The gist of my argument is that God, being immaterial and therefore not subject to empirical observation, can only be denied via pure reasoning — ucarr

No, there is empirical content to theism; God stands in various causal relations with the physical world, having created it and periodically intervening in it. Causal relations which would entail observable evidence... and the fact that such evidence is lacking constitutes evidence against theism/God's existence.

pure reasoning, as a channel to valid conclusions, necessarily entails some measure of Plato's objective idealism — ucarr

I don't see why it should. Logic is "pure reasoning" if anything is, and it consists in the manipulation of symbols on the basis of agreed-upon rules and procedures. And the a priori arguments against God's existence (paradoxes/contradictions between various divine attributes, for instance) are essentially just linguistic analysis of various predicates (omnipotence, etc). Hard to see why any of this should "entail some measure of objective idealism", its appears to be completely neutral to such questions (and thus is perfectly consistent with a realist/physicalist/etc metaphysic).

Since to deny God means denying objective existence of an absolute moral sentience, such denial entails embracing objective moral truth of a different sort from theism, or wholly denying objective moral truth, which entails embracing objective truth of a sort that excludes objective moral truth. — ucarr

This also appears to just be non-sequitur. If God's existence isn't being denied on any moral grounds, then one has taken no position on "objective moral truth", or its possible non-existence and so isn't committed to any of these positions.

Whatever the particulars, denial of God entails embracing a priori mental constructions of objective-transcendent idealism. — ucarr

Maybe it does, but this remains a conclusion in search of an argument; we haven't been given any compelling reason to think this is so, its more or less just been baldly asserted.

Is it your understanding that God's being includes a physical component?


Are you saying that grammar of logic is extant independent of human reasoning? I ask because if not, then you suggest atheist logicians, in refuting God, access the physicalist-spiritual point of contact. If this is denied, then independent grammar of logic is an objective idealism.

Is it your understanding that God's being includes a physical component? — ucarr

No, but nevertheless, theism almost universally affirms that God stands in various causal relations with the physical world (most especially creation), and causal interactions imply, at least in principle, observable evidence.

Are you saying that grammar of logic is extant independent of human reasoning? I ask because if not, then you suggest atheist logicians, in refuting God, access the physicalist-spiritual point of contact. If this is denied, then independent grammar of logic is an objective idealism. — ucarr

Why would that follow? Why would linguistic/conceptual analysis showing that certain terms or predicates are mutually exclusive require "access to the physicalist-spiritual point of contact", or imply that "grammar of logic is extant independent of human reasoning"? Once again this just appears to be a gigantic and unwarranted leap.

Is it not true that before the question of God's causal relationship with the physical world can be examined via the benchmark of physical evidence, the examiner must presuppose a physical component within God's being? I pose the question this way because the object to be examined i.e., God's contact with the physical world, logically requires a common ground where the two can meet. Either spirit converts to physical, or vice versa. The acceptance of this equalization upon a common ground of physicality by the atheist examiners you postulate is suggested by their seeking after physical evidence. In the absence of a physical component within God, one can ask how atheist examiners expect to find physical evidence left behind by pure spirit.

Why would linguistic/conceptual analysis showing that certain terms or predicates are mutually exclusive... — Seppo

...imply that "grammar of logic is extant independent of human reasoning"? — Seppo

There's a perennial debate whether numbers are discovered or invented. I'm asking a parallel question about logic.

If your answer is that logic is an invention of human understanding, do you acknowledge that together, human understanding and logic form a monism?

Is it not true that before the question of God's causal relationship with the physical world can be examined via the benchmark of physical evidence, the examiner must presuppose a physical component within God's being?. — ucarr

No, or at any rate I can't think of any reason why it should. It is the fact of these causal interactions that entails (in principle observable) evidence, how God accomplishes it is the theists business. Having a physical component would certainly provide an easier/more obvious answer, but theism tends to insist that God is pure spirit or some such. And so that's the claim we evaluate: and any evidence for such interactions is conspicuously lacking.

There's a perennial debate whether numbers are discovered or invented. I'm asking a parallel question about logic. — ucarr

Right and my point is that such discussions are not directly relevant here, the sorts of a priori arguments against God's existence (for instance, arguments from contradictory attributes) we're talking about don't presuppose or commit one to any particular position on nominalism/anti-realism vs. Platonism/realism wrt logic or mathematics.

And so that's the claim we evaluate: and any evidence for such interactions is conspicuously lacking. — Seppo

No evidence is contradicting it either. Who says a lightning striking a church is not caused by the gods?

In what context are you willing to answer my question about logic being independent or invented?
Sidebars into related topics have been ok before, or am I mistaken?
My question advances a line of attack on a type of atheist argument that uses the invented abstract structures of logic.

No evidence is contradicting it either. Who says a lightning striking a church is not caused by the gods? — Dijkgraf

Um... Anyone who understands how the physical phenomenon of lightning works? If we are taking theism seriously as proposing a substantive existence claim/factual assertion (rather than as, say, mere poetry), then we treat it as an empirical hypothesis and check to see whether the world looks like what we would expect if theism were true. And that involves excluding the truth of alternative hypotheses.

So if we find, as we do in fact find, that the evidence we would expect if theism were true (evidence of special/theistic creation, evidence of miracles, evidence of the divine revelation of genuinely new/novel information, evidence of the efficacy of prayer, evidence of a moral world order, etc) is lacking, and the evidence we would expect if an alternative hypothesis were true- naturalism/atheism in this case- then that constitutes strong contrary evidence, i.e. evidence that theism is false. If your version of theism is consistent with any and all states of affairs, otoh, then its unclear what exactly it is asserting, if anything (and so atheism wouldn't be the negation of this position, but rather a rejection of its making any intelligible proposition in the first place).

My question advances a line of attack on a type of atheist argument that uses the invented abstract structures of logic. — ucarr

Then make that argument. Because so far as we've been given no explicit reason why it should be relevant. Nominalist or Platonist (or neither/non-commital), both accept proof by contradiction, and so it doesn't really matter what position one takes on the matter to advance a priori arguments against the existence of God on the grounds of contradictory attributes.

Um... Anyone who understands how the physical phenomenon of lightning works? — Seppo

Exactly!

When a seeker tries to find physical evidence of immaterial being interacting with matter, that's a very specific search. If the speaker is reacting to claims made to that effect, then the seeker must proceed from the premise that the immaterial being possesses a physical component that makes contact with material onjects. This premise contains another premise > that material evidence can only result from material agents acting upon it. If the seeker doesn't commit to these premises, then s/he allows that transduction between matter and spirit might be possible.

If the speaker is reacting to claims made to that effect, then the seeker must proceed from the premise that the immaterial being possesses a physical component that makes contact with material onjects. — ucarr

Well, no, not if that has been explicitly denied, as it is with most theistic traditions. And the incoherence of a non-physical entity causing physical changes in the observable world is itself grounds for doubting the truth of theism, apart from the fact that such interactions would imply evidence (evidence which is conspicuously absent).

Do you allow that transduction between spirit-matter being possible is the premise of the atheistic seekers to whom you've been referring?

If you reject such transduction, then you assert that spirit-matter contact is rationally impossible, and the existence of spirit is scientifically undecidable, with extreme skepticism.

Please see above post.

Do you allow that transduction between spirit-matter being possible is the premise of the atheistic seekers to whom you've been referring? — ucarr

I'm not sure the matter is sufficiently well-defined to answer the question definitively. It doesn't appear to be logically impossible (it doesn't appear to entail a contradiction), but whether it is nomologically/metaphysically possible is ambiguous (which is, again, itself a problem for theism's credibility).

And since its not obviously impossible on any a priori grounds, the matter is to be decided on empirical ones: we look to see if there is any evidence of such causal interactions between God and the observable world (and, finding such evidence to be lacking, decrease our confidence in the truth/probability of theism accordingly).

And since its not obviously impossible on any a priori grounds, the matter is to be decided on empirical ones: we look to see if there is any evidence of such causal interactions between God and the observable world (and, finding such evidence to be lacking, decrease our confidence in the truth/probability of theism accordingly). — Seppo

Maybe God shows itself by means of the hidden variables in quantum mechanics.
It's impossible to check all that is happening in the universe. The heavenly happenings are too faraway. Who says they don't show themselves up there? Maybe they show themselves in the shapes of clouds... Or maybe they don't show themselves at all.

I'm not sure the matter is sufficiently well-defined to answer the question definitively. It doesn't appear to be logically impossible (it doesn't appear to entail a contradiction), but whether it is nomologically/metaphysically possible is ambiguous (which is, again, itself a problem for theism's credibility). — Seppo

Question – How does an agent in the non-physical category (spirit) cause observable effects in the physical category (physics)?

Theism (theistic metaphysics) has a responsibility to propound spirit-matter transduction.

Atheism (atheistic metaphysics) has a responsibility to examine the same question, with intent to show impossibility.

Atheism (atheistic metaphysics) has a responsibility to examine the same question, with intent to show impossibility. — ucarr

No, it doesn't require impossibility, only falsity. Atheism is the position that theism is false, not necessarily the position that it (or any of its core truth-claims) is impossible.

And so its not incumbent upon the atheist to work out the details of how a non-physical agent effects physical changes or to show that such a thing is impossible, only to show that we have sufficient reason to disbelieve such causation has actually occurred. Obviously showing it is impossible does that, but it isn't necessary.

I already said that we can only evaluate theism as a substantive factual claim if it has some concrete truth-conditions and excludes rival hypotheses. If your theism is consistent with any and all states of affairs or pieces of evidence, then we cannot say that it is empirically false, only point out that it is empty. Either way, atheism is warranted.

Either way, atheism is warranted. — Seppo

Atheism is then empty too. Even doubly!

Is this just "I know you are but what am I", or do you actually want to make a claim or argument here? Yes, the rejection of an empty position/pseudo-proposition is itself in some sense "empty" as well- so what?

"Atheism" : only nature :: "solipsism" : only me.
Nothing to do with one another. — 180 Proof

...Language can only exist and have meaning in relation to the empirical world and social/linguistic habits of communities of language-users. — Seppo

Provisional Closing: Three ISMs

Idealism

When the staunch atheist confronts the question of atheism & idealism, an apparent conflict, s/he encounters a bit of trouble WRT to the perennial debate about the ontological status of numbers. Are they discovered, or invented?

Pertaining to the real or ideal question, numbers fall betwixt and between. What is a number? It’s the ultimate marker. Because numbers firmly mark position, a function that affiliates strongly with time, space, energy, motion, direction, volume and momentum, they’re indispensable to science which, for the past three centuries or so, has firmly planted itself within the realist-physicalist camp. Problematically, numbers don’t grow on trees. Clearly, numbers are an abstract, mental construction and yet, they are essential to myriad foundational operations within the real world of empirical experience.

If one says numbers are discovered, then such person lands somewhere in the vicinity of the objective idealism camp. Abstracts objects that, nevertheless, are out there in the objective world of experience hark back to Plato’s Theory of Forms.

If one says numbers are invented, then such person lands somewhere in the vicinity of the subjective idealism camp. Abstract objects, originating in the cognitive operations of mind, hark back to Berkeley’s Immaterialism.

The two above choices pose a problem for the atheist because any type of idealism, being, cognitively speaking, the express lane to theism, looms as a threat to the purity of the atheist, many of whom are realist-physicalist scientists who count numbers as essential.

The Comprehension Restriction

If we think of theism as a whole, logically, we can represent this whole as an all-inclusive set that encompasses all theisms. This is the set of all theisms.

All-inclusive sets allow us to make generalizations in the form of categorical statements. However, categorical statements don’t always lead to valid generalizations.

At the start of the twentieth century, British mathematician Bertrand Russell discovered, along with others, a limit to set-theoretical generalizations. Regarding the set of all sets not members of themselves, if left unrestricted in scope, it terminates in paradox.

Let R = {x ∣x ∉ x}, then R ∈ R ⇐⇒ R ∉ R

If the set doesn’t belong to the set, then it belongs to the set

If the set does belong to the set, then it doesn’t belong to the set.

The theistic parallel to Russell’s Paradox is what you get if you try to refute all theisms by way of a refutation set with no comprehension restrictions.

*Regarding the set of all theisms not members of themselves,

If it is not a member of itself then,

It is a member of itself> it is a theism


If it is a member of itself then,

It is not a member of itself>l it is a not-theism

*A theism that is not a member of itself i.e., not a theism, is a not-theism, as in, “doesn’t exist.”

** In this parallel to Russell’s Paradox, the paradoxical switch, in addition to alternating between member of itself/not a member of itself, also alternates between theism/not-theism.

Just as a set cannot simultaneously be a member of itself and not be a member of itself, a theism cannot simultaneously be a theism and not be a theism.

The necessity of the comprehension restriction tells us that, regarding set theory, there can be no categorical inclusion set that encompasses an entire category and, likewise, there can be no categorical refutation set that refutes an entire category.

In application, this tells us that there is no inclusion set of all sets that are not members of themselves and, likewise, there is no refutation set of all sets that are not members of themselves.

Talking specifically, this means there can be no wholesale, set-theoretical refutation of all possible theisms.

Each specific theism must be refuted individually.

Conclusion – Atheism is a theory of not-theism. If offers no categorical refutation of theism as a whole. Instead, it strives to refute logically, every instance of physicalist evidence claiming to prove theism.

Therefore, atheism, like theism, is an article of faith. As the theist seeks evidence of a cosmic, teleological sentience, the atheist seeks refutation of a cosmic, teleological sentience.

Transcendence Is Essential

By inference from the above, neither theism, nor atheism, at the physicalist-materialist level of existence, can be a sufficient, stand-alone category. Neither category, alone, constitutes reality.

Sufficiency of being requires transcendence of being & transcendence of self across a spectrum that incorporates the empirical universe & the transcendent Logos of deity.

Moreover, this transcendence is bi-directional. The logos of deity needs the physicalist-materialist manifestation of its will no less than its material beings need Logos.

The connection between material being, let us say human, & Logos, effects a mystical duality that subsumes all upwardly dimensional evolutions of reality.

At the level of science, upwardly dimensional evolutions of reality will manifest themselves as stages of increasing empirical complexity.

Monism – Solipsism*

*Note On Solipsism Being a variety of Idealism, solipsism, through Idealism, links atheism to itself.

... Language can only exist and have meaning in relation to the empirical world and social/linguistic habits of communities of language-users. — Seppo

Seppo’s description of language absent cosmic, teleological sentience equals SYNECDOCHE for cosmic monism-solipsism. The rejection of Logos leads to separatism in cosmic solitude. Matter evolves upward dimensionally to the status of a conscious self with no dialogue between that physicalist-materialist self and a cosmically transcendent source. Dialogue with other humans doesn’t break this solitude as the cosmic dialogue between self & other is between categorical human & transcendent deity.

The monist cognition of atheism is stoic, as human, by nature, wants to talk to the creation as a whole. The demands of human nature don’t stop there. Human wants creation to talk back. Human wants to experience cosmic dialogue. The essential gravity of sentience is other sentience. Sentience-to-sentience, on the cosmic scale of self & other, alone can satisfy the soul.

The theism-atheism dialectic boils down to the dualism of sentience-to-sentience vs. the monism of sentience upwardly evolved from non-teleological matter.

The monism-solipsism of realist-physicalist atheism and, therefore, of humanity, as viewed through this POV, is the result of expunging the upwardly dimensional (i.e., beyond three-dimensional reality) presence i.e., deity from existence.

Theism says human is mystically connected to the upwardly dimensional, divine presence which is transcendently real & transcendently sentient. Through this connection, human, in turn (as above in heaven, so below on earth) becomes transcendently real & transcendently sentient.

The chief attribute of this connection is, arguably, faith.

Put in everyday language, faith (vis-à-vis the material world) is the unseen window in a room without windows.

Life, then, under theism, is never completely containable as material substance. It begins in transcendence & whilst it persists, endures in the transcendence of sentience-to-sentience. This is the explicit stance of Neo-Platonists & Christians.

For the atheist, sentient life is only upwardly evolved, and thus upwardly dimensional from matter, but is not transcendently real & is not transcendently sentient. There is no trans-rationality of faith. There is only rationality. If the room has no windows, there is no way out. This is the rationality of physicalism-realism.

And yet, QM continues to pose challenges to this. QM is upwardly dimensionalizing 3-space articulation, thereby reducing its finality.

Jesus, being claimed as the physical manifestation of God, obligates atheists to refute the resurrection of Jesus as God in the flesh.

Since atheism denies the resurrection of Jesus on the cross, it must refute verbal evidence handed across two millennia with contrary evidence, say, another verbal account, contemporaneous with the crucifixion of Jesus.

If human understanding leads to reason-logic-truth, wherein the advent of human has no prior, cosmic, teleological sentience as its cause, but rather follows from a numerical probability of animate physical processes combined absent intent, then the forces driving history & evolution forward are probability and self. This is cosmic monism wherein animal kingdom, with human apex, forms a monist universe arisen probabilistically.

It doesn’t matter if the self takes human form, or some other form. Still, there is only one categorical self. Under the rubric of atheism, the universe is both monist & solipsistic. To be clear, under atheistic evolution, monism-solipsism prevails in the relationship between the collective self and its circumambient universe. Interrelationship between individual instances of selves has no bearing on this.

This monist universe of self-willed human stands in distinction from the binary universe of God-the-other and human, united in the cosmic mystery of LOVE.

Solipsism of Atheism 1 – It’s due to human consciousness being a probabilistically evolved sentience vis-à-vis its circumambient cosmos, or generative matrix. There is only a probabilistically evolved and then self-willed & self-directed self. There is no pre-existing cosmic sentience intending the human self into being. This is a MONIST universe WRT sentience.

Human sentience intended into being via a pre-existing cosmic sentience i.e., God, forms a DUALIST universe WRT to sentience.

Solipsism of Atheism 2 – The physical universe, by including a possible combination of factors that lead to sentience, provides physical evidence that allows recognition of the universe as neutral on the question of cosmic, teleological sentience. This cosmic duality is the essential component of LOVE. Its structure consists in the SELF-OTHER dynamical relationship.

This innate possibility for cosmic duality, through human acknowledgement, leads to the essential component of LOVE. Its structure obtains in the SELF-OTHER dynamical relationship.

To deny cosmic neutrality on the possibility of teleological sentience ordaining the advent of human sentience as a mathematical probability, atheism must postulate a physicalist universe wherein no possible combination of physical factors leading to sentience exists.

Since the agent of this project must necessarily be a sentient being, it’s doomed from the start.

The default option for atheism is to propound a theory featuring an auto-expansion of sentience paralleling the Big Bang.

This is an argument over whether possible combinations of physical factors that prove to be sentience-bearing only occur absent intent. If these combinations can be described & therefore predicted according to mathematical probabilities, then they are not randomly occurring.

The atheism project to deny a cosmic & teleological sentience can, at best, stipulate a paradoxical atheism since the agent of the project, a non-randomly evolved human sentience exists as a contradiction to its own project.

In a solipsistic universe of a monist self, probabilistically evolved and, at some point, self-directed in its upward evolution, LOVE is narcissistic.

Each specific theism must be refuted individually. — ucarr

The concept as a Type of deity (e.g. theism) can be shown to be empty, establishing every Token of that deity Type (e.g. Allah, YHWH, Zeus) as imaginary .

Conclusion – Atheism is a theory of not-theism. If offers no categorical refutation of theism as a whole.

Grounds for "categorical refutation" ...

Therefore, atheism, like theism, is an article of faith. As the theist seeks evidence of a cosmic, teleological sentience, the atheist seeks refutation of a cosmic, teleological sentience.

I claim (to know) that theism as such is not true.

As an antitheist (inspired by Via Negativa)... — 180 Proof

(Click my handle-link.)

NB: Also, this vignette about "faith" :pray: :eyes:

The concept as a Type of deity (e.g. theism) can be shown to be empty, establishing every Token of that deity Type (e.g. Allah, YHWH, Zeus) as imaginary — 180 Proof

:up: Exactly. If we have good reasons for disbelieving in the existence of an entity with properties distinctive of theism as such/shared by many specific forms of theism, then we have good reasons for disbelieving in theism as a whole. Moreover, if we have good reasons for accepting positions which logically exclude the truth of theism- naturalism, or physicalism, for instance- then by the same token we have good reasons for rejecting the truth of theism.

Also, this is to ignore the fact that many atheistic arguments are arguments for different local atheisms- atheism wrt some particular form of theism (Christianity, for instance)- most especially against the form of theism that happens to be predominant in a particular region or culture (so, atheists in America spend a good deal of time thinking about Christianity, or Abrahamic monotheism, for instance).

If one says numbers are discovered, then such person lands somewhere in the vicinity of the objective idealism camp. — ucarr

No, not necessarily; this is either an extremely outdated categorization, or a gross oversimplification. Quine was a realist wrt abstract objects, but he was hardly an "objective idealist" in any meaningful sense: just because one grants some substantive ontological status to abstract objects doesn't really tell us about the nature of that ontological status, and there is, as in any other field or debate, a broad range of opinions among both camps, realists/platonists and anti-realists/nominalists.

The two above choices pose a problem for the atheist because any type of idealism, being, cognitively speaking, the express lane to theism — ucarr

As I remarked already, theism and idealism have certainly been friendly towards one another, historically speaking, but idealism doesn't entail theism. One could be an atheist and an idealist, without any obvious contradiction, despite this historical affinity.

Talking specifically, this means there can be no wholesale, set-theoretical refutation of all possible theisms. — ucarr

This appears to be a strawman, as far as I can tell. Typically, atheism is the rejection of extant forms of theism... not "all possible" forms of theism.

Therefore, atheism, like theism, is an article of faith. — ucarr

This doesn't really follow, even granting all of your premises leading to this point (mostly for the sake of argument, since as above, there are several serious problems with those premises); there is middle ground between what we can deductively/logically refute as impossible and what must be accepted as an article of faith (for instance, any empirical matter of fact falls into this middle ground).

And "faith" isn't merely something that is believed in the absence of sufficient evidence, faith must also be something we hope/wish to be true- you couldn't say "I have faith I am going to die today" without doing violence to language, and I don't think most atheists want there to be no god (or an immortal soul, or an afterlife), they simply believe that is the position most consistent with the available evidence.

Sufficiency of being requires transcendence of being & transcendence of self across a spectrum that incorporates the empirical universe & the transcendent Logos of deity. — ucarr

Um, why? This came out of nowhere, its not clear what this is even supposed to follow from.

I have to say, I stopped reading at this point, we've already strung together quite the series of non-sequiturs, and we're not even halfway through the post. At the very least, you've got a few major blanks to fill in here, as you've got a few conclusions that don't appear to follow from any of your stated arguments.

I acknowledge that 180 Proof & Seppo are correct in saying that categorical refutation can be made with the support of sound logic &, moreover, in our context here, such logically sound, categorical refutations have been made. Now I fall back on argument from theory: theory can't be conclusively proven, but rather must ever withstand new onslaughts as they arise, as with Newtonian Physics.

Even in a logical environment, it's bad policy to seek after final answers, as the cusp of a categorical pivot into a new era will be obscured by categorically correct theory.

I don't want to choke off counter-intuitive connections that upwardly dimensionalize orthodoxy.

Now I fall back on argument from theory: theory can't be conclusively proven, but rather must ever withstand new onslaughts as they arise, as with Newtonian Physics. — ucarr

I think you'll find that most atheists (at least those of a philosophical persuasion) are perfectly fine with that, and aren't claiming anything stronger than that atheism is warranted/probable in light of the currently available evidence (few atheists will claim that theism has been conclusively disproven to a logical certainty, or any such thing)... and are willing to reconsider that evaluation if/when new relevant evidence comes to light.

What is your response to the following characterization of pandeism?

pandeism- nature is a large scale mechanism operational within specifiable, obdurate boundaries. Its productions & their consequences are verifiable by means of evidence examined through the lens of materialist-physicalist premises. Philosophy of nature is propounded by exercise of reason as expressed in logical arguments supported by pertinent evidence.

What is your response to the following question?

Assuming we posit that flights of fancy, via the human imagination, occur within nature as described above, what is the the ontological status of flights of fancy?

Note - This isn't a question concerning specific content of a particular flight of fancy. It is a question about the phenomenon of flight of fancy that departs from reason, eventually making claims that have no empirical verification. Since this phenomenon is an existing thing occurring in nature, examination of its ontology promises illumination of important attributes of reality.

What is your response to the following characterization of pandeism? — ucarr

It's perfunctory and insufficiently speculative (re: by contrast e.g. ).

Assuming we posit that flights of fancy, via the human imagination, occur within nature as described above, what is the the ontological status of flights of fancy?

They are abstractions merely subsisting (Meinong).

Jesus, being claimed as the physical manifestation of God, obligates atheists to refute the resurrection of Jesus as God in the flesh.

Since atheism denies the resurrection of Jesus on the cross, it must refute verbal evidence handed across two millennia with contrary evidence, say, another verbal account, contemporaneous with the crucifixion of Jesus. — ucarr

You realise that many theists think Jesus died on the cross, or may not even have lived. Islam and Judaism for one view the Christian Jesus story as wrong. As do other faiths.

Claiming Jesus was an itinerant preacher about whom legends were constructed is not just an atheist position. I even know Christians who think Jesus was a mortal - an ethical teacher rooted in Jewish tradition.

It's one thing to argue for a god on the basis that there are as yet unexplained issues in physicalism. All of which sound like fallacies from ignorance. It's another thing entirely to use these gaps to state the case for a particular god. We could just as well argue that humans are part of an alien experiment in evolved apes. Or whatever.

Then there's the issue of atheism and argument. I suspect most people don't care about arguments or intense displays of reason being bent in all directions. People are atheists because the reasons for god/s are not convincing and the religious stories seem child like. But mostly it's not possible to believe if you lack a sensus divinitatis. Nothing can be done to make god/s seem relevant.

The real problem is the weak-arsed nature of all the god's who refuse to show up and communicate directly to people but leave proof of their existence to a priestly class and to fan fiction and to laborious arguments.