Abstract

When theists and atheists argue about the existence of God, the dispute is most often framed by a shared assumption: that the appropriate way to consider God's existence is to think of it as a hypothesis posited to explain observational data. Theists argue that such a hypothesis provides the best explanation for agreed-upon facts, while atheists argue that no such explanation is needed or that theistic explanation is incoherent. This way of structuring discussion of God's existence interprets the question as a theoretical issue to be decided by considering empirical evidence objectively and dispassionately in order to determine the most reasonable way of accounting for the observational data