Ontological fancy footwork: All that business about God being “definitionally” the creator of the universe, outside of space and time, etc. just doesn’t wash. The “marzipan at the center of the sun” is definitionally at the center of the sun. Does this mean there is marzipan at the center of the sun?
This is where materialists lose me. The analogy is so bad, I’m stupefied Harris doesn’t see the difference. We can measure what’s at the center of the sun, because it is part of the fabric of space and time that make up the known testable universe. And we can determine absolutely that there is no marzipan at the center of the sun. We cannot, however, determine absolutely whether anyone exists (or doesn’t) independently of space and time, since, you know, you sort of need to be able to get your testing equipment outside space and time to do that.
Harris of course knows that, but like all materialists, just keeps insisting that questions about what exists independently of the universe “don’t wash” and a stupid analogy is supposed to somehow convince us of that.
All it does, however, is show (yet again) the fundamental contempt that monomaniac materialists have for people who think there is more to the world than what can be recorded on a lab sheet.