(August 9, 2015 at 5:16 am)Redbeard The Pink Wrote: Ok, here we go...
If you lack belief in any gods, you are an atheist. This doesn't mean you have to believe that god does not exist. It simply means that you do not have a positive belief that he does exist. That seems like an odd distinction, but it's important, and the reason is "Burden of Proof."
Others kind of kicked you in the stomach with this, but I'm going to be the nice guy here (for once...don't get used to it...I'm an asshole).
You mentioned a common argument earlier: "You can't prove that god doesn't exist."
You're right. Nobody can prove that god does not exist. Here's the problem with that:
Nobody can prove that Santa Claus does not really exist. Nobody can prove that Darth Vader does not really exist. Nobody can prove that invisible pink unicorns do not exist. Nobody can prove that a flying spaghetti monster does not exist.
What I'm getting at here is the idea of "Burden of Proof." The thing is, it's impossible to prove that ANYTHING does not exist, no matter how absurd or unlikely. The existence of something is a non-falsifiable claim because no matter how much evidence we find of something not being there, the other side can always turn around and say "Well, you just haven't found it yet." Conversely, the NON-existence of something is easily falsifiable because all it takes is one scrap of definite evidence that something does, in fact, exist, and the statement immediately becomes false.
Because of this fact, the NON-existence of a thing is ALWAYS the "null hypothesis," or h0. This means that it is the default position of belief until it is disproven by evidence. This doesn't mean that the thing in question definitely does not exist; rather, it simply means that there is no warrant or justification for believing it exists until evidence shows up. This means the burden of proof is ALWAYS on the person making a positive claim for the existence of something. A position of non-belief does not require evidence but can be unseated by it.
You are quite mistaken in claiming that one cannot prove the nonexistence of something. Anything whose definition is self-contradictory cannot exist. Thus, there are no invisible pink unicorns, because "pink" and "invisible" contradict each other. We can also know that things don't exist that do not fit with known facts. For example, how messed up the world is, is incompatible with a being that is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly benevolent, so such a being cannot exist. We can know that Santa does not exist because people have visited the north pole and his workshop is not there. That, though, was unnecessary, as we know it is impossible for one man to visit every house on the planet in one night, and it is impossible for a man to fit down every chimney (not to mention the fact that not every house has a chimney). The idea that one cannot prove that some things do not exist is just false.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
