Stephen Hawking has died at the age of 76.

[Edwardo Piet]

I didn't answer the questions and explained why I would say the thing which you are asking about.   That is not a dodging the question, but explaining why it is incorrect.   I'm not going to answer a question, asking  "did you stop beating your wife".

That's comparison is completely inaccurate. "Did you stop beating your wife?" is a loaded question. Asking "Do you believe X is improbable?" is not.

You can say as much as you like that you don't like the word improbable... either you believe something is improbable or you don't. Just as either you're a theist or you're not. Or any other true dichotomy.

I did answer about my view... I don't believe in fire breathing dragons, because I have not seen sufficient evidence to believe that they do exist.   That's it.   Your not going to drag me into your pseudo-skepticism.

You also believe they're improbable, you're just pretending not to.

Okay this is irrelevant anyway. Let's pretend you believe they're probable (even though you just said you don't believe in them, but hey you're contradicting yourself so what else am I supposed to think?)

Okay let's pretend you either believe they're probable or you don't believe they're probable but you think their probability is unknown or 50%. Let's pretend that, let's pretend you don't think they're unlikey even though we both know you do.

You still can't claim I'm making the argument from ignorance when you haven't even defined the God I am supposedly denying. Again, when I say "God is highly improbable" what God do you think I'm referring to? I'm referring to a God that really is highly improbable, and that I really do have good reasons to believe such a God is highly improbable. It's disingenuous to pretend that I'm addressing your conception of God when I don't even know what your conception of God is. You have to tell me what your conception of God is, I'm not a mindreader. I'm not saying that until you can prove your God to me I'll consider it improbable by default. I'm saying that if your God is very much like all the other gods that I believe to be improbable for good reasons, then it is. But maybe I'm wrong, maybe your conception of God is more reasonable... but we won't know if you repeatedly refuse to articulate it. I'm going to do my best guess of what your conception of God is, based on all the other Christian conceptions of God I've encountered that are all either improbable or impossible. If you want me to have a better guess than that, then actually articulate your own conception of God and let's see if it's any different.

Here   is my understanding of the Arguement from ignorance:  The assumption of a conclusion or fact based primarily on lack of evidence to the contrary.   If you think that this is wrong, then I am happy to discuss.

You really don't understand it do you? Of course it's not fallacious to do that if you actually do have good reasons to believe X is improbable. It's saying that it's fallacious to say X is improbable just because the opposite has failed to prove itself probable. I'm not doing that. I'm using my past experience with Christian conceptions of God to come to the very reasonable assumption, that so far has always been correct, that your conception of God is just as improbable or impossible as all other conceptions of the Christian God that I have faced. And I'm considering it improbable for those reasons.

By saying that disbelief is the null hypothesis, I'm referring to disbelief in specific beliefs. I.e. deities, of course. You're taking what I'm saying completely out of context to assert your own ends. In the case of deities, the null hypothesis is atheism because theism is postulating unnecessary entities without evidence. This does not mean that atheism is true until proven false. It means atheism is probably right because it is the alternative position that doesn't postulate unecessary entities without evidence.

All you're doing here, is taking shit out of context and refusing to define your God all while pretending I'm saying your position is improbable just because you haven't proven it true. I'm not saying that. I'm saying your position is improbable if you believe in a Christian conception of God anything like any of the other Christian conceptions of God I have ever encountered my entire life, which are all improbable for being unparsimonious whilst completely lacking evidence at best, and logically incoherent or logically contradictory at worst.

If you want to justify shifting the goal posts for "extraordinary claims" then I'm happy to discuss.   I don't think that you have a valid epistemic position to hold to there (although it is a catchy phrase).

I assume that your claim is an extraordinary claim if it is anything like any other Christain conception of God, and for the same reasons. How is your conception of God any different? I assume you believe in an all powerful and all knowing being and you have absolutely no evidence of said being? That's highly likely to be improbable until you present any evidence. It's not that you're wrong until you present evidence, it's that postulating any entities without any evidence is less parsimonious and less likely to be true than not.

It's a fundamental law of probability that all other things being equal X + Y is less probable than X. You're more likely to encounter a doctor of any sort than a medical doctor specifically. Because the latter includes both medical doctors and all other kinds of doctors. You're more likely to see a car out on the street than a car that is also red.

You're more likely to encounter no God at all than a God with 1 ability, and you're more likely to encounter a god with 1 ability than 2 abilities, and so on, all things being equal. It's basic parsimony. If you're going to postulate some complex entity with abilities then you need evidence to support that extraordinary claim, so don't pretend that you don't. Atheism doesn't postulate anything. Even strong atheism that outright denies God doesn't postulate any entities. The error there is being absolutely certain about something one doesn't have reason to be absolutely certain about.

I don't have to be absolutely certain that certain entities are improbable to know that they are improbable.

I think you are assuming that I have the same position as you.   

There's your disingenuousness again.

Yes, I am assuming you don't believe in fire-breathing dragons because I'm generously assuuming you're not batshit crazy. What you don't seem to compehend is that you can't on the one hand say you don't say they're improbable and on the other hand say you disbelieve in them. That's a contradiction. Either you believe something is probable or you don't, belief that something is probable is literally tied up with belief.

And again, appealing to what you think I believe (which you seem to have a poor track record of doing), doesn't make your case.  That is a fallacy.

Once again, it's your fault. For repeatedly refusing to characterize your own position. You're forcing me to do your own legwork for you. I'm here openly and honestly expressing my own position and wanting you to characterize yours so I don't have to make false assumptions about your position... but you're refusing to help me.

If you repeatedly refuse to tell me what your position is, then either I have to do my best guess or simply stop talking to you because you're trying to have your cake and eat it too, and that's not a fair discussion.

This is the type of thing that I am having difficulty with. You are making a claim and acting like you don't know what that claim is about in the same thought process.  

I wasn't talking about your God when I said "God is highly improbable". I don't know what your God is, you've refused to tell me.

You keep responding as if I'm talking about your God and saying that you are wrong until you prove yourself right, which I'm not doing, all whilst refusing to actually tell me what your God is. It's a highly dishonest tactic. If you're doing this by accident, then stop it. I'm not saying your God is highly improbable, you won't even tell me what your God is. You can't tell me I'm being irrational for considering a God improbable when you don't even know what God I'm talking abou

I could say "God is impossible" and be talking about a God that is logically contradictory that you don't believe in. It's completely unfair to on the one hand pretend I'm talking about your God and on the other hand refuse to tell me what your God is.

If you provide reason for you claim, then yes, I would agree that is not an argument from ignorance.

I do have reasons for my claim. Just because I haven't provided them doesn't mean I don't have them. Ironically, that's you making the argument from ignorance!

  However I think that you have long forgotten where this all started at, and what the claim that was being made was.

You don't even know what my claim is, or what it's about, and yet you pretend like you do.

When I say "God is highly improbable" what do you think I mean? Because you're reacting as if that's absurd.

But I could be talking about a God that can make square circles, which is logically impossible, a probability of 0%, as improbable as it gets. So I wouldn't be wrong to say that.

Once again, you are trying to have your cake and eat it too. You are just reacting as if I'm talking about your God, when I can't be, because I don't even know what your God is.

Actually I have just been discussing principles.

And I have been explaining to you why you don't have a complete understanding of the argument from ignorance.

  And I get the feeling (more and more), that we are discussing different things.

Of course we are. I'm talking about all conceptions of God that I consider to be highly improbable and you're knee-jerk reacting as if I'm talking about your God, all while refusing to tell me what your God is.

See, when you say probable, then I think of either mathematical probability (statistics) or logical probability (an inference to the best explanation).

Well you're just giving a narrow defintiion then. Probability refers to all forms of likelihood.

If X is 50% likely to exist, that's the same as if X is 50% probable to exist.

You know what probability means.

  You seem to be arguing against the normal atheist mantra of skepticism, and eliminating it all together as an option.  There doesn't seem to be any room for skepticism in your dichotomy.

See, total strawman you're giving me there. I'm not eliminating any options. For starters, I said God was improbable, not impossible.

But even if I said God was impossible, that would be fine too. Because you still don't know which conceptions of God I'm denying, and yet you're pretending like you do.