[jimt]

As soon as someone attempts to assign actual attributes to it, it becomes testable and probably disproveable.

If I postulate the existence of gnorixes, for example, who control the rate of corrosion on pennies, can you prove they don't exist? Particularly if I'm fast enough with the soft shoe routine to add any facts you may deduce about penny corrosion to the gnorixes catalog of behavior?

While Occam's razor points us in the right direction, I think proving gnorixes don't exist could be a lifetime effort with no guarantee of success.

[Hank Kerchief]

If I postulate the existence of gnorixes, for example, who control the rate of corrosion on pennies, can you prove they don't exist? Particularly if I'm fast enough with the soft shoe routine to add any facts you may deduce about penny corrosion to the gnorixes catalog of behavior?

While Occam's razor points us in the right direction, I think proving gnorixes don't exist could be a lifetime effort with no guarantee of success.

I think you are quite correct. You also seem to have nailed down the process in religion which is usually called apologetics.

Hank