I mean, if I follow your argument correctly, I'd say that theists are not saying that the existence of God is predictive of certain evidences, only that those evidences exist. For them, the prior probability of God's existence is 100% regardless what evidence does or does not exist, and there is no negative evidence that can diminish that probability. You can argue that they are not good logicians if you like, but they are not setting evidential tests for their god.

I don't see how this is splitting hairs. The use of the word candidate is telling. If asked about evolution or elliptical curves, do you really think he would have felt it necessary?

The whole point is, we don't yet have a unified theory of everything. Hawking knows this, which is why he labels M theory as the only serious candidate for being one. This in itself shows he does not consider it a scientific theory.

I don't know where you're getting this. 40 years ago, people were jumping into string theory, because it looked so promising. It then hit a wall and became hard recruit young physicists into the study of string theory until Ed Witten came along and seemed to make some progress with additional dimensions in super string theory. But in no way do mainstream theoretical physicists such as Hawking, Weinberg, Lawrence Krauss accept string theory or give it the same respect as the theory of continental drift. If anything, many of them laugh at what has so far seemed to be a futile endeavor and make jokes at string theorist's expense.

No. Remember the claim we are comparing is that no-evidence-is-a-virtue. This is very different from acknowledging that there isn't empirical evidence.

OK, that's fine. But you are making a lot of claims about the philosophy of science, so familiarity with the common arguments and positions in that field will help you make more compelling arguments.

See above.

I'm not sure what you are referencing. Also, I've not really asserted anything, I've just tried to clarify what Lestat is asserting.

Okay...

The fact that you tl;dr the previous paragraphs means that you are unaware that I acknowledge this possibility. Even so, I'm sure plenty of theists will disagree with your analysis (e.g. see this RGT poll where 40% of theist responders claimed not to be completely certain on the existence of god). There is a plurality of approaches to the role of evidence within theism, as I mentioned earlier.