Evidence God Does Not Exist

[Caecilian]

The evidence points to wholly natural explanations and indicates that god is not necessary. It doesn't prove such, but it does indicate it. It is not about theological questions, it is about the answers to 'why' and 'how'. None of the evidence indicates those answers to be 'god'. To me (and many other atheists) this supports our conclusion that there is no god. All conclusions are subject to revision if and when evidence to the contrary arises. Saying that, in spite of the lack of evidence, god is the answer, is simply not a rational conclusion... since there is no evidence to support it.

It seems to me that the point about the lack of evidence for god is this:

All religions make extraordinary claims. They posit the existence of various sorts of supernatural entities- god(s), demons, angels, kami etc. They posit the existence of various sorts of supernatural mechanisms and transcendental 'spaces'- cycles of reincarnation, heaven and hell, bodily resurrection etc.

Whenever someone makes an extraordinary claim, the burden of proof is very firmly on them. If I were to claim that there was a pizza the size of Japan orbiting the Alpha Centauri system, then you would quite reasonably ask for evidence to back up the claim.

And yet my claim about the pizza is far less extraordinary than, say, the claim that there is an all-powerful god, or that heaven and hell exist. The pizza is at least a possibility- its allowable within our current materialist scientific understanding of the universe, and doesn't require us to change our ontology. God, heaven and hell on the other hand require massive revisions to our basic ontology, and certainly violate physical laws (e.g. divine miracles).

The complete lack of evidence for god really is a problem for theism. In the absence of evidence, why should anyone believe in such bizarre and fantastical stuff?