But until we have good evidence of their existence, they don't exist for us. The best an example can be is in the 'probably real' subset of the set of 'imaginary things'.
Thus for any specific candidate, like a real Donald Duck, a real teapot in orbit beyond Mars, a real Higgs boson or (if only we knew what a god is) a real god, it doesn't exist until we have good evidence of its existence. Blü
I would as usual include in the existence category any imaginary thing that is consistently describable by any rational human who has been exposed to the imaginary concept. Donald Duck is an imaginary thing that is a charicature of a duck, which wears a naval themed vest and hat and speaks aphorisms of determinable levels of satirical, ironic, and metaphorical truth. Therefore, Donald Duck objectively exists. The teapot was not adequately described even by Russell to be consistently describable by any rational human and therefore remains in the set of imaginary things with no real existence.
A real God may exist for a group of people but generally the description is about as defined as Russell's teapot so that for the rational human must remain in the category of imaginary thing. As an example Zeus may be considered a real God for the ancient Greeks. Uniformly describable as a charicature of a human man, wielding lightning bolts as a weapon, and speaking aphorisms of determinable levels of satirical, ironic, and metaphorical truth. He was even clearly described enough to be made into statues recognizable by any rational Greek as Zeus.
The problem with God in the thread title, is that all believers describe Herm differently if they describe Herm at all in recognizable terms, and therefore the rational human has no consistent evidence to determine any sort of existence even as an imaginary thing.
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