Unsurprisingly, she converted back again one child, one divorce, and a few years later. I'm wondering if the Raging Atheist had similar motivations...?

Of course, Andrea, but what else do we have? How can we tell the difference between a claim of empirical evidence and actual empirical evidence? That is where method and analysis come in. Anyway, Archi Medez was highlighting a distinction in the claims made by science and the claims made by relgion- saying that one relies on empirical evidence and theb other does not.

A claim that you can fly is not empirical evidence that you can fly, of course.

I think that the major religions do claim to have empirical evidence for God's existence. In Islam, the Koran is seen as the inspired word of God, and obviously if this were true it would be evidence for God's existence. In Judaism there are the various signs of divine presence allegedly afforded to the patriarchs, and the testimony of the Prophets. In Christianity there are the claims surrounding the indvidual known as Jesus of Nazereth (not least, that he existed at all). Now, this empirical foundation is relatively slender by comparison with the vast amount of scientific data gathered in even a single year. But its still an attempt to make an empirical claim.

*For the moment, I'm using "reason" as synonymous with logic. I do recognize that in common use, "reason" is often in reference to real-world reasoning, i.e., common sense and science.

Suppose I say "All pigs that have wings can fly. This pig has wings. Ergo, this pig can fly." Logically, there is no problem whatsoever with that statement. Any text of formal logical will tell you that it is a logically valid conclusion, given the premises. But we know from experience that the premises are empirically false, and the conclusion is absurd.

I think the key distinction between science and most religions is that the former is based heavily on empirical methods (experiments, observational studies, etc.) whereas the latter is ultimately based on certain foundational assumptions that cannot be subjected to empirical testing. (This need not, of course, be the case, but it is the case with all of the major religions of interest). Scientists and theologians alike can make mistakes in reasoning/logic. The difference is that science focusses more on testing premises and conclusions that are of the empirical kind and which can be subjected to empirical methods.

To say that X exists is an empirical claim that cannot be answered until some empirical evidence is obtained about the validity of that claim. Most extant forms of theism make the claim that God exists. It is an empirical claim for which there is no evidence. Although theists typically remark that absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence, that doesn't help the claim. Any empirical claim must be supported by empirical evidence. Lacking empirical evidence, there is no basis for the positive claim.

A while ago I pointed out, probably stemming from one of Adam's posts, that atheists do have a positive theory about the truth of the claim that God exists. In a nutshell, atheists generally have a causal, scientific theory about this claim and its status, and where it comes from. It's origins are in human psychology, mythmaking, erroneous assumptions and analogies based on limited evidence, etc. Thus, we can say that God exists as a concept, even though a God that corresponds with the contents of the concept cannot be found in the real world (i.e., as an entity external to the concept). In other words, it is a mythological concept in the same category as elf, unicorn, etc.

I think we can read between the lines of his words to discover this 'conversion' of opportunity to win over the bible belt voters.