(July 28, 2017 at 6:40 am)SteveII Wrote:(July 28, 2017 at 1:33 am)pocaracas Wrote: People make claims, sure... Whether they're theists or atheists.
But you were saying that atheism is a claim. That it is a more extraordinary claim than theism, on account of the absence of evidence for it.
I'm saying theism is the claim and atheism is simply the position of not accepting the theism claim... Unlike many other possible a[claim]isms, this one developed a name throughout human history... Because the theism claim has had some success for a long time, most of which mankind was mostly ignorant of the world.
But now we know better, we have many tools at our disposal to probe the world and figure out how it works... Thus far, none of those tools has yielded anything resembling a god - not that they're looking for a god, but for something that is claimed to be so omni, it seems remarkably absent. And this renders the theism claim an extraordinary one .
Like a claim that any work of fiction is indeed real. The force, magic, the TARDIS, zylons, Klingons, etc... The claim that any of these is real is an extraordinary claim and would require some hefty evidence. While the default "I don't believe that claim" requires no evidence at all. You just need to go "nothing in the reality that humans agree upon support that such a claim is true".
And no, cosplayers, people talking about those fictional universes, speaking in languages from those universes, or even providing testimony that they're real is not credible evidence.
If we go with "atheists make no claims" then as to the question of is there a God, we have some evidence that there is and on the other side, we have no evidence there is not (I'll even grant you by definition). My point was and is that if there can only be evidence on one side of the equation, the distinction or need of 'extraordinary evidence' is meaningless. Any evidence is sufficient to increase the probability, because there is no rebuttal evidence to overcome.
I understand your point of view.... but the thing is, if we follow your logic, anything that imagination can conjure up will, by default, have some evidence to support it, while having no evidence to support its non-existence.
As one can easily see, this reasoning cannot be applied to anything, for it delivers no reliable conclusion.
And "anything" includes the answer to the question of is there a god.
(July 28, 2017 at 6:40 am)SteveII Wrote: For the same reason, I pointed out that strong atheism actually would be the extraordinary claim because it is doing so with no ordinary evidence.
For strong atheism, the one that claims that there is absolutely no god, I agree. We have no way of knowing that for sure.
However, one needs some pragmatism... Should I hold a-force-ism to the same standard and entertain the notion that the Force does exist and a few individuals can tap into it and perform telekinesis, mind control and prescience? Is the claim that the Force does not exist as extraordinary as the claim that no god exists? Conceptually, what is the difference between these two negative claims?