WLC: "You can't prove the negative"

[LadyForCamus]

Saying “You haven’t provided sufficient evidence or sound reason to convince me your claim is true,” is a perfectly sufficient reason to withhold belief in that claim, at least tentatively. Though the person rejecting the reasoning used to support the claim is still responsible for explaining why the claimant’s reasoning is fallacious, because logic can be objectively assessed and critiqued. In other words, if someone puts forth a cosmological argument, and the respondent says, “nope. That argument is fallacious.” or “the premises are false.” then they haven’t yet done the work of supporting and justifying those counter-claims. And others of us enjoy a more in-depth discourse on the subject of metaphysics, beyond simply, “I’m not convinced, so I’m done thinking about it.” I don’t see anything wrong with that.

This is all very well said, I think! Thank you for posting it. 

(It's pretty much what I've been saying, but since you're much nicer than I am people are more likely to read it with an open mind.)

It allows dialogue. So “You haven’t provided sufficient evidence or sound reason" is perfectly fair, and allows the person making the claim to explore what "sufficient evidence" or a "sound reason" might look like to the respondent. 

We saw earlier someone making two claims: 1) there is no empirical evidence for God, and 2) we should not believe in things for which there is no empirical evidence. 

If people were inclined, this is a very reasonable way to begin a discussion of classical theism, which of course never claimed that God would be some sort of physical object accessible to the senses. Since Plato, God is much more like Justice, or Mercy. Or numbers. These are things we don't sense, but can know of in the mind since we extrapolate their existence from actions and objects in the world. 

I know that most people here won't accept this argument either, but it shows how, when someone presents his reasons, discussion is possible.

Well, I think you’re quite nice, intelligent, and very reasonable, but probably a bit misunderstood. Showing an interest in certain topics can get a person boxed, labeled, and summarily dismissed pretty quickly around here, and I’m guilty of it myself. It’s just the sheer amount of dishonest interlocutors that blow in and out of the forums on a regular basis starts to jade folks after a while, and you stop giving people the benefit of the doubt. 

At the end of the day,  some people enjoy digging into subjects like epistemic foundations, and others don’t. It really just boils down to personal preference and interest in the subject matter. Some atheists are more practically-minded; i.e. “no god seems to be impacting my life in a detectable way, therefore I’m not going to waste another second of my precious time considering it” (my husband), while others of us enjoy perseverating on metaphysical questions simply for the joy of it, (or because we can’t turn our brains off, as is the case for me), even if it doesn’t change the way we live our lives or lead to any definitive, tangible answers. But regardless of any personal inclinations, as you mentioned, intellectually honest discussions can’t happen if both parties aren’t willing to analyze their reasons for why they believe or don’t believe something. This gets crudely interpreted as, “you’re saying both participants share an equal burden of proof,” which isn’t necessarily correct depending on the nature of the discussion, but both sides certainly bear a responsibility to explain and justify their reasoning. Otherwise it’s not a productive discussion, or really a discussion at all.