1. If God does NOT exist, then prove it to me.
Proof by elimination - if you can't prove that God doesn't exist, then therefore God does exist. This may seem fair enough. However, it is patently impossible to prove that God does not exist if one assumes that God is omniscient and omnipotent. If I were to come up with any convincing proof of God's non-existence it would be perfectly reasonable, given the definition of God above, for a theist to retort that God is merely letting me come up with that proof (because he is omnipotent) to test me.
The important point is that there is no proof that God does exist either. In the absence of positive proof for the existence of something one cannot merely assume it's existence. If I were to tell you that the screen you are reading at the moment is not merely a screen, despite its appearance, but actually conceals an advanced video-camera being used to spy on you, you probably wouldn't believe me. You would probably, quite reasonably, ask me to prove it. I could, however, just as easily ask you to prove to me that that screen didn't contain an advanced spying device. The obvious rejoinder would be to say that it looked like a computer screen. I then claim that the device is cunningly concealed. You may then go through a whole series of scientific tests - taking the screen apart, analysing its components. You still find no evidence for this spy device. No matter, I say - there is no way that you will be able to detect it because it is cloaked by a 29th century cloaking device. Now you are stuck. Because of the nature of my defence it is absolutely impossible to prove that this screen is not a cloaked spying device.
The theist's defence of God is exactly the same. If I look at the Universe I do not see God, I merely see the Universe. You tell me that there is, in fact, a God out there, even though I cannot see one. There is no scientific evidence for the existence of a God (the equivalent of the tests I just proposed on the piece of screen) so I still do not believe you. However, I cannot disprove your assertion simply because of the way you have defined the problem. It clearly makes no more sense for me to believe that there is a God than it does for you to believe that your computer screen is a cloaked spying device.
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"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives - who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must not we ourselves become gods simply to seem worth of it? There has never been a greater deed - and whoever shall be born after us, for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto."
