Illustrating the burden of proof - pay me!

[Anomalocaris]

Some further thoughts:

1. I think it's necessary to separate the burden from the proof, so to speak, because there's a tendency to conflate the two. In other words, it's always necessary to justify one's beliefs, and perhaps people are attempting to ask for such justifications when asking for proof. However, the burden aspect creeps in because the phrase is so popular that it gets activated as a unit. But asking why you believe what you believe (proof) and requiring you to convince me of your beliefs (burden) are two very different requests.

2. A burden of proof mentality obstructs your access to truth. It places your ability to learn something true about the world in the hands of someone that might not know how to convince you. Therefore, it is in my best interest to help you steel-man your arguments. Because your beliefs might be right, but you might not know how to demonstrate them correctly. (Note that in a courtroom it is not in my best interest to help you make your case.)

if you don’t know how to demonstrate it correctly, then you don’t know it is right, only reall really want for it to be taken to be right. 

It is equivalent to stealing that which you want but which is not yours,  and then claim it is not theft because really wanting it makes it yours.

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This makes a lot of sense to me. We assume that when an accusation is being made, the accused person has something to lose from the situation. There may be punishment, a loss of reputation, etc. Therefore it would be unjust to accept the accusation without sufficient evidence. That's why it's courtroom procedure.

I think that burden of proof has a place outside the courtroom. Perhaps in any instance where coercion or personal loss is involved (like in the courtroom, which is why those procedures are in place there). It also may play a role in what I am "obligated" to accept as true for argument's sake... which is why it features in so many internet debates.

But, if the true answer to something (like God's existence) is unknown, we don't prove anything one way or another by placing the burden of proof on one party or another. It's an issue that needs to be discussed and explored. We need to examine relevant arguments and see how strong (or weak) they are.

burden of proof keeps people intellectually honest, and prevent them from contaminating any intellectual discourse via the simple expedient of just throwing shit so some of it would stick because it takes much much less effort, skill and critical examination, in another words intellectual capital,  to throw shit then to clean the shit off.    it prevents people from claiming it really is theirs simply because they really really want it. 

their shit is not shit because it seems, to them, that their shit can’t be cleaned off as fast as they throw them seems to me to be the entire underlying plank of the theistic “argument”.    this is why theists and their ilk abhor the burden of proof.