Let us dispel this nonsense about proof and "unknowability" once and for all. Let us put these particular rabbit holes to rest.
RAZD writes:
Curiously, we both know that your evidence is still inconclusive on the issue of whether or not gods exist, because it is incapable of proving that no gods can exist.
Can we
prove that the magical and empirically unknowable Easter Bunny can not exist? Does this have any bearing on our conclusion as to whether or not this particular entity actually exists?
Where there is sufficient evidence that a concept is nothing but a human invention we quite rightly follow the evidence. Presumed unknowability has no bearing on this. All I ask (all I have ever asked) is that we treat the question of god in a manner consistent with the way we treat every other empirically irrefutable concept. All I ask is that we weigh up the evidence favouring the concept of god as being a human invention against the evidence that gods exist. Baseless assertions of unknowability and ridiculous demands of proof are nothing more than smokescreens and distractions. The asserted unknowability of god is of no more relevance than is the asserted unknowability of the Easter Bunny. Let us instead examine the balance of evidence.
Why do you consider this to be so contentious, unreasonable and worthy of your indignant mockery?
RAZD paraphrased writes:
Curiously, we both know that your evidence is still inconclusive on the issue of whether or not the Easter Bunny exists, because it is incapable of proving that no Easter Bunny can exist.
So RAZ are you prepared to say that the magical Easter Bunny is a product of human invention rather than a real entity? Despite an absence of proof. Or not? When a man of your years finds himself unable to denounce the Easter Bunny as a fiction things have gone seriously amiss.
RAZD writes:
The deist believes that god/s is/are essentially unknowable
You may believe that as a baseless and unjustifiable presupposition. But that does not make your agnostic fundamentalist arguments regarding the intrinsic unknowability of god any more legitimate. The concept of god is as susceptible to sufficient evidence favouring contradictory conclusions as any other concept designed to be empirically irrefutable.
RAZD writes:
And compare this to what you are saying:
Uh oh — This should be good
RAZD writes:
Some evidence indicates that some concepts of gods are made up,
Therefore there are no god/s.
No. That is an imbecilic argument. Apart from anything else I am not making proclamations of logical certitude. I am instead advocating a position of relative likelihood. And even taking that into account the position that ‘man is the creator of god rather than vice versa’ has much more to do with the general and demonstrable principle that humankind is deeply prone to invoking the unknowable to explain the unknown than it does refuting specific instances of god as made-up. How many times need I say this to you?
There is a sever logical fault in that structure, and a logically false structure means logical false conclusion/s. I've pointed this out many times before, yet you keep making this basic logical error, again and again.
The fact that you keep refuting an argument not being made does nothing but highlight the paucity of your own position. Should you ever get past pointlessly demanding proofs and relentlessly asserting that there is an absence of evidence or insisting that gods are intrinsically unknowable you might want to consider any one of a number of posts in multiple threads in which I have tried to engage you in actual discussion about the actual evidence in question.
So once again we come down to why you feel that a decision is necessary?
We answer the question both because we are in an evidential position to do so and because it pisses off those fundamentalist agnostics who baselessly presuppose that gods are unknowable and relentlessly assert that the question is utterly unanswerable. Necessity has bugger all to do with anything.
In fact I personally would say entertainment value plays a larger role.