A discussion with tack

[Zenith]

I probably could have clarified myself in fewer words. Specific gods can be proven to be non-existent, I like to reference cargo cults here because they were relatively recent, and extremely well documented.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

The mention of the Tanna cult is one such example. There we have gods which plainly do not exist (unless one wishes to claim that army personnel are gods).

If a claim is made regarding what a god is, or where he is, or what he has done..and it turns out that these things are in fact not true, that god does not exist. A god is the sum of all the stories told, all the attributes given.

The thing that makes us believe that those are not gods is that we know exactly those gods' origins and we have other information about them. It is not the fact that those gods do not answer prayers or something. And this example you gave is one of the fewest cases (perhaps less than 1%) where we know for sure how that god was born. In the other 99%+ we have assumptions only.

Now regarding "If a claim is made regarding what a god is, or where he is, or what he has done..and it turns out that these things are in fact not true, that god does not exist"... that's wrong. Let me explain: in the ancient Greece you had those pagan gods (Zeus, Athens, Poseidon, etc.). BUT the claims about those gods differed from region to region, and as I know, they also contradicted one with other. So if you say that in order for Zeus to exist, all claims about Him must be true, then which version of the Zeus god do you choose between them? Some of those people must have said "oh, that story of Zeus is erroneous. This one is the true version!" - What do you say about that? Or let's take the Christian God: if a "god/God" is what He is understood to be (and to be like, and to do and to have done, etc.), then you've got thousands or more versions of the Christian God (or, better said, thousands of Christian Gods). You ask a pentecostal, He tells you one thing, you ask a catholic, God is totally different to him, you ask another christian, he understands God in his own way. So which of them do you choose? Yeah, and one great difference: the Evolutionist God, or the Creationist God?

I'll give you a hypothesis, which I believe you cannot prove wrong: the ancient greek gods exist and one day, they revealed themselves to the people, and presented to them the "true story". But, as time passed, people (being human beings, obviously they did this) twisted some of the information, and also invented some stories themselves. Now, given this hypothesis, I'm 100% sure that you cannot prove me that Zeus & Poseidon never existed. Can you?

Believers once pointed to the sky and imagined that the sun was a god riding a fiery chariot....turns out its a star instead.

I'm a bit skeptic about this. People did associate gods with stars (and also with the sun and the moon), but it's hard for me to believe that they confounded a seemingly yellow disk on the sky with a human being. Consider the egyptian gods Ra and Seth: Ra was the god of the sun and mid-day, while Seth was the god of darkness. Now from the stories you've heard and probably read, it is impossible to imagine the struggles between Ra and Seth (whom were presented as human beings, on a natural environment - the earth, Egypt, the Nile river) as happening on the sky, Ra being a yellow disk. So I say that the ancient gods were associated with stars (and sun and moon), not confounded by them. Also look at a picture of Ra and you'll see the Sun on top of his head (because the Sun was his symbol = represented him = was associated with him), rather than himself being a a yellow disk (i.e. the Sun). If you insist that they actually confounded the gods with the celestial bodies, then please give some... evidence.

If you remove all of these claims, if you remove all of these attributes. If god no longer talks to us, intervenes on our behalf, or impedes our actions, if a god no longer commands the rain to fall or the sun to shine, we may still call this concept god, but it has ceased to mean the thing which was originally proposed. That's what I mean when I say "a god who is not a god".

You're right here... except that the current existing gods do talk with people (it is claimed so by their adepts), intervene in their behalf, impede people's actions and decide where the clouds to travel to rain, etc.

Bait and Switch, now that you know, you should work it into your english, it adds some flare..lol.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait-and-switch

By the way, is there a similar phrase regarding this type of thing in your language? If so, what is it and what does it mean translated directly into english?

I haven't heard of anything similar in my language. I don't know if there is. Perhaps it's only said that you're being tricked or something.