Agnostic atheism: a reasonable position on spiritual matters, or the only reasonable position...

[Htom Sirveaux]

40. Things only exist when we have the ability to detect them?

That would cause all sorts of difficulties if it were true, including the question of how the universe existed before anything living existed to detect it.

And God's character depends on how good the creation happens to be on any given day? That implies that the universe (or cosmos, if you like) preceded and controls God, which doesn't work in the case of a creator god.

I think both you and intaglio are working with a physical model where "God effects" exist as interruptions against a background of "not God" effects, and so comparisons can be made, and the "God effects" can be detected if they are there. I'm not using that physical model (I do use that idea in a moral model, however, where acts of injustice and hate exist as non-god effects against a background of God's effects of goodness) In my model, God creates out of Godself, and so the very things you take to be background and "not God", I see as effects of God. I gave the example above of natural laws. I say they are sustainable and coherent because they are expressions of God's will. The laws themselves are detectable through science, but the idea that they are expressions of God's will is not, because we have no access to non-God universes to check them for natural laws (and indeed, no guarantee that there are such things as "non-God universes." If God creates every universe that exists, our comparison attempt is frustrated).