(January 2, 2013 at 9:14 pm)Mark 13:13 Wrote: After a while it became apparent that Plantinga's point was that atheism has no way of justifying its claim that theism bear the burden of proof - at least, it has no way of justifying it while staying within its philosophical framework. That an atheist considers the claims of a theist to be extraordinary is irrelevant. They are assuming a benchmark which they have no way of proving as valid.What utter crap. The burden of proof has nothing to do with claims being "extraordinary". Nothing at all. Rather, the burden of proof states that those making a positive claim have to support it, rather than demand anyone questioning the claim to prove the inverse.
In terms of theism, this means that anyone who makes the claim "God exists" must show their proof; they cannot simply say "prove that God doesn't exist", as it does nothing to demonstrate the validity of their claim (being incapable of proving something doesn't exist, does not necessarily mean it exists).
