it really really annoys me when religious people sort of elide the question of “okay, but does God exist the way that, say, my husband or poetry or the country of France exists?”
or treat it like an unimportant question that only unsophisticated r/atheism commenters who think every religion is fundamentalist Christianity would care about
if God exists the way that, say, my husband or poetry or the country of France exists, that is literally the most important fact about the universe. it is okay to ask the question.
This is a good and correct outlook, but “the country of France” is a terrible comparison example. The country of France is literally an intangible fiction, and its power in the material world comes solely from the fact that lots of people perceive it in the conceptual plane.
…and the fact that something as airily fictional as France can seem so real and fundamental is a pretty good illustration of why it makes sense to take conceptual entities seriously.