Some apologists for religion try to turn the arguments that non-believers use against belief around. (It’s a bit ironic, since they seem to legitimize that kind of arguments by doing that.)
One of those is turning around the request for proof. A lot of unbelievers feel that the claim that god or gods exists needs to be backed up by proof. Believers often don’t like that. Turning that around becomes something like: It is self-evident that God exist. You need to prove that He does not exist!
Some unbelievers might get a bit annoyed by that trick, and respond with something like: “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”—which is all true I guess. However, another response to believers that refuse the burden of proof and turn it around seems to me this: demanding proof that something that is invisible and untouchable does not exist is logically impossible and therefore very silly.¹
I can understand that for a lot of believers it’s hard to understand that people like me don’t believe in the gods that to them seem so real or self-evident. Or that threatening us with a Hell in a afterlife has no effect whatsoever.² Only children, and perhaps adults that have been made superstitious earlier in life, can be scared with obvious man-made fairy tales.³
Less orthodox believers might have claims that are not only unprovable (either way) but also irrelevant. For example, a deity that is outside time and space and doesn’t interfere with the real world. So what? Irrelevant. Or viewing the universe as a whole as god? Also irrelevant.
I don’t go around demanding that believers offer proof for their gods. However, there are instances where I might be inclined to argue with believers. One such instance is when believers claim special rights because they are religious. “I am religious, therefore you are not allowed to work on [Friday, Saturday, Sunday]” - or things like that.
A few years ago, according to official statistics, belief in gods became the minority position in my country. However, belief in specific religions was long before that already a minority thing, because almost all religions contradict each other. Believers not only cannot convince unbelievers that their God is real, they also cannot convince other believers that their God is real.
