Why atheism always has a burden of proof

[Brakeman]

Theism is a claim of facts. Atheism is a statement of veracity of that claim. It is not a counter claim. A counter claim would be that "no, Jesus is not the son of god, but that Badwritersparty is." Then I would be beholden to support my claim with evidence.

I have more evidence of Badwritersparty..

[Esquilax]

What constitutes the criteria of "worthy of worship" in your opinion?

That depends on the person. One of the more interesting things to note, for me, is that I've never met a religious person who feels particularly put out by the religious practices they ascribe to; that is, their god tends to agree with them on every issue, and if there's something in the holy book that would be inconvenient, then it's metaphorical, or taken out of context, but what it never is, is the inconvenient thing that it seems to be.

God belief is multiple choice, which if nothing else shows me that what makes a god worthy of being worshiped depends on the person; I wouldn't worship a homophobic god, some others would. And do, given the thousands of christian denominations out there. We all pick the god that fits the criteria we want to worship, or have been indoctrinated to, in some cases. But you rarely see a person who really loves shellfish not partaking because of his religion.

That's been one of the fuzziest concepts for me. And I for one am glad there's at least one atheist here who is capable of tackling the issue with some degree of seriousness.

The least any of us can do is listen. The "rational" part of being a rational skeptic is ensuring that you're at least exposed to arguments that might disagree with your preconceptions and give them due consideration, regardless of what your eventual conclusions about them might be.

For the record, I think most of the atheists here on the board have done that, at least to some degree. Labeling them all as unserious just puts you at risk of disregarding their positions the same as what you're accusing them of doing.

How do you feel about my conclusion that these issues, namely "What constitutes worthiness of worship?" and "Is the standard of sufficient evidence appropriate?" serve as issues that a rational atheist cannot ignore?

I agree, with two caveats: the first question feels like putting the cart before the horse, and the second is that coming to a different conclusion than yours doesn't mean those questions haven't been considered: whether the answers are right or wrong is a different issue.

How does that reasoning work, for, say quantum mechanics? "Prior to sixth grade, I saw no evidence for quantum mechanics. So quantum mechanics became rational in the sixth grade".

Actually, yes: how could a person be rationally justified in accepting an idea before they have been exposed to evidence for it? If one did that, they'd be in the position of accepting every claim out there.

Being correct and being rationally justified in coming to the correct conclusion are different things; if you don't have the latter, you're more lucky than correct.

[Simon Moon]

I find Plantinga's modal ontological argument pretty compelling. Once I actually understood it, that is. If that argument is sound (valid reasoning + true premises), then I think it serves as significant evidence. And greater minds than you or I have tried in vain to refute it.

It has been refuted. If you want to open another thread on the subject, we can discuss.

But here's the interesting thing, Plantinga himself said the following about his own argument:

“Our verdict on these reformulated versions of St. Anselm's argument must be as follows. They cannot, perhaps, be said to prove or establish their conclusion. But since it is rational to accept their central premise, they do show that it is rational to accept that conclusion”

Why do you place more confidence in the argument than Plantinga himself?

Basically what Plantinga is saying here is, "Since I already believe in 'God' for other reasons, my version of the Ontological argument, despite the fact that the premises don't support the conclusion, reinforces my already existing belief."

Not impressed...

[Whateverist]

I find Plantinga's modal ontological argument pretty compelling. Once I actually understood it, that is. If that argument is sound (valid reasoning + true premises), then I think it serves as significant evidence. And greater minds than you or I have tried in vain to refute it.

That's an interesting belief you have there. Apparently you think that one should accept as true any argument which no one has been able to refute even if one does not understand it himself. I don't subscribe to this methodology of yours for determining which beliefs to adopt. Then again I am obviously more fussy about what beliefs I will consciously endorse than you.

I hope by now someone has called you on your concept of atheism. It is just a word and like every other word in the English language has a multitude of accepted uses. People who believe your god positively does not exist use it. People who you would call agnostic use it to indicate that in the absence of sufficient evidence they do not hold a belief in gods. People who find the very concept of 'god' incomprehensible use it. Even people who just don't give a crap one way or the other may use it. You may not like that but your displeasure doesn't make much difference here.

[Vincenzo Vinny G.]

Okay your shifting the burden of proof, which in academia would have your ass written off as a quack, and everyone in academia understands this.
However you want proof, here is a little on the Christian god.

Can you provide proof or evidence that atheism is accurate and correct?
This is often ask by youtube user shock of god, often in a very rude manner, well here is the answer in writing.

first off I'm not even going to bother with what is wrong with this phrasing and just say this. I think he is asking can you prove god does not exists.
Now since shock of god is a christian, then that means his claim of god is the bible and please note that since the bible is the claim, then it cannot be used as evidence that the bible is true or you get circular reasoning. So I present the following.
1. Since atheism is simply a rejection of religious claims, it has no burden of proof and if christians had proof they would not have to use logical fallacies such as shifting the burden of proof to make a argument.
2. The bible makes easily falsified claims, for example genesis 1:11 tells us that the vegetation of the earth was created before the sun. Now a earth without a sun would be something like -180 celsuis and permanently dark. Here I purpose a little experiment, take your mother's petunia or any potted plant and find a large deep freeze and put it in there, and then observe the results. There more disprovable claims then that too E.G plants after noahs flood.
3. Balant contradictions in the bible. For example in 1 john 4:12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
But in exodus 33:11
The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.
And in Genesis 32:22-32 22
That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
27 The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel,[a] because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”
29 Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”
But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
30 So Jacob called the place Peniel,[b] saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
31 The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel,[c] and he was limping because of his hip. 32 Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.
4. Balant design flaws in human anatomy E.G A jaw that is too small to fit all the teeth, the appendix, and the fact that we use one tube for eating and breathing. These are easily avoided design flaws that would have any engineer fired. If adam did have these flaws corrected before the fall then adam would have been a different species from us, probably even a different genus.
5. The positioning of the earth in a inner solar filled with asteriods that could easily wipe out life on earth, agian a glaring over that now sapient designer would make.

So you asked for evidence, there it is.

Here is the link to my original post.
http://atheistforums.org/thread-20609.html
Or and here is a another post I made too on the subject
http://atheistforums.org/thread-20852.html

It looks very much like you are responding to my thread title, but ignoring what I actually said. I hope you take the time to look at what the post said, and then respond directly to it, because this current response seems to miss the point.

---

What constitutes the criteria of "worthy of worship" in your opinion?

That depends on the person. One of the more interesting things to note, for me, is that I've never met a religious person who feels particularly put out by the religious practices they ascribe to; that is, their god tends to agree with them on every issue, and if there's something in the holy book that would be inconvenient, then it's metaphorical, or taken out of context, but what it never is, is the inconvenient thing that it seems to be.

God belief is multiple choice, which if nothing else shows me that what makes a god worthy of being worshiped depends on the person; I wouldn't worship a homophobic god, some others would. And do, given the thousands of christian denominations out there. We all pick the god that fits the criteria we want to worship, or have been indoctrinated to, in some cases. But you rarely see a person who really loves shellfish not partaking because of his religion.

That's been one of the fuzziest concepts for me. And I for one am glad there's at least one atheist here who is capable of tackling the issue with some degree of seriousness.

The least any of us can do is listen. The "rational" part of being a rational skeptic is ensuring that you're at least exposed to arguments that might disagree with your preconceptions and give them due consideration, regardless of what your eventual conclusions about them might be.

For the record, I think most of the atheists here on the board have done that, at least to some degree. Labeling them all as unserious just puts you at risk of disregarding their positions the same as what you're accusing them of doing.

How do you feel about my conclusion that these issues, namely "What constitutes worthiness of worship?" and "Is the standard of sufficient evidence appropriate?" serve as issues that a rational atheist cannot ignore?

I agree, with two caveats: the first question feels like putting the cart before the horse, and the second is that coming to a different conclusion than yours doesn't mean those questions haven't been considered: whether the answers are right or wrong is a different issue.

How does that reasoning work, for, say quantum mechanics? "Prior to sixth grade, I saw no evidence for quantum mechanics. So quantum mechanics became rational in the sixth grade".

Actually, yes: how could a person be rationally justified in accepting an idea before they have been exposed to evidence for it? If one did that, they'd be in the position of accepting every claim out there.

Being correct and being rationally justified in coming to the correct conclusion are different things; if you don't have the latter, you're more lucky than correct.

Valid point about how religious people interpret "The Voice of God". Although I'm sure some religious people would disagree. I don't have a dog in that fight though.

As for your view on the rationality of quantum mechanics, I think you're confusing ontology with epistemology. Something can objectively be rational, even while people with varying levels of knowledge, expertise and evidence of it can perceive it to be irrational. This irrationality is not actual of the object, it is actual of the subject's perception of the object. So I don't think it makes sense to say "Quantum Mechanics became rational in the sixth grade", rather "Quantum Mechanics was always rational. But I was only convinced of it's rationality in the sixth grade."

Likewise, the rationality of the existence or non-existence of a deity can be perceived in much the same way. A theist or deist might say "God's existence has always been rational. I only found out that it was rational at moment t, when I saw evidence n."

As far as my reasoning, it simply goes from implicitly positive claims such as "The burden of proof hasn't been met" to "The positive claim "the burden of proof is unmet" entails a burden of proof to prove that statement true." Is that a disagreeable conclusion?

[Vincenzo Vinny G.]

I find Plantinga's modal ontological argument pretty compelling. Once I actually understood it, that is. If that argument is sound (valid reasoning + true premises), then I think it serves as significant evidence. And greater minds than you or I have tried in vain to refute it.

It has been refuted. If you want to open another thread on the subject, we can discuss.

But here's the interesting thing, Plantinga himself said the following about his own argument:

“Our verdict on these reformulated versions of St. Anselm's argument must be as follows. They cannot, perhaps, be said to prove or establish their conclusion. But since it is rational to accept their central premise, they do show that it is rational to accept that conclusion”

Why do you place more confidence in the argument than Plantinga himself?

Basically what Plantinga is saying here is, "Since I already believe in 'God' for other reasons, my version of the Ontological argument, despite the fact that the premises don't support the conclusion, reinforces my already existing belief."

Not impressed...

"It has been refuted"? Not impressed...

You also quoted Plantinga (from The Nature of Necessity). Did you read his work, or what he was speaking in context of?

The chapter in which he made the claim ("Eight. Final Objections and Reflections") discussed various objections to the Ontological Argument. And the reason he made such a claim was because of the open-ended nature of one of the premises that was being challenged. Which premise this is depends on the variant of the argument in question. But the question is, simply "Is a maximally great being coherent?"

The argument doesn't prove as much. It doesn't even try to.

But if you can prove a MGB is incoherent, you can defeat the argument. And if you have reason to believe an MGB is incoherent, you have reason to reject the conclusion. But if you have reasons for neither, then the argument goes through.

The salient point here is not to simply copypasta quotes and make up claims like "It has been refuted". Know what it is you are talking about. If you are still convinced you can refute the ontological argument by showing the concept of a MGB incoherent, and you are sure of it, like 100%, I'll start a thread and we can have a discussion.

---

I find Plantinga's modal ontological argument pretty compelling. Once I actually understood it, that is. If that argument is sound (valid reasoning + true premises), then I think it serves as significant evidence. And greater minds than you or I have tried in vain to refute it.

That's an interesting belief you have there. Apparently you think that one should accept as true any argument which no one has been able to refute even if one does not understand it himself. I don't subscribe to this methodology of yours for determining which beliefs to adopt. Then again I am obviously more fussy about what beliefs I will consciously endorse than you.

I hope by now someone has called you on your concept of atheism. It is just a word and like every other word in the English language has a multitude of accepted uses. People who believe your god positively does not exist use it. People who you would call agnostic use it to indicate that in the absence of sufficient evidence they do not hold a belief in gods. People who find the very concept of 'god' incomprehensible use it. Even people who just don't give a crap one way or the other may use it. You may not like that but your displeasure doesn't make much difference here.

That's an interesting case of reading comprehension deficiency you have there.

Nobody said you had to accept it. Pending your inability to understand it, you must consider it "possible evidence", not "evidence". A view more in line with agnosticism towards the truth of a claim, pending your understanding of the claim and the evidence for and against it.

I'm glad you don't subscribe to that methodology, and I hope you subscribe to a more rigorous reading and thinking process however.

[Whateverist]

Just not that damned interesting chatting with you, Vin. That's probably in part because you are overwhelmed by the number of responses you're getting. Nonetheless, I'm finding you evasive, defensive and just not that coherent. So .. see yah.

[Rahul]

That's an interesting case of reading comprehension deficiency you have there.

Vinny, this is yet another accusation by you that yet someone else has reading comprehension issues with your posts.

What is more likely?

A)Everyone here has poor reading comprehension.
B)You aren't doing a very good job at explaining your thoughts.

[Esquilax]

As for your view on the rationality of quantum mechanics, I think you're confusing ontology with epistemology. Something can objectively be rational, even while people with varying levels of knowledge, expertise and evidence of it can perceive it to be irrational. This irrationality is not actual of the object, it is actual of the subject's perception of the object. So I don't think it makes sense to say "Quantum Mechanics became rational in the sixth grade", rather "Quantum Mechanics was always rational. But I was only convinced of it's rationality in the sixth grade."

That's fair enough. I guess I was referring to the idea that, on a personal level, one can only be rationally justified in accepting a claim upon being given evidence. The claim itself would always have been correct or incorrect, I agree, and rational in that it conforms most closely to reality, but a person accepting it without evidence cannot be rational in the action of accepting it.

As far as my reasoning, it simply goes from implicitly positive claims such as "The burden of proof hasn't been met" to "The positive claim "the burden of proof is unmet" entails a burden of proof to prove that statement true." Is that a disagreeable conclusion?

I'd disagree, in that one can keep spooling that out again and again: "The positive claim "the positive claim 'the burden of proof is unmet; entails a burden of proof to prove that statement true" entails a similar burden of proof to prove that statement true." and so on, and so on. At what point do we stop retracting the burden of proof one step at a time, and start shouldering it?

But there's also this dichotomy of existential claims versus subjective ones. The claim of god is an existential claim with a definite yes or no answer, with a definite burden of proof. Meanwhile, "the burden of proof is unmet," is, as we've established, at least a little bit subjective in terms of what we'd accept as evidence for it. Obviously christians believe the burden has been met, atheists don't, but the criteria one would use for that is fuzzy. I think there's an implicit tag to that: "The burden of proof is unmet, from my point of view."

And from there, we encounter the question of what standards are sufficient to label that burden met or unmet.

[Vincenzo Vinny G.]

As far as my reasoning, it simply goes from implicitly positive claims such as "The burden of proof hasn't been met" to "The positive claim "the burden of proof is unmet" entails a burden of proof to prove that statement true." Is that a disagreeable conclusion?

I'd disagree, in that one can keep spooling that out again and again: "The positive claim "the positive claim 'the burden of proof is unmet; entails a burden of proof to prove that statement true" entails a similar burden of proof to prove that statement true." and so on, and so on. At what point do we stop retracting the burden of proof one step at a time, and start shouldering it?

But there's also this dichotomy of existential claims versus subjective ones. The claim of god is an existential claim with a definite yes or no answer, with a definite burden of proof. Meanwhile, "the burden of proof is unmet," is, as we've established, at least a little bit subjective in terms of what we'd accept as evidence for it. Obviously christians believe the burden has been met, atheists don't, but the criteria one would use for that is fuzzy. I think there's an implicit tag to that: "The burden of proof is unmet, from my point of view."

And from there, we encounter the question of what standards are sufficient to label that burden met or unmet.

Whichever way we take the discussion, I personally don't mind, because I don't buy the "burden of proof" nonsense anyway. I mean, I know it's valid in some circumstances, but certainly not in this one. The "endless spool" you're referring to (I like how you worded it) is a problem that is raised in epistemology as well- we simply cannot have an infinite regress of these burdens going into the past (or the future), so this view is unfeasible.

Although I imagine one might say the burden of proof has been met by demonstrating it's rationality. Ie "the positive claim 'the burden of proof is unmet'" entails a burden of proof, which is met by showing that it is logical. To put it into a syllogism:

P1) All positive claims entail a burden of proof
P2) The claim that "The burden of proof is unmet" is a positive claim
C Therefore, "the burden of proof is unmet" entails a burden of proof.

If we want to turn this into a second order burden of proof argument, we just replace P2.
P1) All positive claims entail a burden of proof
P2) The claim that "The positive claim that 'The burden of proof is unmet' entails a burden of proof" is a positive claim
C Therefore, "The positive claim that 'The burden of proof is unmet' entails a burden of proof" entails a burden of proof.

If the soundness of the argument entails a successful discharge of the burden of proof, we have found a way to move forward on the claim and the meta-claim.

But what of the claim that the burden of proof is unmet? You point out that it is a bit subjective. And I think I can concede that much. And you would be right then in saying that any proper statement of a burden of proof would look like

"The burden of proof is unmet, from my point of view."

But this makes all the people who have been using this claim look exceedingly silly.

In effect, what they are saying is
1) The burden is unmet in my subjective view,
2) You need to meet it,
3) I don't know what criteria needs to be met in order for this burden of proof to be discharged
4) You cannot meet this invisible, unexplained criteria.
5) Therefore, atheism.

I'm sure you can see how stupid this makes the typical atheist burden of proof position look. In fact, I would say the situation is even worse, because I don't think most atheists aren't even aware of the existence of a minimum criteria. They've learned the words burden of proof, but not fully understood the concept.

To solve this involves a series of positive claim on the part of the intelligent atheist. Namely

1) The burden of proof is unmet.
2) There exists a criteria or threshold for this burden of proof and I acknowledge it's existence contingent on the existence of a burden of proof.
3) This criteria is neither too high nor too low (too skeptical or too credulous), but is in fact appropriate to demonstrate or fail to demonstrate the existence of a deity.

All these three claims, however, entail a burden of proof on the part of the atheist.

Is my reasoning making sense here? Let me know.

---

That's an interesting case of reading comprehension deficiency you have there.

Vinny, this is yet another accusation by you that yet someone else has reading comprehension issues with your posts.

What is more likely?

A)Everyone here has poor reading comprehension.
B)You aren't doing a very good job at explaining your thoughts.

I think that might be a false dichotomy, Rahul.

Rather, I think what's happening is that people here are by nature a bit more emotionally engaged than others. Instead of critical analysis of the idea, we have emotional responses expressing oneself.

And by nature, perhaps we don't read a complete post, but scan through it quickly and assume we know what the person is saying before reading and thinking about what was read. I know I do it sometimes.

After all, can you explain how a grown man, presumably at minimum a high school graduate reads

"I think it serves as significant evidence."

as

"Apparently you think that one should accept as true any argument which no one has been able to refute even if one does not understand it himself."

I don't want to assume the person is an idiot. That is needlessly uncharitable. Rather, I just think it's an intelligent person that uses poor reading practices.