Is the statement "Claims demand evidence" always true?

[popsthebuilder]

So how would you respond to a WLC argument, that the God idea is a rational one?  Not with appeals for evidence that God is real?

I'm glad you asked because that brings me to the next point that I had wished to make.

Atheists who respond to theistic arguments that seek to demonstrate the existence of God through rational terms with the statement "Claims demand evidence" are, I think, simply mistaken.  Of course, if the claim about God involves propositions that are evidential or factual (in the common sense usage of the word), such as in claims about miracles or the order of events at creation, then one is not irrational to demand evidence -- and in this way many if not most religious claims fit the bill.  But if the theist makes a claim about one of the many more generic versions of God, as the ultimate source of being or truth or morality, or something that qualifies as a "first principle" or "metaphysical necessity", then the rebuttal will likely need to deal with the argument on its own terms if it is all to be a serious reply; terms which, as I said, are strictly rational (at least in their attempt, not necessarily in their premises or the conclusion they reach).  One should respond to theists such as WLC in precisely this manner, by engaging with the premises and showing where they go wrong, and/or fail to logically validate the conclusion; rather than just assert that the theist has a burden of proof which involves a certain display of evidence, and that nothing they say can be accepted as true (even probabilistically) unless said evidence is produced.  The atheist who engages like this isn't refuting any arguments, but redefining the requirements by which claims ought to be accepted in a way that is essentially question-begging and as equally unsubstantiated as the theist's claim about his or her (generic) God.

Good post