Why atheism always has a burden of proof

[Esquilax]

Now I'm not here to say the arguments and evidence in support of theism is airtight and compelling. My familiarity with them leads me to conclude that they are at the very least, not weak. However, I think to a lot of people the issue is not of evidence, it's of an unwillingness or disinterest in rationality. Rather there are some extra-rational factors going on. To test this, you need to ask the following:

"If you found evidence that, for instance, Islam was true, would you immediately bow the knee to Allah, accept Mohammed as the prophet, and submit to the Islamic rules and regulations?"

Most people would say "Hello no!" And this is DESPITE being convinced (hypothetically) that Islam (or whatever) were true.

So obviously it's more than merely being rational. There's something emotional there. And I think it's fair to admit as much given one's own answer to this question.

Well, I think the issue is that you're conflating two questions as one, because believing something exists doesn't necessarily entail that it requires worship. The question should probably run along the lines of "if you found evidence that Islam was true, would you accept that the god of Islam exists? And would you worship him as that religion prescribes?"

My answer to the first question would be yes: I would believe in the existence of any god that provides evidence sufficient to my standards. My answer to the second would require a bit of self questioning first: do the beliefs of the Islamic god earn my respect? What are the consequences of belief vs disbelief? What actions would I be required to carry out on behalf of that belief? Is this god worthy of worship?

I don't find any god really worthy of worship based around those criteria, but who knows? Perhaps my instinct for self preservation would kick in and I'd worship to avoid punishment; I don't know, I've never been in a position to find out what I'd do. But even if I never worshiped, I would no longer be an atheist at that point; I'd be a skeptical theist.

Now given your final response, it's good that you've faced up to the whole burden of proof thing. But I think it begs the question I asked Rahul: What constitutes "sufficient evidence"? Is it a subjective measure or objective? How do you know the standard and expected nature of evidence is appropriate? Is someone being rational when they expect scientific evidence for a historical event or scientific evidence for a mathematical claim? Any thoughtful atheist relishes these questions and seeks out a coherent epistemological theory on which these evidences (and lack thereof) can hang.

There's a touch of subjectivity involved in what constitutes sufficient evidence, to my mind; some people are convinced that ghosts exist because they watch that laughable ghost hunter program, and they evidently have very low standards of evidence. Whether that's a good thing or a bad one depends on who you ask, but I will say that there's an objective framework for these things too. For example, if I was standing right in front of you and you refused to believe I was there, your standards of evidence are altogether too high; if you believed I could fly simply because I told you I could, your standards would be too low. We can zero in on a band of acceptable standards from there.

That gets modulated to the claim, too: I don't need too much evidence to accept that your name is Vinny, right now, because that's a mundane claim made without too much risk attached to it. If you claimed you were an astronaut, well, astronauts exist, so I can at least accept the premise, but to fully accept it I'd need further demonstration, like information about the job that corroborates with other sources, or pictures of you being trained, stuff like that. If you then claimed to be able to survive in space sans space suit, well, then you'll probably need to demonstrate that before it becomes fully believable, because that goes against everything we know about space and human bodies.

This process is a little bit inductive, and a little bit subjective, but it's really the best we have. Everyone has their own standard as to what counts as sufficient evidence, but we also have our own standard about whether the standards of others are adequate; that's why we're here, trying to explain our positions. We're trying to flesh out the argument so that it doesn't make us seem credulous, while at the same time judging the arguments of others for the same reason. The credibility of our argumentation relies upon this process.