I probably shouldn’t respond here, because I’m not the kind of atheist who likes to debate about the existence of God. I can’t prove God doesn’t exist, and I’m not inclined to try. If you have personal reasons to believe in God’s presence, I’m cool with that.

I just want to point out that your arguments about electricity, thunder and wind lack philosophical coherency in re discussions of the existence of God. You’re describing natural phenomena that lots of people are not able to fully describe or understand, but which can be almost fully understood and fully described.

Philosophically, the key point here is that just because something is not known does not mean that it is unknowable.

I’m a pretty good jackleg electrician. I can apply the three basic laws of electricity to measure and predict outcomes. There’s no mystery to what will happen under controlled circumstances. Beyond that, when I studied physics at university, I learned quite a lot about how and why those laws work. I lack a thorough understanding, but friends of mine well versed in quantum field theory and quantum mechanics tell me they possess excellent understanding. I have no reason to doubt them.

Electricity and thunder and wind are not universal mysteries. They are things we humans can know, even if we don’t each personally know them.

While I don’t really disagree with much of the point of your article, I would point out that your natural phenomenon argument falls flat with most atheists and even with many people of faith.

You’re mixing your magisteria, so to speak. If God exists in the way Christians assert, then the existence of God is probably not knowable in the ways natural phenomena are knowable, because God is an extra-natural phenomenon – otherwise God would not be God.

The electricity argument is a philosophical trap best avoided (but often not avoided) in apologetics.