DarkSun, You keep claiming that there's no evidence on either side. Well, you're wrong. Here's one piece of evidence to not believe any religious claims:
Humans are notorious exaggerators, and frequently ascribe patterns to unrelated phenomena.
There. That's 1 piece of evidence against all theistic claims. It's now more logical to not believe than to believe, unless theists come up with one scrap of evidence for their claims. (Good luck with that.)
Ahh, I see that dorsk188 has already beat me to the logic that defeats DarkSun's position.
It puzzles me why so many people are committed to the position that "you can't prove a negative."
"Disproving" something or "proving a negative" is simply a contraposition:
P --> Q
~Q
--------
~P
Let's say I am a train wreck investigator. Someone calls me and reports there is a train wreck at a certain location. Before I go to the location, I notice that there are no other reports of the wreck. I then check the schedule to see which trains could possibly have crashed at this location at this time, and after contacting all those trains, I find that all are accounted for. As I am driving to the location, I expect to see smoke, but there is none. I expect to hear sirens of fire trucks and police, but I hear none. When I get to the location, I see no train wreck, no other responders, no spectators, no damaged tracks and indeed, no evidence that the report was true. What more proof do I need that there was no train wreck corresponding to the report? Haven't I successfully "disproven" the report? What more proof do I need that the report was fraudulent? In fact, sometimes reports are fraudulent. Sometimes, a lack of evidence where one would expect evidence can fairly be considered "proof of a negative."
Given that type of argument, we can systematically examine all creation hypotheses. Some religions hypothesize a kind of large tree from which life blossomed. Where is the bark and leaves of this tree? Nowhere to be found. Where is the cracked shell that we might expect if the world was hatched from some primeval egg? Nowhere to be found. Where is Auðumbla the primeval cow? Nowhere to be found. There are a bunch more creation hypotheses that you can examine if you like. I doubt it's possible to commit yourself to more than one of them.
At this point, we can apply dorks188's alternative explanation logic and ask ourselves if perhaps these hypotheses were wild speculations. Well, since it doesn't seem possible that more than one of them can be true, then it seems fair to say that the others, excepting the one in question, are false. Given that all the other creation hypotheses provide no evidence where we would expect evidence, and the alternative explanation - that they appear to be wild speculations, why in the world would I believe that any of them could possibly be true? I thus conclude that the general rule applies to all creation hypotheses. Why should I even believe the universe was created at all? I could just as easily believe that the universe has always existed.
Now you might be asking yourself - does this logic apply to the "Big Bang" hypothesis? In my opinion, it does. I don't believe that the "Big Bang" happened. I understand that the Big Bang hypothesis does a more robust job of explaining the available evidence than any other hypothesis. That makes the Big Bang hypothesis an interesting candidate for the earliest known events in our universe (I understand it is not actually a creation hypothesis). However, I am not an expert in physics and I have only reviewed a fraction of the available evidence. From what I have seen, it seems like a good idea, but due to my ignorance, I do not conclude that it actually happened.
Given my position on the Big Bang, it follows that some creation hypotheses might have value. So, despite my general rule that creation hypotheses are false, I remain open to consideration of these ideas. Some of the other creation hypotheses might have value that I am not aware of. Therefore, while I believe I have sufficiently "disproven" the truth of all creation hypotheses, there doesn't seem to be any good reason for me to bash the holders of these ideas. Some people might get some philosophical value out of these stories that I do not understand. Now, I will certainly argue against that person and his ideas, but I will try to treat him with common respect..
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