Burden of proof

[rosey]

Atheists/Agnostics generally claim that the burden of proof is upon the religious, particularly the Christian religious. If you ask them to disprove the Resurrection of Christ, the flood, etc., they remind you that you have the burden of proof, not them, so it's up to you to prove it, not them to disprove it. But to me, the burden of proof is generally on those who provide new ideas/theories that are against the establishment. Christianity was the establishment for round abouts 1700 years, and then all of a sudden the Atheists show up during the enlightenment with their wild new ideas and theories, and have the audacity to say Christians have the burden of proof. Please explain to me how this is possible. It is the atheistic ideas that are much more recent. You must provide ample evidence for your claims.

[bjs]

To be precise, agnostic atheism does not make any claims. It is the position that God might or might not exist, which is not a positive claim.

Under traditional definitions, agnosticism could be called the position that God might or might not exist. Why are you throwing on the word “atheism� after the word agnostic?

Agnosticism is, by the way, a positive claim. It is just a claim about my intellectual state, not about the reality outside of me.

[dianaiad]

Examples of unfalsifiable entities which could be swapped with leprechauns:

• - Santa
  - Easter Bunny
  - Tooth Fairy
  - Big Foot
  - Ogopogo
  - Chupacabra
  - Satan
  - Allah
  - Angels
  - Ghosts
  - Demons

I am only going to do one, because, quite frankly, the tactic you are using is not just fallacious in the extreme, its also extraordinarily lazy in that it requires OTHERS to prove things for you rather than YOU conducting an inestigation and reaching a conclusion ... its merely a set up for an argument from absurdity, atheist baseball.

Santa claims to live in the North Pole, using the fascinating modern technology, we have mapped the North Pole, go underneath it with submarines, have air tracking control systems (both passive and active), and we have found time and again that it is parents rather than a mythical Santa that places presents under trees ... none of which detracts form the reality of a very Real Saint Nicholas upon which the more fanciful tale rests.

Ergo, its reasonable and logical to conclude that Santa is a myth.

It is even more interesting that the more fantastical claims of Santa are added merely to placate the 'secular' tendencies of atheism, who have no problem with Santa per sea ... save the utter inability to figure out why he is a myth?

Once again, if we are struggling to reach conclusions and apply logical standards to problem sets ... that is a problem for atheism.

Imagine for a second why billions would think God is quite real, but those same billions reject Santa. Now, what do you think billions of people grasp that perhaps you are not grasping that allows them, but not you, to make such a delineation?

Might this just be a fallacious appeal to the guilt by association fallacy? A desperate attempt to avoid the fact that NOTHING lead you to conclude that there is no God? And if NOTHING lead you to a conclusion ... then you don;t have one do you?

All you have is nihilism, spite for religion. And quite frankly, who cares about the emotional state of people lead by NOTHING to dislike religion?

Anyone that finds Santa at the North Pole is sworn to secrecy, so the actual location is not known. Apparently a maze of mirrors are used to deflect snow in every direction so his location can't be photographed.

God is invisible and no matter what, photography, radar, infrared, or anything else we try will not detect him. Even the Hubble telescope has not found Heaven, the place where he resides. You see how this works?

Will you people PUHLEESE stop dissin' Santa Claus?

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

To be precise, agnostic atheism does not make any claims. It is the position that God might or might not exist, which is not a positive claim.

Under traditional definitions, agnosticism could be called the position that God might or might not exist. Why are you throwing on the word “atheism� after the word agnostic?

I use the term agnostic atheism to differentiate it from gnostic atheism, which does make a positive claim. Atheism is the default position, but only in the sense of lacking belief (agnostic atheism), not in the sense of God being nonexistent (gnostic atheism).

Agnosticism is, by the way, a positive claim. It is just a claim about my intellectual state, not about the reality outside of me.

Sure. The point is that it is not a positive claim with regard to the existence of God.

[d.thomas]

.



I haven't wasted a moment of my time proving The Invisible Pink Unicorn doesn't exist, nor that leprechauns don't exist, so why should this atheist waste a moments time proving the unsupported claims of theists wrong. Their claims are unsupported, hello already.




.

[d.thomas]

Examples of unfalsifiable entities which could be swapped with leprechauns:

• - Santa
  - Easter Bunny
  - Tooth Fairy
  - Big Foot
  - Ogopogo
  - Chupacabra
  - Satan
  - Christ
  - Allah
  - Angels
  - Ghosts
  - Demons
  - Jesus

I am only going to do one, because, quite frankly, the tactic you are using is not just fallacious in the extreme, its also extraordinarily lazy in that it requires OTHERS to prove things for you rather than YOU conducting an inestigation and reaching a conclusion ... its merely a set up for an argument from absurdity, atheist baseball.

Santa claims to live in the North Pole, using the fascinating modern technology, we have mapped the North Pole, go underneath it with submarines, have air tracking control systems (both passive and active), and we have found time and again that it is parents rather than a mythical Santa that places presents under trees ... none of which detracts form the reality of a very Real Saint Nicholas upon which the more fanciful tale rests.

Ergo, its reasonable and logical to conclude that Santa is a myth.

It is even more interesting that the more fantastical claims of Santa are added merely to placate the 'secular' tendencies of atheism, who have no problem with Santa per sea ... save the utter inability to figure out why he is a myth?

Once again, if we are struggling to reach conclusions and apply logical standards to problem sets ... that is a problem for atheism.

Imagine for a second why billions would think God is quite real, but those same billions reject Santa. Now, what do you think billions of people grasp that perhaps you are not grasping that allows them, but not you, to make such a delineation?

Might this just be a fallacious appeal to the guilt by association fallacy? A desperate attempt to avoid the fact that NOTHING lead you to conclude that there is no God? And if NOTHING lead you to a conclusion ... then you don;t have one do you?

All you have is nihilism, spite for religion. And quite frankly, who cares about the emotional state of people lead by NOTHING to dislike religion?

Anyone that finds Santa at the North Pole is sworn to secrecy, so the actual location is not known. Apparently a maze of mirrors are used to deflect snow in every direction so his location can't be photographed.

God is invisible and no matter what, photography, radar, infrared, or anything else we try will not detect him. Even the Hubble telescope has not found Heaven, the place where he resides. You see how this works?

Will you people PUHLEESE stop dissin' Santa Claus?

OK.

[TheTruth101]

Burden of proof is needed for anyone taking a stance on any philosphical, political,scientifical views one has found in their walk of life.


If the reasoning stemming from the Atheists view of life is said to be that God does not exist, then it is a given that it rather falls heavily under the category of ones Philosophy.
If the discussion and the topic here is started with God's existence vs. non existence, then it should be clearified and noted here that it ultimately falls under philosophy, again.

If the world we live in today consisted of only the Atheists, then by all means, they wouldn't have the burden of proof for their stance. However, in this world, we have the Theists who belive in the opposite of their belief system, therefore, they have the burden of proof.

Again, since we have Theists in the world that belive in God, it should logically be understood that a person having a stance on Atheism would need to prove that God DOES NOT exist to the Theists, in other words, we need your burden of proof on your stance.

First, the science have not figured out at all how the world works. In other words, if the reasoning behind ones Atheism relies havilly upon scientific equations of how the world is sought out to be, then by all means, since we do NOT have the world figured out, the attempt rather falls short behind Athiets burden of proof.
And this would essentially equal out to be a reasoning of ignorance, (not that SCIENCE itself is ignorant), it is only because the foundation of the Athiesm that one holds under this mindset is not complete, because science itself is not complete, but one chooses it to view it as complete, when a new chain of Virus was found the other month. And this calls for irrationality and of ignorance.

If and when an Atheism is voiced by a person who does not stand behind scientific reasoning, but of emotion burden one has gone throgh, and since God have not shown up when requested, this also falls short because God just like us human beings is in no way obligated to show up and answer your prayers when requested. This calls for ignorancy as well.

If an Atheist belives because one cannot see, therefore, one cannot believe, this calls for the most ignorant type of Atheism. Simply because we have oxygen and wind that works in full swing and is invisible. Does this mean it dosent exist? Don't think so. This rather calls for both immaturity AND ignorancy.


One who holds the belief system that God may exist or may NOT exist is the worse kind of all. It is simply, deep down, a voice calling for immediate bandwagoning, and with this attitude, I would suggest these kind rather turn to be an Atheist because within the Bible, they will get the exact same treatement as an Atheist, or even worse, since this kind of attitude calls for manipulitive behavior in the end. It is referenced as being snake in the Bible. Under dante Inferno, these are the ones that will fall in the lowest level of heavens because they do not fit under the bible as the Good samaritian nor a Good Christian. These are what you call lukewarm people as stated in the Bible, and Christ had said he will spit them out of his mouth because they are neither Hot nor Cold.
In other words, Atheists have a better chance getting in the heavens then these bandwagoners.


In all, an Atheists (for whatever reason) haveinternally reasoned on their own before they took such stance in life. If the argument here is done under the merit to a person of who fullly believe in God, it's only logical the Atheist has the burden of proof to prove why God does NOT exist to a Theist.



It is concluded here that Atheism is rather a belief system because under any circumstances, the rule is, if there is reasoning behind such views of life then logically, that itself can be colcuded as a belief system one holds, or, a belief system of how one views their life.


To conclude, just like all matters of life, there is always a begginng and an ending to a belief one holds for their life. The time phase in between we call it reasoning. And if this reasoning behind their conclusion is opposed by any laws or belief by another, then by all means, they have the burden of proof on their shoulders under any circumstances.

[d.thomas]

Burden of proof is needed for anyone taking a stance on any philosphical, political,scientifical views one has found in their walk of life.


If the reasoning stemming from the Atheists view of life is said to be that God does not exist, then it is a given that it rather falls heavily under the category of ones Philosophy.

If the discussion and the topic here is started with God's existence vs. non existence, then it should be clearified and noted falls under philosophy, again.

If the world we live in today consisted of only the Atheists, then by all means, they would have NOT to put out a burden of proof. Simply because there would be an opposition, or Theists that belive in the opposite of what Atheists belives.

Since we have Theists in the world that belive in God, it should logically be understood that a person having a stance on Atheism would need to prove that God DOES NOT exist to the Theists, in other words, we need your burden of proof on your stance.

First, the science have not figured out at all how the world works. In other words, if the reasoning behind ones Atheism relies havilly upon scientific equations of how the world is sought out to be, then by all means, since we do NOT have the world figured out, the attempt rather falls short behind Athiets burden of proof.
And this would essentially equal out to be a reasoning of ignorance, (not that SCIENCE itself is ignorant), it is only because the foundation of the Athiesm that one holds under this mindset is not complete, because science itself is not complete, but one chooses it to view it as complete, when a new chain of Virus was found the other month. And this calls for irrationality and of ignorance.

If and when an Atheism is voiced by a person who does not stand behind scientific reasoning, but of emotion burden one has gone throgh, and since God have not shown up when requested, this also falls short because God just like us human beings is in no way obligated to show up and answer your prayers when requested. This calls for ignorancy as well.

If an Atheist belives because one cannot see, therefore, one cannot believe, this calls for the most ignorant type of Atheism. Simply because we have oxygen and wind that works in full swing and is invisible. Does this mean it dosent exist? Don't think so. This rather calls for both immaturity AND ignorancy.


One who holds the belief system that God may exist or may NOT exist is the worse kind of all. It is simply, deep down, a voice calling for immediate bandwagoning, and with this attitude, I would suggest these kind rather turn to be an Atheist because within the Bible, they will get the exact same treatement as an Atheist, or even worse, since this kind of attitude calls for manipulitive behavior in the end. It is referenced as being snake in the Bible. Under dante Inferno, these are the ones that will fall in the lowest level of heavens because they do not fit under the bible as the Good samaritian nor a Good Christian. These are what you call lukewarm people as stated in the Bible, and Christ had said he will spit them out of his mouth because they are neither Hot nor Cold.
In other words, Atheists have a better chance getting in the heavens then these bandwagoners.


In all, an Atheists (for whatever reason) haveinternally reasoned on their own before they took such stance in life. If the argument here is done under the merit to a person of who fullly believe in God, it's only logical the Atheist has the burden of proof to prove why God does NOT exist to a Theist.



It is concluded here that Atheism is rather a belief system because under any circumstances, the rule is, if there is reasoning behind such views of life then logically, that itself can be colcuded as a belief system one holds, or, a belief system of how one views their life.


To conclude, just like all matters of life, there is always a begginng and an ending to a belief one holds for their life. The time phase in between we call it reasoning. And if this reasoning behind their conclusion is opposed by any laws or belief by another, then by all means, they have the burden of proof on their shoulders under any circumstances.

Atheists don't think about whether gods exist or don't exist, that's for theists to ponder. Atheists don't do gods, I know that comes as a shock since theists are obsessed with the idea of gods doing this and gods doing that but atheists can't be bothered with that sort of thing.

[ytrewq]

rosey wrote:

OK, so WHY is it generally accepted that burden of proof falls upon he who makes the claim?

ytrewq wrote:

Excellent question, and it has nothing to do with religion or Gods. The answer, is that if it were otherwise, we would need to accept that every crackpot claim under the sun was true unless proven otherwise, which would be ridiculous and unworkable. For example, we would need to believe by default that every God, myth superstition and crackpot belief in the history of Mankind was true, unless we could specifically prove otherwise. I contend that that is ridiculous and unworkable, for you cannot specifically disprove many of these clearly absurd claims. The only workable approach, is that if no evidence is put forward for the existence of something, then our default position should be to assume it does not exist. Just common sense.

The age of the claim, or how many people happen to believe it, is irrelevant

I don’t like the term ‘Burden of Proof’ though, for it is unreasonable to expect 100% ‘proof’ of anything. The strength of evidence required needs to match the strength of the assertion.

If someone says they are 100% dead certain that their God (or anything else) exists, then they have an onus to provide exceedingly strong evidence (proof) that their assertion is correct.

More likely, the wise theist/Christian would claim they are 'fairly certain' their God exists, in which case they have an onus to provide 'strong' evidence their God exists, but not necessarily 'proof'. Most people would agree that if someone says 'they believe' that their God exists, that is equivalent to saying they are fairly certain, but cannot completely exclude the possible that he does not, in which case 'strong evidence' rather than 'proof' will suffice.

Similarly, the wise atheist will not say he is '100% certain' that God does not exist, because that would incur the burden of proving it, which is unlikely to be possible, because in general it is impossible to prove that something does not exist. However, with that point noted, if literally no evidence is given for an assertion that something exists, we should presume that it does not, otherwise every crackpot claim under the sun would have to be assumed true unless proven otherwise.

If anyone feels there is a logical error in anything written here, then please send in a posting and explain why, preferably without reference to Gods or religion, which are not relevant to discussing the rules for debate. This is an important topic, and I have an open mind.

Theists DO have evidence, even though it is usually subjective and inconclusive. Opinions will differ as to the quantity and quality of the evidence available, and the weight that should be given to scripture and 'personal feelings and experiences'. However, that is not the topic of this thread. IMHO, the principle of 'Burden of proof' is clear and logical, and applies equally to all that make a claim, but arguments about quality and quantity of evidence will likely go on forever.

I posted the above very early in this thread. I thought it a reasonable summary, and it was not challenged.

Stubbornone, you have strong views on this topic. Do you (anyone else) think my summary above is reasonable?

[TheTruth101]

Burden of proof is needed for anyone taking a stance on any philosphical, political,scientifical views one has found in their walk of life.


If the reasoning stemming from the Atheists view of life is said to be that God does not exist, then it is a given that it rather falls heavily under the category of ones Philosophy.

If the discussion and the topic here is started with God's existence vs. non existence, then it should be clearified and noted falls under philosophy, again.

If the world we live in today consisted of only the Atheists, then by all means, they would have NOT to put out a burden of proof. Simply because there would be an opposition, or Theists that belive in the opposite of what Atheists belives.

Since we have Theists in the world that belive in God, it should logically be understood that a person having a stance on Atheism would need to prove that God DOES NOT exist to the Theists, in other words, we need your burden of proof on your stance.

First, the science have not figured out at all how the world works. In other words, if the reasoning behind ones Atheism relies havilly upon scientific equations of how the world is sought out to be, then by all means, since we do NOT have the world figured out, the attempt rather falls short behind Athiets burden of proof.
And this would essentially equal out to be a reasoning of ignorance, (not that SCIENCE itself is ignorant), it is only because the foundation of the Athiesm that one holds under this mindset is not complete, because science itself is not complete, but one chooses it to view it as complete, when a new chain of Virus was found the other month. And this calls for irrationality and of ignorance.

If and when an Atheism is voiced by a person who does not stand behind scientific reasoning, but of emotion burden one has gone throgh, and since God have not shown up when requested, this also falls short because God just like us human beings is in no way obligated to show up and answer your prayers when requested. This calls for ignorancy as well.

If an Atheist belives because one cannot see, therefore, one cannot believe, this calls for the most ignorant type of Atheism. Simply because we have oxygen and wind that works in full swing and is invisible. Does this mean it dosent exist? Don't think so. This rather calls for both immaturity AND ignorancy.


One who holds the belief system that God may exist or may NOT exist is the worse kind of all. It is simply, deep down, a voice calling for immediate bandwagoning, and with this attitude, I would suggest these kind rather turn to be an Atheist because within the Bible, they will get the exact same treatement as an Atheist, or even worse, since this kind of attitude calls for manipulitive behavior in the end. It is referenced as being snake in the Bible. Under dante Inferno, these are the ones that will fall in the lowest level of heavens because they do not fit under the bible as the Good samaritian nor a Good Christian. These are what you call lukewarm people as stated in the Bible, and Christ had said he will spit them out of his mouth because they are neither Hot nor Cold.
In other words, Atheists have a better chance getting in the heavens then these bandwagoners.


In all, an Atheists (for whatever reason) haveinternally reasoned on their own before they took such stance in life. If the argument here is done under the merit to a person of who fullly believe in God, it's only logical the Atheist has the burden of proof to prove why God does NOT exist to a Theist.



It is concluded here that Atheism is rather a belief system because under any circumstances, the rule is, if there is reasoning behind such views of life then logically, that itself can be colcuded as a belief system one holds, or, a belief system of how one views their life.


To conclude, just like all matters of life, there is always a begginng and an ending to a belief one holds for their life. The time phase in between we call it reasoning. And if this reasoning behind their conclusion is opposed by any laws or belief by another, then by all means, they have the burden of proof on their shoulders under any circumstances.

Atheists don't think about whether gods exist or don't exist, that's for theists to ponder. Atheists don't do gods, I know that comes as a shock since theists are obsessed with the idea of gods doing this and gods doing that but atheists can't be bothered with that sort of thing.

Here, now you have the burden of proof to show why God dosent exist.




You know what she's speaking there? It's called speaking Tongue of the devil.
You notice death and disgust on her voice when you hear it correct? A Filthy voice.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_MacDougall_(doctor)


21 grams as evident.

[TheTruth101]

Burden of proof is needed for anyone taking a stance on any philosphical, political,scientifical views one has found in their walk of life.


If the reasoning stemming from the Atheists view of life is said to be that God does not exist, then it is a given that it rather falls heavily under the category of ones Philosophy.

If the discussion and the topic here is started with God's existence vs. non existence, then it should be clearified and noted falls under philosophy, again.

If the world we live in today consisted of only the Atheists, then by all means, they would have NOT to put out a burden of proof. Simply because there would be an opposition, or Theists that belive in the opposite of what Atheists belives.

Since we have Theists in the world that belive in God, it should logically be understood that a person having a stance on Atheism would need to prove that God DOES NOT exist to the Theists, in other words, we need your burden of proof on your stance.

First, the science have not figured out at all how the world works. In other words, if the reasoning behind ones Atheism relies havilly upon scientific equations of how the world is sought out to be, then by all means, since we do NOT have the world figured out, the attempt rather falls short behind Athiets burden of proof.
And this would essentially equal out to be a reasoning of ignorance, (not that SCIENCE itself is ignorant), it is only because the foundation of the Athiesm that one holds under this mindset is not complete, because science itself is not complete, but one chooses it to view it as complete, when a new chain of Virus was found the other month. And this calls for irrationality and of ignorance.

If and when an Atheism is voiced by a person who does not stand behind scientific reasoning, but of emotion burden one has gone throgh, and since God have not shown up when requested, this also falls short because God just like us human beings is in no way obligated to show up and answer your prayers when requested. This calls for ignorancy as well.

If an Atheist belives because one cannot see, therefore, one cannot believe, this calls for the most ignorant type of Atheism. Simply because we have oxygen and wind that works in full swing and is invisible. Does this mean it dosent exist? Don't think so. This rather calls for both immaturity AND ignorancy.


One who holds the belief system that God may exist or may NOT exist is the worse kind of all. It is simply, deep down, a voice calling for immediate bandwagoning, and with this attitude, I would suggest these kind rather turn to be an Atheist because within the Bible, they will get the exact same treatement as an Atheist, or even worse, since this kind of attitude calls for manipulitive behavior in the end. It is referenced as being snake in the Bible. Under dante Inferno, these are the ones that will fall in the lowest level of heavens because they do not fit under the bible as the Good samaritian nor a Good Christian. These are what you call lukewarm people as stated in the Bible, and Christ had said he will spit them out of his mouth because they are neither Hot nor Cold.
In other words, Atheists have a better chance getting in the heavens then these bandwagoners.


In all, an Atheists (for whatever reason) haveinternally reasoned on their own before they took such stance in life. If the argument here is done under the merit to a person of who fullly believe in God, it's only logical the Atheist has the burden of proof to prove why God does NOT exist to a Theist.



It is concluded here that Atheism is rather a belief system because under any circumstances, the rule is, if there is reasoning behind such views of life then logically, that itself can be colcuded as a belief system one holds, or, a belief system of how one views their life.


To conclude, just like all matters of life, there is always a begginng and an ending to a belief one holds for their life. The time phase in between we call it reasoning. And if this reasoning behind their conclusion is opposed by any laws or belief by another, then by all means, they have the burden of proof on their shoulders under any circumstances.

Atheists don't think about whether gods exist or don't exist, that's for theists to ponder. Atheists don't do gods, I know that comes as a shock since theists are obsessed with the idea of gods doing this and gods doing that but atheists can't be bothered with that sort of thing.

Your claiming God does not exist to a bunch of members who belives God do exist. Therefore, its considered a personal claim and YOU have the burden of proof to prove us otherwise.