their answers to such questions. This trait, generally speaking, does not open people up to consider "leprichauns, fairies, unicorns and Santa Claus" and other gods (like the greek or roman roster) so it is a category mistake to lump them into a discussion on religion. 

I don't think an atheist's lack of belief in God is irrational, I just object to the opinion of many atheists that belief in God is irrational. While you may find "reasonably plausible explanation for what 'evidence' the theist is capable of presenting" that is subjective and is a far cry from the positive claim "there is no God".

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Because there are multiple and conflicting truth claims does not mean that one of them is true to the exclusion of the others. You say there is no way to determine which claims are correct--perhaps, but we can examine the overall theological framework of each religion and see which one is internally consistent, which one best matches claims against reality, which one makes more sense of more observations, and which one has the best predictive value when examining issues of xyz.

Yeah, but if one of them was the God's honest truth, wouldn't we expect an overwhelming number of people to follow it?  The assumption is that only one religion would fulfill the criteria you described.  After centuries of study and experience, not only do we still have many different major religions but each of them is fragmented into thousands of denominations with varied interpretations of almost every major tenet of their faith.

It is only in the last generation that people world-wide had the exposure to the complete body of knowledge of each religion. While popularity is not an indication of truth, I think we will see in the next generation which religion is more compelling by looking at countries where there is not a dominating religion to skew the acceptance rate. 

Protestant denominations are formed around theological differences, cultural differences, and emphasis differences. There is an agreed upon core, so other disagreements are really not a reason to dismiss the whole.