When you made the claim that any rational person over the age of six would know there were no terrorists in your closet it was clear, was it not, that you were saying it wouild be because they were experienced good thinkers, i.e. an authority? Obviously you were not saying that all rational persons over the age of six were in a position of power.
According to the definition ot authority:
au·thor·i·ty (-thôr-t, -thr-, ô-thôr-, ô-thr-)
n. pl. au·thor·i·ties
1.
a. The power to enforce laws, exact obedience, command, determine, or judge.
b. One that is invested with this power, especially a government or body of government officials: land titles issued by the civil authority.
2. Power assigned to another; authorization: Deputies were given authority to make arrests.
3. A public agency or corporation with administrative powers in a specified field: a city transit authority.
4.
a. An accepted source of expert information or advice: a noted authority on birds; a reference book often cited as an authority.
b. A quotation or citation from such a source: biblical authorities for a moral argument.
5. Justification; grounds: On what authority do you make such a claim?
6. A conclusive statement or decision that may be taken as a guide or precedent.
7. Power to influence or persuade resulting from knowledge or experience: political observers who acquire authority with age.
8. Confidence derived from experience or practice; firm self-assurance:
You were using definition 4a and not definition 1a.
Regadless of what the definition of authority is you were trying to say you were right because certain people would agree with you. That is not why arguments are right or wrong. If you want to show that I should accept that it is silly to claim that there is a terrorist in your closet you should use actual logical arguments. I would add that terrorists exist and so do closets and people get into closets all the time. For leprachuans it is less feasable, perhaps impossible, but I would be a fool to claim that, unless I were to post a definition of leprechuan that defined them as imaginary or mythical.
Why do I need evidence that God punishes with weather. My point is not that God does punish with weather but that you cannot logically say He does not punish people with weather. (not because you would be required to prove a negative but because you would be making an argument without knowing enough the facts)
And yes one can prove a negative. I could say there are no examples of double Z's in this post. Then all we would have to do is look at every word and exhaust all the places where a double z could be. If on the other hand one is trying to say that there is no God in the universe then one cannot examine the whole universe and one cannot disprove that there is a God.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absence
The difficulty is not in proving a negative but in not making the error of arguing from ignorance.
So is there evidence that God punishes people with weather? Remember in that evidence does not need to be conclusive...it only needs to support a postition. Then yes there is evidence that God punishes people with weather.
Examples of evidence:
The bible says that God sometimes punishes people.
The bible says that God sometimes creates weather.
The bible likens his punishment to tornadoes, whirlwinds, in multimple examples.
We have seen that people often experience negative effects of weather and it just might be that those negative effects are punishment.
Sometimes we have seen people we would expect to be spared spared and sometimes we have seen people we would not expet to be spared destroyed by tornadoes.
The law defines tornadoes as an act of God.
Are those examples, proof? No. Are they evidence? Yes. Is it feasable that people who have experienced negative effects of weather were being punished? Yes. Is that the point I am trying to make? No. I am not saying that I know of examples of God punishing people with tornadoes only that it is feasable.
