standard of evidence

[Rational AKD]

So you can talk to respected, clever people, and have them talk about their experiences with God. But that's an interpretation:

when I said cross examine, I was not referring to personal experiences with God. I was referring to logical conclusions. cross examine arguments with other people to test the validity or soundness of the argument. personal experiences don't really work in convincing others which is why I refrain from that topic when I talk to people of an opposing view.

Mainly the fact that most, if not all, gods were obviously invented by man's imagination. They couldn't all co-exist, so some of them had to be imaginary. If some gods are imaginary, then how do you prove that all gods, without evidence to show they exist, are not imaginary? Even Christians will admit that all other gods except Yahweh are imaginary, so what makes their own god so special as to actually exist?

phew. you're still committing a fallacy, but it's not nearly as bad as I thought. I thought I was gonna have to give you 10 hours of derp lol. anyways, the fallacy you're committing is the composition fallacy.
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/composit.html
though it may be true that theism comprises many different beliefs that conflict with one another, thus not all types of theism can be true. and it is true that if they are not true they must have been invented by man. but the fact that most of them have to be false doesn't make any one of them less true. you can't determine theism as a whole is false, or even less likely because some types of theism must be false. this is why you commit the composition fallacy.

Secondly, the bible is such a flawed work with so many impossible stories which could never have happened

impossible in a modal sense, or impossible in a physical sense? if you think they're impossible in a modal sense, you're mistaken. if you think they're impossible in a physical sense, then you may be right. however, this is not a problem since Christians and the bible don't claim them as physical events. they claim them as miracles made possible by a God who transcends the physical because he designed it himself. it would not be impossible for a God like that to make such events possible.

and in fact we have evidence that they didn't happen (6-day creation 6,000 years ago, geological evidence showing no global flood ever happened, etc.)

a lot of modern Christians (myself included) have found that account was written in an allegorical style and thus not a literal 6 day creation. it is written in a manner similar to a poem, and thus was never meant to be taken literally.

So they try to explain away all the inconsistencies or pretend they don't exist.

many of the "inconsistencies" in the bible can easily be explained away by looking either at the context, the original words used in the original language, the event context (who was talking, who were they talking to, what was going on...), historical context, or cultural context. people like to trust evilbible as a reliable source, but I myself look at more scholarly sources concerning apparent biblical inconsistencies.

Lastly, the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent god is impossible with the existence of evil in the world. If God is all-powerful, then he is not all-loving because he allows evil to exist. If he is all-loving, then he is not all-powerful because he can't eradicate evil. If he is all-loving and all-powerful, then he must not be all-knowing because evil exists without him being aware of it. However, it's impossible for a being to be all-powerful and not all-knowing.

oh, here we go with the problem of evil argument. I'm not going to say much on this because I will probably take on a thread specifically targeting this issue. but just as a short answer, Alvin Plantinga takes down this argument with his free will defense. he establishes that it may be possible for God to create a perfect world, but only if they are not free. God simply chose to create a world where we are free and accepted the necessary consequence of evil. i'll go into more detail in a later thread.

Granted this is not definitive and conclusive evidence that this god of yours doesn't exist

correct. the first one is a logical fallacy coupled with misunderstanding, the second one is a misunderstanding, and the third one has been defended with the free will defense. this doesn't make atheism any more plausible.

Ah, so I see you're invoking special pleading to worm your way out of it.

I don't even see how you can say i'm committing special pleading. the proposition with more explanatory power is more likely to be true. that's not special pleading, it's just fact.

Why don't you believe that Zeus or even the Flying Spaghetti Monster exist?

as I said, Zeus has zero evidence and zero explanatory power. the FSM is an intentional parody and not a serious belief, so why should I even consider it as a serious belief?

Why don't you believe in the Tooth Fairy?

again, no evidence or explanatory power and it's not a serious belief. you can even do a simple test to show he doesn't exist. put a tooth under your pillow and don't tell anyone. WOW, THAT WAS HARD!!

You know as well as I do that you don't think there's any evidence for their existence, but when we atheists believe this, you're accusing us of committing a fallacy.

how many times have you done this now. this will be the last time I correct you on this. I don't think it's irrational to disbelieve a proposition due to lack of evidence, only that it doesn't make the contrary claim(s) any more true or rational. Get it? in fact, it's also committing the Argumentum ad Ignorantiam fallacy to say lack of evidence against God is evidence for God. bottom line is, you can't rationally believe any proposition making a claim to knowledge without evidence. this includes negative propositions such as "God doesn't exist." and more importantly, if there is no evidence for God and no evidence against God, then those two possibilities are equally plausible and equally rational. you must have evidence for one of the propositions in order to consider it rational.