How do you know God isn't dead?

[smax]

Offend me? no, nothing of the sort... I just got tired of reading the same thing over and over again...

If you were simply tired, why not simply dismiss yourself? Why the hostility?

Last I heard, rhetorical questions didn't get many replies.... this one got over 10 pages of them...

You heard wrong. Rhetorical questions may not be designed to get an answer, but they are very often used to provoke discussion.

Most of them, theists say "you start off by claiming there is a god, but you then misrepresent the god"
And you reply something like "but there is no god!!!, can't you see it?!"

And then repeat... ad nauseum...

It's not that simple for me. We are dealing with mental illness here. You can't simply call a mentally disturbed person "mentally ill" and expect them to accept that. You have to carefully expose the obvious folly in their delusion. It's a process of breaking them down, and it's far from foolproof. But a few nuts have been cracked.

Aye, I see the irony.
The theists, on the other hand, can come up with convoluted ways to make it work.... I've heard of Jesus riding dinos, so there you have one option.

I wouldn't make that same concession. No matter what you tell the mentally ill, they will have some deluded retort. Their response is not nearly as important as the seed being planted.

You see, just by affiliation, religious people have already proven that they can easily be persuaded. The challenge is finding a way to pursuade them with reality.

Starting plainly with reality is sure way to fail because the mentally ill are typically trying to avoid reality in the first place.

From where I stand, both you and SW are equally new here, to me, both are equally anonymous, except that you are here as an atheist, and he is here as a theist.

Just an observation, probably one I should have kept to myself. Sorry.

If there is one thing I've learned in this forum, it's that, if you use the supposition that their god exists, then you better be ready to follow through with their definition of the god, not yours... sometimes, the difference is subtle, but they'll latch on to that difference and keep banging you on the head with it.
Is it worth it?

Anyone who thinks any method of approach toward the mentally ill yield instant or immediately satisfying results is in for a rude awakening. It's a process.

What I hoped to accomplish with this thread has and is being accomplished, and that goal was never openly stated.

I leave it to you, if you care to, to figure that out.