Well, Ebbie, Professor Shaw is barking up the wrong tree to begin with. We should not demand from believers any "hard evidence" of god but rather the reasoning behind the belief. So if someone tells you that must believe in god, rather than ask, "Where's your evidence?" which will get you exactly nowhere, you should ask, "What are your reasons for believing in god?"

Then you can easily disprove each of them in turn if you are up on all the arguments commonly used in the debate of this topic e.g. Without god we couldn't know right from wrong, god is the first cause, the St. Elselm argument, etc. Frankly any self-proclaimed atheist who cannot soundly refute the arguments should stop proclaiming himself an atheist and start proclaiming himself a non-believer, i.e. I don't know about all the debate goobledegook, all I know is that I don't believe that crap.

Profesor Shaw's asking for "hard evidence" sounds to me like a cop-out, an inability to properly engage in the debate at the level that is the bread and butter of true atheism. My memory may be faulty here (and if it is, I apologize in advance) but I think it was he who asserted some time ago that atheism does not prove or disprove anything. Such an erroneous statement could only come from someone who simply lacks the debating skills necessary to be a true atheist. Maybe that is the true test of an atheist--can he or she debate the theist arguments without the cop-out of demanding "hard evidence"?