Why Something Rather Than Nothing?

[Esquilax]

This is not a trick. It's a reductio ad absurdum of Mister Agenda who wrote:

YOU propose your particular God out of the potential infinity of imaginable Gods, and then we evaluate your claim.

Oh, so you're being overly literal for the sake of being an irritant, then.

I think there's a pretty clear subtext in Mister A's post that, in order for an honest and effective conversation to take place, it's preferable that the claimant actually believe the things that they are saying. If you're willing to take the dishonest and ineffective route then yes, congratulations, I am not an atheist if you're willing to define "god" as "dog." But you don't actually believe that a dog is god, and so to actually proffer that idea for discussion would mean you are lying.

I don't know why you'd think that coming into a theological debate with a lie, especially when the god you do believe in commands you not to do that, is appealing to you.

Additionally, the route you're taking refutes itself; if you're willing to dismiss commonly understood ideas about gods in order to win a point then the same can equally be done to you. If you define god as dog, then I define christianity as orca whale and bam: I'm not an atheist and you're not a christian. But I don't know where that gets us, and I think we both know it doesn't end anywhere useful.

What's so frustrating about this is that Mister A's position, where god claims are evaluated as they come in, rather than being in the possession of a pre-existing claim, is done to be both honest and polite to theists. You probably have your own god claim, would you really want us speaking for you and assuming, rather than you just telling us what you believe so that claim can be assessed on its own merits?

Why would "aha, you don't want to tell me what I believe, therefore you're wrong!" be a position you want to take?