I'm not playing these lacktheism games
You're playing games using that phrase.
if someone claims the gods are fictional, are myths, that divine experience is delusion, they need to provide evidence.
Generally, the critical thinker is saying that HE doesn't believe in gods and that he doesn't believe the theist who claims to have experienced spirits. Most are agnostic atheists, a term you object to, but perhaps you should take a moment to think about. I describe myself in those terms precisely because I DON'T say that gods don't exist. I can't know that, which is what agnosticism is - being in a state of unknowing and aware of that.
the amount of atheists openly supporting and refusing to condemn the abuse of theists by atheists is astonishing.
What abuse? Calling gods sky fairies? Telling a believer that the critical thinker doesn't believe his god claims because he has different standards for belief? Why would I take your side in that matter and agree that that is abuse or that I should condemn those who do that? Getting bent out of shape over that is an issue for the person willing to be offended by that. If one feels abused reading words like those, then he probably shouldn't be in conversation with unbelievers.
Such as comparing a dragon in one's garage to deities.
And this offends you, too? It's an apt analogy for the excuses the theists give for why their gods that they insist exist can't be detected, a series of just-so answers regarding why we can't detect it. If you think the analogy doesn't apply, make your argument.
Why would I waste my time one someone who won't even engage honestly and plays the "I believe nothing" games?
That's you gaslighting now (your phrase for misrepresenting another). None of us says we believe nothing. We just don't believe that gods exist, because we have no reason to believe that.
Dont project your methods onto me okay? I dont decide something is true or not simply based on subjectively finding it insufficient.
That method is called critical analysis, the proper way to evaluate evidence. Nobody's accusing you of being a critical thinker, whose methods are NOT subjective. They're codified rules of proven value in deciding what is true about the world.
That atheists conflate faith and fideism is only illuminating for the theist.
Only unjustified faith. The word is also sometimes used to refer to justified belief, such as faith that a one's car will probably start in the morning, but that's not unjustified belief if it has started the last few hundred times it was tested, aware that occasionally, it does not. That's empiricism and justified belief.
That you DON"T conflate faith with fideism suggests that you don't know what they mean: "
the term "fideism" comes from the Latin "fides," which means "faith." Fideism asserts that religious truths can be found through faith alone and that reason and logic are limited in their ability to explain religion and spiritual experiences."
So theres so much evidence for atheism you could write books on it, yet you cant present any.
The atheist doesn't need evidence. The theist does, assuming he wants to be believed by a critical thinker.
Properties that define "new atheism": it is epistemologically unfriendly; ignores instead of addresses the evidence for Theism; holds Theism to standards it doesn't hold itself to; intentionally conflates itself with Agnosticism; often falls back on emotion rather than reason; relies on demonstrably false/contradictory logic such as "you cannot prove a negative;” utilizes false equivalencies; and it encourages both bias and Anti-Theism.
Yes, the critical thinker rejects fideistic epistemology, which to you is unfriendly, and that is in fact a bias, albeit a rational one.
And yes, I am antitheistic, but only for organized, politicized religion like American Christianity that wants to invade government and limit the lives of unbelievers according to their religious beliefs, which is also a rational bias.
What the theist offers as evidence for a god is not that by academic, legal, and scientific standards for evaluating evidence, whether that be scripture, arguments for gods, or pointing at something in the world.
That you don't understand that an atheist can be agnostic (most are) is your deficiency, not the atheist's.
The atheists position is not emotional, but the easily offended fideist's is.
I don't know what
proving a negative is doing there or what it has to do with false equivalency.
What is your objection to the evidence?
None supports a god belief.
"Agnostic atheism" is a pointless term because nobody rational is ever asking you to prove with metaphysical certainty there are no gods.
It's a useful term when dealing with theists who can't understand that not believing isn't the same thig as believing not, but only if he can understand the concept or doesn't reject its possibility out of hand as those who use words like "lacktheist" appear to do.
There's atheism, Agnosticism, theism, and then arrogant atheists and theists who don't understand epistemology.
This is an extremely uninsightful comment as well as an incorrect approach to the spectrum of god belief and god claims. This is your arrogance on display here. What do you think you have to teach anybody about epistemology when you frame this topic in a tripartite MECE geometry where everybody is one or another of those categories, but nobody is more than one or fewer than one rather than as the 2x2 Punnet square you have already been shown reflecting that claims of belief and claims of knowledge are independent variables.
Then your position is similar to a creationist saying there's never been objective evidence for evolution.
Nope. A creationist is not a critical thinker and his opinions about what evidence reveals can be dismissed irrelevant.
When someone says "there is no evidence for gods" they are essentially taking 1 of 3 positions:
1. "I have not studied Theism enough to be aware of the evidence."
2. "I cannot refute the evidence for Theism so I will pretend it does not exist."
3. "I am confusing evidence with conclusions, what I mean is to reject the conclusion of Theism."
Which are we dealing with here?
What you are dealing with is skepticism and empiricism (critical analysis of evidence). The claim is that there is insufficient evidence to justify a god belief.
the idea that atheism is the only rational conclusion.
It is, assuming that it is agnostic atheism. The strong atheist cannot support his claim that gods don't exist, making that belief as irrational as the opposite belief, and that is why of all four possible positions combining theism/atheism and gnosticism/agnosticism, ONLY agnostic atheism is rational. Next best is agnostic theism - "I don't know that a god exists, but I choose to believe one exists," which is probably a statement that the belief is comforting. Seeking comfort is rational even if the god belief itself isn't.