No reason justifies disbelief.

[possibletarian]

If you begin with the premise that only empirical, intersubjectively repeatable, quantifiable results count as evidence, it's impossible to discuss metaphysics at all.

Oh metaphysics is needed, at the very least to categorise,  I was more asking how you could could count it as an additional or alternative proof or evidence ?

Religious people generally accept authority, tradition, revelation, etc., as evidence. I'm not saying they're right, only that atheists have a commitment that they're wrong. That is why atheists do have commitments which may be challenged and defended. Atheists generally don't have just a lack, they have metaphysical premises they operate by.

It's not so much that I believe they are wrong, but that they cannot show why tradition or authority is a good way to determine truth, this is especially true when they are making fantastical and amazing claims. The athiest is asking if it can be shown to be true in any meaningful way, other than simply believed to be true.

Historical or geographical evidence is relevant if we want to know whether an event really happened, or what the original authors meant. But religious texts are usually of a different type. The Book of Job, for example, isn't important as a historical record. And it isn't really important what the original authors and editors had in mind. What's important is what people have made of it. What it means to us who read it. There are better and worse readings, but that doesn't depend on evidence. It depends on wisdom.

Sure you could pick Job, though I'm uncertain what you would take from it as a story, or how you could call it a story of wisdom, again maybe i simply don't get it. I used to think I 'got it' as a theist, but frankly as i read it again without a religious responsibility to make it fit in my preconception of a loving god it reads completely different.

I really hope that most people who use the arguments take it as a given that we don't know. It's not something humans are really capable of being sure about. Belief ("I hold it to be true") stands back from claiming that "I absolutely know it to be true." 

It's not fair, though, to say that the people who work on these arguments are trying to avoid something. In many cases they are sincerely trying to work something out. If you think they're wrong, OK, but don't begin with the premise that they're insincere. 

I don't think I was as much claiming insincerity as insecurity which often does not exist in modern times we are more comfortable saying we simply do not understand.

Well, there you go. That's the result of a long chain of logical argument. It's not easy to follow; it takes work. I'm not saying it must be true; I'm not sure. But many people have worked on it, sincerely found it to be reasonable, and held that it is something like proof. I know a guy at the University of Chicago philosophy PhD program who thinks it's probably true, and he has worked on it among smart skeptics for years. Which is not to make an argument from authority, but just to show that smart people can sincerely hold positions different from you. 

Oh they can, and do and sure people think it's reasonable, being able to refine an argument though does not mean that it is true and of course believing something to be true (no matter how smart) does not mean it's true,  smart people throughout history have believed some things we now consider silly, your buddy Aristotle for instance,  This is why we prefer evidence we can test carefully, refine and change if needed rather than just logical arguments.  Sure bring the logical arguments on, but be prepared to back it up with more than belief.

I don't agree with you about this.

I know.