I do appreciate that you took the trouble to read this with some care. Thank you for that. Nevertheless, I'm afraid you did miss the central point of the essay.

The problem with your response is that atheism is not a negative position, despite its fondness for claiming that it is. in fact, the idea of a so-called “negative position“ does not make any sense, because every negative claim presupposes some kind of positive claim. that’s the point of the talk about uncles and nephews. It's not a question of whether certain fish lay eggs or not. That can be determined by empirical research. It's a question of whether there can be Fish eggs if there are not, and never have been, such things as fish. That idea makes no sense, which is why we can't pretend that a single sentence like "There is no god" can stand alone without implying anything else. If you are claiming that the watchmaker is blind, you are making a positive statement about it/him/her. that requires as much proof as any other claim.

Atheists may not be claiming that something falsifies theism, but they are claiming that their position isn't really a position at all. That's the only way they can use Occam's razor, and it's the essence of the tilde fallacy.

I am not defending theism here, but rather criticizing one particular argument against theism. I am not a theist. I call my position meta-agnosticism. I am agnostic about agnosticism itself. I think there is a three way tie amongst agnosticism, theism, and atheism, and there are forms of each which are compatible with the current facts of science and the principles of reason. Consequently, reason alone cannot be used to decisively settle this debate, and therefore one has the right to chose amongst these positions.