Oh, my, I nearly spilled my morning coffee, and that is never a good start.So...
Plan A - keep telling yourself God is made up. And when that fails to work. You resort to...
Plan B - just repeat "I don't know".
Are you not aware that plan B is a debate tactic, use by professional atheists like Michael Shermer, Laurence Krauss, etc...
Theists are aware that you don't mean it.
Jan, are you seriously claiming that when someone says "I don't know" that it is only a "debate tactic"? Are you seriously insisting that everyone actually knows that God exists (if God does actually exist)? Seriously???
I've known before that you have serious struggles with the agnostic position, but you've never been quite so explicit about rejecting it out of hand as simply a "debate tactic". No, agnostics are not aligned with your strawman that you like to argue against. Hence your difficulty in discussing matters with them. So what do you do? That's right, you simply classify their position as a debate tactic.
You only see atheists as people who know God exists yet choose, through some faith they have (so you believe), to reject / deny God. To you it is all black and white... there is everyone knowing God exists and there is subsequent rejection of God by some.
Until you bother to step down from the ill-informed horse you rode in on, until you bother to listen to the arguments they put forth rather than simply assume their arguments as as put out by your strawman variant, you will forever be seen as the disruptive class clown.
Of course, there may be some atheists who fit the stereotype you recognise, and no doubt you will latch on to them as being the epitome of the atheist, no doubt reconfirming (through selection bias) all your preconceived notions of what atheism is. Yet you won't recognise that approach for the selection bias it is. And you will continue to refuse to actually discuss with others who offer different flavours.
Because to you everything is a constant war... between the theist (you) and the atheist. And the onl pay way you feel you can win the war you think you're fighting is to line the atheist trenches with strawman and knock them over with your well-rehearsed routines, your repeated one-liners. And you may even catch a few actual atheist in your crosshairs.
And while you lob shells at your strawmen, while some retaliate and lob shells back, the ground just gets turned into a quagmire.
It happens on field after field, thread after thread.
And the common denominator really does seem to be you, Jan. You and the war you think you're fighting. Between you and the atheist.
Only its not with atheists, Jan, but with your idea of the atheist. You don't understand atheism any other way and you don't seem to want to understand... because then who could you lob shells at?
I have no doubt your ignorance of the atheist and your desire to battle your strawmen draws traffic to the threads, and will continue to be tolerated, but don't be fooled into thinking it is anything more than people simply looking to feed the troll.
Truth be told, I'm still hoping that one day you'll actually turn out to be worth the effort. No sign of it yet, though.