[cksquare]

This is the tired kind of equivocating that's used by lazy Christians to claim atheism is a discrete and well-formed ideology. Atheism is just that, a-theism, a rejection of the notion of a supernatural dimension occupied by 'personal' god(s).

What evidence (or counter-evidence) do you suggest I present to show that my disbelief in Thor or Odin is wrong?

[gwd]

"Unicorns exist" and "unicorns don't exist" are both factual statements of which one can have a belief. Right now you probably hold one or the other. Sure, if you'd never heard of unicorns, such a thing wouldn't enter your head; but you have heard of unicorns, and thus you do have an opinion on their existence.

Similarly, if one lived all one's life in a rationalist bubble, and never even heard the mention of God or gods or religion or the supernatural, then perhaps one could not have an opinion on whether God exists. But that applies neither to you nor to Dennet.

How would I know that my disbelief in Thor is wrong? At a first cut, I'd need to have someone propose a more concrete proposition to evaluate; then I could try to evaluate it. But whatever that proposition is, it would need to be able to accommodate all that we've learned about the world and about science; it would need to be falsifiable; and it would need to explain the world in a more satisfactory manner than the alternative worldviews.

[cksquare]

"Unicorns exist" and "unicorns don't exist" are not factual statements, they are premises. Establishing the truth or falsehood of either has nothing to do with my opinion of the existence of unicorns--unicorns would not exist in spite of my fervent desire for them to be real, or if I just happened to think they were really cool.

Assuming that you believe in the miracles of the old and new testaments, how would such things be proven false? For them to be positive evidence for the existence of God, we should at least be able to imagine how we'd go about refuting them.

[backpackviolet]

> Right now you probably hold one or the other.

No, right now you probably have no opinion on the subject. And depending on context are perfectly willing to entertain either or neither. The world will be a much better place when people stop having opinions on things just because someone asked them to pick a team.

[Jensson]

When you read a fantasy story you don't really think about whether it is true or not, if someone asked you then you would say it isn't true, but you never thought about it before prompted.

So for me the first time I really thought about whether god existed was in internet discussions. When I learned about the religions in school it was just a bunch of cool stories and cultural things, there was no need to think whether any of that was real or not. And when I got into internet discussions and first encountered religious people I wondered why they thought a fantasy story was real, but apparently you can't ask them that.

[geye1234]

> What evidence (or counter-evidence) do you suggest I present to show that my disbelief in Thor or Odin is wrong?

There are no attempts at proof (that I'm aware of) for the existence of these mythical deities. There are several for the existence of the God of monotheism, which I believe to be sound, but will struggle to fit into a combox.

Further, the thing we imagine them to be is different in kind from the God of monotheism. There are sound explanations of why this is so, but (again) they won't fit into a combox.

See Edward Feser's Five Proofs for the Existence of God, and some of his other works, if you care to explore this further. Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and the like ignore, or grossly straw-man, these arguments.