Atheists & burden of truth?
I could, never having explored space, say that no other planets exist because you can't prove it.
43 comments
In that case, you don't know what your opponent is arguing.
There is a great but subtle difference between:
'There is no God' and 'I don't believe there is a God'
One requiires evidence, the other does not.
You are making the spectacular claim that there is an invisible man in sky, you need spectacular proof.
BY your reasoning it is more logical to assume that Santa Claus really exists because I have never explored the North Pole.
We're not saying that there definitely is no god. What we are saying, though, is that we don't need an entity like him to explain physical, cosmological and biological phenomena... and various other branches of inquiry. For all intents and purposes he/it may as well not exist. Makes sense? Good.
I've seen no evidence that you are a person of sound mind who sometimes does the right thing by stepping back and questioning their own beliefs (and revising them as needed in order to make them relevant to your own life), so I'm gonna have to assume that you are not a rational person or someone I'd want to associate with in any way.
Except that we're making a falsifiable claim, ergo it CAN be tested. Show us God, and we'll have to admit we're wrong.
"Your not dead so you have not explored"
I didn't realize exploration is fatal.
we have pictures of other planets taken by space probes, dumbass.
And you are making a positive claim that something exists. If you want me to believe that god exists you have to prove it. If god exists then you ought to be able to prove it. If you can't prove it then I am justified in saying that it most likely does not exist.
Contrary to the popular saying, absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Can they be wrong? Sure. People thought all swans were white until they found black ones in Australia. But if no one has ever seen something after several thousand years of looking, its non-existence becomes a rational conclusion and the burden of proof falls on the person claiming it exists.
I've never had a million dollars. Does that mean that it doesn't exist?
I've never seen a wallaby does that mean they don't exist?
I HAVE seen other planets because my husband is an amateur astronomer and he drags me out at uncivilized hours to look at the bloody things with his telescope.
Atheists do not go around trying to get other people to stop believing in gods. Christians, however, do go around trying to get other people to believe in their particular god.
Because Christians wish for other people to believe in their God, the burden of proving that
a) a deity exists AND
is entirely theirs. If you want us to believe something, you must provide proof . Atheists aren't trying to convince anyone that there are no gods--they simply believe that there are none.
Both theists and atheists interpret the same data and come to different conclusions. There's only one way of knowing whether you're right or wrong, and I'm not interested in dying yet.
No it is you who claims God exists, thus you must prove the existence of God.
We don't claim "God doesn't exist", we just deliver the message that "we haven't found a god" and must conduct scientific research from a natural stance until at least one deity has been found to exist.
You claimed it existed, and we disputed your claim.
QED, the burden of proof is upon you.
You know, it's kinda funny... on the 31st, I'm going to see a speaker (nuclear physicist, I think) who claims to have scientific proof of the nonexistence of an afterlife and thus, by extension, the nonexistence of a God.
Burden of proof, proved. Maybe. I still have to hear him.
"claim that with certainty" I do believe that no-one is talking certainty.
Well okay, I am 100% certain that the christian god does not exist, because he contains inherent logical impossibilities in his nature. Now it has been said to me by theists that god cannot do the logically impossible, and i take it then that god cannot BE logically impossible.
I'm still open to deism though... I just see no evidence of such therefore I cannot believe.
But only their believers believe that Mohamed or Christ was divinely inspired.
And I can prove there are other planets, thanks to the HUBBLE and other Deep Space Radio telescopes.
As for making claims about things you have no proof of: (that buy bull of yours isn't proof) who is this Omnipotent being you claim exists?
"claiming the no god and no afterlife exists, and for you to claim that with certainty that puts another burden of proof on you."
Not really -most people aren't certain there is no "thingy" you're speaking of but how can they be certain there is? Why should anyone care.
But I can disprove both anyway:
No god. Same as no square-circle. The definition of "god" holds contradictory properties; so the term implodes upon itself. The burdon of proof is on you to prove to me there are no square circles.
No afterlife either. All that is "you" will not live on when your brain dies. Your personality, self-concept, memories, emotions, personality, morality, sensation, and all perception is the result of that living, fully-functional brain.
There will be no "you" to go anywhere and even if you did go "somewhere" you'd never know it without a way to sense the world, compare it to any past memories, or maintain any cognition or thought.
Burdon of proof is still on you to define just what the heck you mean by "god."
I think this is submitted because of the claim that we can't prove the planets as real. One amatuer astromoner can take you out, set up his telescope, check his star charts and watch, and show you a couple of them.
A typical Fundie false equivalancy.No where near the same as God proof offered by Fundies
The burden of proof is always on the person advancing the claim. To state a proposition and refuse to provide evidence to support it is a fallacy called "bare assertion".
This is true whether the claim is positive or negative, so someone asserting that no gods exist would need to be able to support that position, which would be difficult I grant you. But I do not need to know that no god exists to lack belief in one, I merely need to have no evidence that one or more do [*].
The commonly held atheist position of "prove god exists" isn't shifting the burden of proof unless that person is proselytising atheism to you, in which case he's doing a piss-poor job of it. More often it is a reminder that it is up to you to convince him of your god if you want him to believe.
[* N.b. this isn't the same as proving that a specifically characterised god is non-existent. This is entirely possible since explicit claims about him have been made which, if tested and found false, can potentially disprove him.]
"Atheists & burden of truth?
Well, y'see, we're not the ones who put forward the notion that a 'God' exists. It's you Christians who do. Thus the onus is upon you to show us (to our satisfaction) this 'God' (and that's 'God' himself, not 'Jesus') in hard, solid, physical form that can be seen, heard & touched; also that he is who he says he is, via demonstrations of his power - again, to the satisfaction of we Atheists.
Therefore, it's up to you to show that this being you fundies claim 'created' this universe, this planet & all the life on it exists . Ergo, the Burden of Proof. Which is upon you. QED.
"But that is not really logical."
image
"To make any claims about what you know, when you have no evidence, is just your own giant ego talking."
A definite case of...:
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Remember: a 'book' (the Bible) and 'faith' in such =/= evidence.
So let me get this straight: first, you want me to ignore that fact that I cannot see god or the afterlife. Then, you want me to ignore the fact that I can see no suggestive evidence for god or the afterlife aside from other people's dubious experiential testimony. Then you want me to ignore the fact that the supposedly god-inspired bible is full of contradictions. Then you want me to ignore how useless religion has been for advancing our understanding of the world (creationism being exhibit "A"). Then you want me to ignore all the evil that has been caused in the world by loyal followers of god who twisted the "perfect" scriptures to justify their greed and aggression. Then, after doing all of that, you want me to accept that god and the afterlife might be real because you and a lot of other people who have no valid frame of reference believe they exist.
Excuse me, but the talking giant ego in this case is definitely not mine!
True, we don't know 100% that there is no god or afterlife, but there is ample evidence to show that all gods were made up by man, and zero evidence that any sort of an afterlife actually exists.
Stop trying to shift the burden of proof.
And frankly, I don't really care if a god exists or not, since there's no evidence that any god interacts with life on earth.
So...agnosticism is the only logical position?
Frak, man, both sides shun agnostics. We're like the bisexuals of deontology.
It's not necessary to prove God doesn't exist because there's no evidence of it. Just as there is no evidence that there is a magic invisble, intangible, undetectable fairy in my bathroom. It would be silly to ask me to prove that, especially if you only believe it because of a book of dubious reliability and circumstantial evidence.
Absense of evidence may not be evidence of absense, but if there is no evidence, why believe it in the first place?
Why does "I don't believe in God" always become "I claim there is no God" to these people?
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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