[split]Atheism is based of ignorance.

[Sword of Christ]

Hello, I am a 22 year old Australian writer, who is definitely not Richard Dawkins. That being out of the way, my atheism is based on an internal skepticism coupled with a study of religious claims and arguments for the existence of god, a background in university-level philosophy courses, and an understanding that one cannot prove existential things by means of theology and philosophy, no matter how deeply or piously one thinks about them.

You're still looking for scientific evidence for God the same way Dawkins would. By his very definition you would not be able to "prove his existence with science" this isn't a scientific hypothesis or explanation. It is a context yes, there is going to be a eternal context of some kind one way or the other and again science doesn't and can't prove what that will be.

Okay, great! In that case, I am in no way justified in believing in your god without having that internal, faith based experience myself, and I have not.

If assume materialism to begin with you may still experience God but you'll have some other explanation for it and still be an atheist.

Moreover, without that experience, I cannot deem you or any other religious person to be justified in their belief either, and you need to ask yourself why your god won't grant me that experience, if this is the case.

I'm sure you experience something you just won't ascribe it to God.

Scientific hypotheses aren't the only things that have burdens of proof either, because that concept is not purely scientific; logic dictates that existential claims- like the ones you make about god- also require a burden of proof before anyone is logically justified in believing them.

Whats the more logical alternative to an eternal creator of the universe who is relational with his creatures? It's more logical that there was an explosion and as an unintentional byproduct we just happened to end up here? There was no margin for error in this whole process you know this was all very finely balanced, and you're still saying it wasn't intentional at all? What makes you think it wasn't? Atheists don't demonstrate their reasoning for this but seem to consider it to be a given unless demonstrated otherwise.

In support of this, I show merely the fact that the opposite, wherein we are required to accept every claim sans evidence, is ludicrous.

Of course but again you can't prove the existence of God via the scientific method. Certainly you can take the universe as a whole and point out that we're dealing with a complex piece of machinery, or a complex growing and thriving living entity. Random unfathomable cosmic chaos it is not there is structure, growth and development and we are a part of it.

Happily, science isn't the only way you might fulfill that burden of proof; I require no scientific tests at all to have the existence of a dog proven to me.

There isn't a burden of proof for God because you can prove the existence of God with science. You can come to the conclusion that God exists via deductive reasoning based on the kind of things we know about the universe.

Yes, I imagine a reality based worldview would look that way, from your seat in candyland.

You're presupposing God isn't a reality but that's you're opinion of what reality is. And you're wrong about this one.

We don't know more than anyone else? I agree. Are you then saying that you see the same complete lack of evidence for one that I do, or did you misspeak?

If you call your view of a Godless universe the "reality based worldview" then you're claiming to know what the nature of reality ultimately is as a statement of fact. No you don't know, GTFO. Listen to the wisdom of the Space Gnome.

If you do know more than me about this subject, then you need to ask yourself why you can't convince me of the claim

Because you're presupposing materialism and assuming God is a scientific claim or explanation which the scientific method is applicable to. It is not applicable to God.

I follow the facts, not any internalized role I need to fill. So does every other atheist here. Funny, how we still exist despite your presence, with your knowledge of god.

And the fact we exist at all is some kind of unintentional accident/byproduct isn't that right? No it seems a bit unlikely to me everything considered. The universe clearly is some kind of precisely structured process with a clear beginning. It grew and developed over time, we and all living things (all flesh as the Bible would call it) are part of this very same process. This is something we actually know, we can see it, study it, it is factual and yes it perfectly well does fit with role of a creator God or supreme intelligence.

Incidentally, poisoning the well with that little "humanity's leading authority" crack won't work, because someone with even an ounce of logic in them will see immediately that the one group of people who feels that the question has no merit at all, are the atheists.

The question has a lot of merit and fit perfectly with the universe we can observe. Atheists are the group of people who just go "pffffft" shrug their shoulders and expect to have entitlement to call anyone who has a faith in God delusional.