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I knew it was a bad idea coming into this thread. Oh well.

I'll note I've seen apologists who carefully hide their religious affiliations or even claim to put them aside to try and make your same irrational and illogical points. It always makes me wonder, people like you who claim to have no dog in the game so to speak being so insistent on twisting things and desperately clawing for maybes when the honest answer is a no with the universe's smallest asterisk.

But after all scientists are human, they're full of chauvinisms, ignorances, prejudices so I cannot say I'm surprised. Not to mention the human bias towards civility. It's natural to want to be agreeable with others, to find some merit in a religious colleague's thinking so as to continue to think highly of them or perhaps to avoid prejudice you fear may creep in if you accept they hold a view fundamentally incompatible with scientific reasoning.

It is scientifically appropriate to take a position based on available evidence especially in a topic of some contention and concern to the public with rampant fraud and lies from organizations that are anti-science. It is scientifically appropriate instead of this pathetic dodge to say clearly: "there is no available evidence to suggest the existence of an interventionist god(s) or deity as described by any major world religions past or present and the available evidence and scientific theories and laws as well as our very good understanding of the world and natural laws strongly suggests against such a thing being possible. The available evidence in sum total together with the evidence against all major religious myths suggests all assertions to the contrary are unreasonable and baseless, constructs purely of human psychology (including the limitations of the wetware we run on which suffers things including hallucinations) and primitive superstition and customs."

I mean the problem with saying there could be a god is the same as why aren't you saying there could be a "whats-it-ma-gidget-a-being" which is something I just made up but if I had made up the concept of it, altered human psychology a bit perhaps centuries ago and implanted it you'd be on here saying how there isn't any evidence for or against a "whats-it-ma-gidget-a-being" (if I had carefully inserted claims as well that this thing of mine had some role for an as yet unaccounted for facet of reality that you could claim it could yet account for) and really the scientifically correct notion should be cannot have an opinion on it. Nonsense. Science adequately and substantially explains the creation of our universe, our planet, ourselves. What is there left but some weak prime mover type being and that's only floated because humans have ever believed in the things called gods and specifically because theists over the centuries have had to retreat from claiming god caused disease and weather and good harvests back, back, back down to this tiny unfalsiable speck, the very last gap left for theists to hide out in desperately against encroaching logic, science, and reason; it holds any credence at all only because of the influence of theism and religions on this world. It holds any amount of popularity only because of that and you must understand whose purpose your arguments serve, there isn't a problem with dishonest legions of scientists holding the world to their dangerous dogma through the power of asserting scientifically that gods don't exist, there is a very real problem with very dishonest, very slippery, very backwards religions desperately trying to use any wedge, even notions they don't fully support just to bat back against the fact they've been pushed into a corner, to give hope, a final refuge for the believer who has been successfully beset by counter-apologetics demolishing their belief system, a crumb to keep them in faith.

I mean this is absurd on its face. I can claim that Santa is real but that in fact the idea he rides a perceptible sleigh is false, that he's invisible including to radar and can walk through walls. My assertion even has the benefit of the weak evidence that many, many children have received and continue to receive gifts marked as "From Santa". I'll of course dismiss evidence that parents are doing this by saying that yes there are false Santas but there is also a real one and he really delivers presents and really has powers of seeing who is naughty and who is nice. Now from your point of view you cannot take a scientific position on the existence of Santa. You claim we can't find him anywhere in the world? I claimed already he's invisible and in fact he's based out of the far side of the moon in an invisible fortress or better yet that he's left our galaxy. You claim you can present purchase data tying all gifts in a given region marked as from him to real people, parents and such actually? I claim Santa hasn't actually delivered presents in a while (on account of having left the galaxy) but he started the whole present giving thing and is still out there so don't you dare take the scientific position that he doesn't exist. And don't try and apply logic to this as you've already dismissed it in your comment above. You are desperately helping in moving the goalposts, we have scrutinized the universe from our point of it, we've looked at natural laws, we've looked at the geology, the biology, the physics and not a speck of god has yet to be found but you insist that basically we have to search all the ants (or at least once in every open field), everywhere before concluding reasonably that there is no such thing. The originators of these claims of gods would never agree to your positions, you're just carefully evading scrutiny!

Science has only grown by the fact that it takes positions based on available evidence and then revises them should new evidence arise that contradicts or changes the understanding. Science as a practice and not dogmatic religion is also called upon to be practical, to make calls when ideally it would be most prudent in an absolutist sense to sit there in uncertainty and hand-wave away such a notion as certainty indeed. The fact is people have been advancing these claims of gods, religion, magicks, witchcraft, etc for thousands of years if not longer. Scientists should where possible adhere to the best scientific theory and explanation, not seek refuge in ancient superstition and myth traditions. The best answer to "how was the universe created" may very well be "we don't know for sure yet". There may yet be things we'll never know and that's okay.

Just as it is scientifically appropriate and moral to call out phony-baloney, quack, pseudo-scientific medical products despite there being no evidence against them (but also lacking good evidence for) so is it also moral and scientifically appropriate to call out the quacks making these ridiculous, fundamentally unfalsifiable claims.

For this does not exist in a vacuum, just as a scientist waffling on the absolute certitude of anthropogenic global warming only emboldens the climate change deniers, just as a doctor waffling on not knowing whether quack medicine with no evidence behind it enables the pseudo-medical frauds, so too does the scientist who does not underline carefully the fact that evidence simply does not support the existence of a god/deity at present. In the absolutest metaphysical sense yes we cannot be certain there isn't such a powerful being, a deity, prime mover type, but that we give credence to it at all is problematic and emblematic of self-centered human thinking and existing widespread cultural biases. If thousands of gods have been disproven and discarded, why shouldn't we extend it to one more nameless one on the balance that it's probable? All available evidence suggests all claims to date of gods, magicks, withcraft, etc are false and further that many of them and their supposed deeds would in fact violate laws of physics.

This concludes our conversation btw, because to be honest my appraisal of people who invoke quantum mechanics in theological arguments is rock bottom low, also I've pretty much given my argument and would have little to add. In general people who invoke it are selling some kind of woo and don't understand it and I've known enough scientists who aren't specialists in that field who also abuse it as some sort of magical card to get out of physics as well as usually a cheap attempt to impress people with complex concepts and big words they rarely fully understand themselves. I myself cannot claim much knowledge in the field but I've heard convincing arguments from those who are about how it in no way provides a space for a god to hide anymore than conventional physics does. It's just more god of the gaps crap based on people not understanding it.

Bottom line: A deity that neither interferes with our affairs nor cares for us is the same as a deity that doesn't exist for pretty much all purposes. It would have no real impact on science (anything about its characteristics would be presumably unknowable), it still invalidates all religions that have ever existed and it carries no implications what-so-ever for any kind of afterlife. You mentioned ants, how many people care about the quality of life of an individual ant or even a single colony? What are they in the scheme of this planet, let alone the universe? We're little different. Evolved primates with big brains and bigger arrogance who want to fluff our sense of self-importance in the universe when in fact our only meaning is to each other. Any deity disinterested enough in the violence and oppression we carry out on each other on this planet, much in the names of religions we must assume for the sake of your argument to be false, certainly doesn't share our sense of morality and if it doesn't care enough to intervene here why should it care to do so after death? (I won't get into the physical impossibility of conscious transfer after death)

One last thing. Redefining god as the universe or some other such nonsense is pretty cheap stuff. God has a meaning. A rose by any other name is still a rose and a non-god thing called god still isn't a god.