Can we "know" God doesn't exist.

[onager]

36. Same here. And all believers seem to have two gods...

God #1 - the god for the in-crowd, the god who really does work miracles. Like saving one person when a tornado hits, and killing everybody else. Go to just about any believer website and you'll see miles of posts about that god. And people dismissing his apparent arbitrary cruelty with "mysterious ways" etc.

God #2 - only makes an appearance when non-believers show up. This is the cool, rational god who invented science and is only revealing its mysteries slowly because our poor human brains can't comprehend it all. Even though, you'd think such a god might give us an answer for something useful we can comprehend. Like eliminating birth defects. You run into this god a lot in Certain DU Groups. See also "Sophisticated Theology."

Anyway, as you said, I'm still waiting for evidence.

While I'm here - these discussions remind me somewhat of the "historical Jesus" fights.

Would it matter to me if archeologists discovered that a Real Jesus existed? Complete with, say, a toe-tag from the Jerusalem morgue positively identifying him?

Not really, because I don't believe Jesus was the son of any god. Or in any other way was a supernatural being. Finding out he existed as a real person would be interesting, but it wouldn't suddenly turn me into a Xian.

Absent any other real evidence, I'd probably continue to believe what I believe right now - that the Biblical Jesus was a composite character, cobbled up from memories of the many fanatical religious leaders cluttering up Judea during the First Century CE. (Something for which we do have some evidence - the writings of Flavius Josephus, born circa 37 CE and resident of Jerusalem during the Jewish-Roman Wars.)