"Pray to god and then pray to a jug of milk" I don't always say "Pray to a ficticious god and then pray to a jug of milk"
Of course you don't. The purpose of that line of argumentation is to showcase the similarities between the deity-function of god and the deity-function of a jug of milk (that is, the
lack of any deity-function). To say 'pray to a fictitious god' is to negate the purpose of the argument. It's an argument from analogy. To load one half of the analogy with the presupposition of the conclusion (e.g. god is fictitious) would be invalid.
"why doesn't God heal amputees" I am not saying that god exists in any way shape or form yet one could conclude I did.
Again, though, the point of the argument is to start with the hypothesis 'god exists', and the point out the observations that
do not support that hypothesis. Asking "why doesn't god heal amputees" necessitates that the person you're arguing against first assume that god does indeed exist, discover that observations of reality do not coincide with that assumption, and (hopefully) discard the assumption as false.
When the concept of the luminiferous aether was proposed,
of course they needed to devise experiments presupposing that it actually existed. Then, those experiments were run, the expected results did
not coincide with the existence of the luminiferous aether, and the proposition was
dropped.
If your target has any inkling of your position in regards to god-belief (which I assume would be the case, unless you walk up to random strangers on a train and just ask them this question), then when you ask the question "why doesn't god heal amputees", it is with the implicit expectation that what is really being asked is "
If god exists, then why doesn't god heal amputees". Anyone you're arguing with that doesn't see that clearly and makes the assumption that you're presupposing god's existence is either intellectually dishonest, incompetent at discussion, an idiot, or a presuppositionalist
[1].
Even if they, for some strange reason, think you
do believe that god exists,
it doesn't change the answers to the question. And it's the
answers to the question that eventually lead to the conclusion that the assumption that 'god exists' is incorrect.
That's the point of the question after all.
"Why did your god create humans knowing they would piss him off" Again my intent is not to say your god is valid, it is just a way of speaking. The body of my writing on this site is skeptical of god at best. If I mention your god a couple of times lending credibility it does not mean I believe in your god.
When talking to a bunch of people who have a history of praying to golden cow statues I very likely would say- "hey I don't want you praying to other gods" depending on how I wanted to present the information I might include statements to follow
In this case you are making a direct statement and not asking a question. You are
explicitly stating the existence of other gods. There is no implicit 'if' in the statement. "I don't want you praying to other gods" most
certainly implies a definitive statement that there are other gods to be prayed to. A better way to present your information is what you followed up with:
"Hey I don't want you praying to other gods, because there are no other gods"
It is up to the speaker what he says and how he presents it.
And if the speaker wanted to be clear, then he would
absolutely follow up with the "because there are no other gods."
If he said
"I don't want you to pray to false gods" that leaves open the chance that they might think there are other real gods.
Agreed. It would be better to say "I don't want you to pray to other gods. All other entities that you believe to be gods are false gods. There are
no other gods but me."
I don't seen the body of work of the old testament leaning toward multiple gods. Otherwise the writer would not have said expressly that there are no other gods and then a paragraph later mean that there were. This of course leads to the most likely conclusion that we are talking about artifacts of speech and tayloring speeches to the audience..
The only issue is that the phrase is usually stated as "There are no other gods
before me," which is somewhat less clear than merely stating "There are no other gods
except me." Though that may not be the line you're referring to, so my criticism here may be moot.