Q about arguments for God's existence.

[strawdawg]

Man is an incurably religious creature and the only one aware of it's mortality.

[Alex K]

Man is an incurably religious creature and the only one aware of it's mortality.

Are you sure about that last part?

[FatAndFaithless]

Or the first part..

[helyott]

Why are they all so fucking illogical and idiotic? Moreover, why are so many people dumb enough to be "persuaded" by them?

Two reasons.

Religious education given to children.
The difficulty of designing its final disappearance and to accept it.

[Homeless Nutter]

Why are they all so fucking illogical and idiotic? Moreover, why are so many people dumb enough to be "persuaded" by them?

Arguments for the existence of god(s) are generally what they are, because they don't need to be any better. People worshiping imaginary parent figures, that grant eternal life, don't do it because they were "persuaded" by logic. They do it because they crave promised rewards and fear punishment. And because of instincts that govern human social interactions and relations - especially infant-parent - going into "overdrive".

Any faint attempts at post-rationalizations are only meant to keep up appearances of intellectualism and academic diligence among believers, rather than to convince actual rationalists. It's difficult - and also completely unnecessary - to reach intellectual highs, when pandering to the semi-illiterate. And that's what most religions would like their followers to be/remain.

[Dystopia]

I have a question about the burden of proof and I think it fits more or less in this thread:

Do agnostic theists have to prove anything? - Basically, an agnostic theist believes there is one or more gods, but she/he doesn't claim to know if there are any gods, and doesn't affirm with certainty that god can exist - He/she simply is more inclined to believe in god while remaining without knowledge to confirm whether or not the deity exists. Since the rule of the burden of proof is that the individual making the positive claim needs to provide evidence - Does this apply to agnostic theists? - Considering that there is no claim, just a belief. If so, how is demanding proof from someone who makes no claim a rational request?

[Mudhammam]

If so, how is demanding proof from someone who makes no claim a rational request?

It's not, but if the argument is that nobody should make determinations and/or decisions about the real world on the basis of faith, which is a claim we can easily satisfy with a quick survey of history, and our opponent disagrees, then they are also obliged to justify the opposite as that is a claim with truth value.

[Dystopia]

I have a question about atheists and the burden of proof:
If the theist claims - "God exists" - Obviously it's evidence or GTFO
But what if the atheist claims - "God is bullshit", or "God doesn't exist", or even "God probably doesn't exist" - Doesn't this shift the burden of proof? After all and if I'm not mistaken the scientific method states that if you make a negative claim (that something doesn't exist) you still need to provide proof

So my question is - Don't atheists have the burden of evidence as well when we make claims? For example - If we say "atheism is rational and theism is not" I think we should be required to provide evidence to explain why atheism is better than theism (Not that it is hard or anything)

Atheists mostly don't need to provide proof, and we are well aware of that, specially when theists claim their religion is right or that god exists; but often we will make claims like "Your religion is false" or "Your god is evil" and it is my opinion that there's no reason to not shift the burden of proof here.

[Roxy904]

When an atheist makes a claim against a theist, e.g. "your God is evil," they are claiming that the theist's idea of a God is the idea of an evil God. They may often back this up with Bible verses, where God supports genocide, rape, oppression, etc. I've done this against theists, and they don't usually have a good response.
Now, to your other point. It's impossible to prove something doesn't exsist; I have never seen a unicorn myself, or even evidence of a unicorn, therefore I don't believe in unicorns, and will say that your claim of unicorns is false. Unless you show me evidence, I'm not going to believe that unicorns exsist. I will feel free to call bullshit on your unicorn delusion.

[Dystopia]

Actually it's not impossible. Let's imagine I claim there are no cats in my house - I document evidence, such as witnesses, videos, pictures, with time and dates assigned; theoretically, I can prove something doesn't exist.

Let's use a scientific hypothesis - I am claiming that there isn't a correlation between being tall and having a specific illness - I run tests on tall people and figure there isn't a higher prevalence of that same illness on them. Am I not proving, basically, that the correlation is non existent, and thus disproving something?

I disagree that you can't prove gods don't exist - If I point out illogical characteristics in the Christian god, for example, that proves he doesn't exist (Check out Epicurus' quote for further detail)

Also - There's a difference between saying "I don't believe in your claim of unicorns" and saying "unicorns are false" - The later option requires evidence because you are implying something doesn't exist (False is non existent)