The Historical Reliability of the New Testament

[Esquilax]

First, it is possible to prove a negative. Show me a four-sided triangle...or prove to me that you can't. You CAN do it...tt's a philosophical proof based on contradiction.  Prove that God is a contradiction and you will have proved that God does not exist.

Out of interest, how do you prove to someone, categorically, that you cannot ever, in any conceivable sense, produce something? How do you do that?

Second, as I have pointed out in this thread or elsewhere, in science and philosophy, the person claiming that X does not exist has the equal burden of proving his claim.

This is a point that requires a little more explanation than you've given. In a very basic way I agree, as the claim "X does not exist," whatever X is, is itself an ontologically positive claim. However, in this discussion I doubt you'll find so much as a single atheist that's actually making that claim, either. For the majority of us here- I won't speak for everyone but I've been around these people long enough to get the gist- atheism is little more than a position on the claim you and other theists are making, not its own distinct claim: you are stating that god exists, and we are stating that we don't believe that claim due to a lack of evidence. This is not the same as saying no gods exist, it is the entirely rational practice of not accepting claims that are lacking in evidence, yours included. Why, after all, would we want to overreach by making the claim that no gods exist? How could we know that, or know anywhere near enough, to make that claim? It'd be irrational to do so, though it would be equally irrational to accept the premise that there is a god based on the evidence currently available to us, too.

Now, if you accept what I'm saying here, then obviously you'll have to drop this idea that we have a burden of proof, because that doesn't apply to our case, nor the case of any modern atheist. You could, conversely, try to argue that actually our position is the "there is no god" claim, but I doubt many of us would take kindly to an argument-by-fiat-redefinition-of-the-opposing-position, and in fact that would be hugely presumptuous of you to do that; if you're not planning to that's fine, but others have, so I need to cover my bases.

The other potential counter-argument is to claim that lacking a belief in a claim entails a burden of proof to disprove it too, but that would be ridiculous, because it would put you in the position of being obligated to accept a literal infinity of other fictional claims by fiat, or you'd be forced to disprove them all, even where they are completely unfalsifiable. It's a rabbit hole of claims you'd never leave, and it's a direct consequence of that argument, so maybe don't use it.

Since science has nothing to say about an immaterial God other than, "No, John, I'm not picking anything up on my scanners, either.", we're into philosophy.

Nope. Nuh uh. "Science cannot detect this, therefore it is provable via philosophy" is not an apt syllogism, there's a huge gap in the middle there that you're not filling with anything other than your wish that god be provable by whatever means necessary. Claims about reality are rarely provable via philosophy, mainly because you cannot think things into existence; the assertions of philosophy do not constitute evidence of an objective entity's existence, except in cases where they refer to objectively true facts about reality in doing so, in which case those facts are also testable and falsifiable via science.
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