RE: standard of evidence
October 2, 2013 at 4:06 pm
(This post was last modified: October 2, 2013 at 4:07 pm by Simon Moon.)
(October 2, 2013 at 3:23 pm)Rational AKD Wrote: there's more to establishing truth of a claim than just explanatory power, though it is a factor. you may be the first rational response. but just a correction, burden of proof doesn't just apply to claim of "X" exists, but also "X" does not exist. to be more accurate, it would be proposition X is true. this includes not just positive existence claims, but also negative existence claims. a negating position such as "God doesn't exist" is not a default position. the default position is one of ignorance such as "God may or may not exist but I don't know."
Problem solved.
The vast majority of atheists are not making a truth claim on the nonexistence of gods.
Disbelieving the theist claim that a god or gods exist does NOT mean that atheists have the inverse belief.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
