Myself, I do not think that the existence of the gods can be “refuted,” which is really a word best employed to speak of strict logical disproof in any event. But I think, judging from these questions, that you have the notion that atheism is a positive assertion when it’s generally not.
I can’t speak for John Harshman, of course, but for myself, the state of not-being-persuaded of the existence of paranormal entities is not really a “belief.” It’s just an observation that there is not enough evidence of the existence of any of the gods to justify believing in them. And that non-belief isn’t limited to any particular god, but the general proposition “there are no gods” isn’t something one can demonstrate. What one can demonstrate, if the evidence is there, is the existence of some particular god.
So – and recognizing that your questions were not directed to me, but kibitzing in my usual way – I would say that “skepticism” is probably not the term to describe acknowledging that evidence could always turn up for a proposition one does not think is supported by sufficient competent evidence. But do I review my views? Of course, on this and on many other subjects. But at this stage, it’s not very likely that the evidentiary picture’s going to change much. A paranormal being is claimed to exist. The only evidence for it is the existence of a folkloric tradition which asserts that such-and-such impossible things once happened and that the happening of these things attests to the existence of the entity to which, in the stories, they are credited. We cannot investigate the facts directly but what we can do is note that in every modern case where claims of a similar character are made, they are false. We cannot validate claims like this using the methods of history, because to make judgments about history one has got to have a plausibility criterion and the only way to get paranormal entities into history is to throw that criterion out, opening Pandora’s box and awakening every paranormal story ever told by anyone, all to take their spots in history if they cannot be demonstrated to be false – which history cannot do.
One is always asked to keep an open mind on these things. But open for what? Nobody ever produces novel evidence. The great paranormal spirits of which religion speaks never turn up, never do anything, never make themselves manifest, but are said to have done it once, quite a while ago.
And so the gods of all the religions are pretty much all as well established as the Flying Spaghetti Monster. There is no a priori basis for claiming that they cannot exist, and no evidentiary basis for claiming that they do, unless we reach into such bodies of evidence as history, which is incompetent to support such claims. One does not “refute” such things, and if they were not of great importance to our culture and politics, nobody would bother to rebut them, either.
The request, from me, to those advocating for belief in a religion has always been simple: give me evidence. Not evidence that might convince “someone,” but evidence upon which a reasonable person, applying reasonable criteria, might rely without having to assume the truth of some big chunk of the paranormal to begin with; evidence which makes declining to acknowledge the truth of the religion unreasonable. That’s what does it in every other field of inquiry; but religious claims seldom even bother to take a step up that hill.
As for me, I don’t see it. I have looked, and looked, and looked, and not just for this particular paranormal being: for any of them. For any sign that there is a spirit world at all, for any sign that anything exists other than matter and energy. So the question of “refuting” or even of rebutting particular claims about particular paranormal beings never really comes up. I haven’t seen so much of a threshold showing, from any religion: a prima facie case that would say, “on this evidence, it is unreasonable to withhold assent.”
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