Are Atheists using Intellectually Dishonest Arguments?

[notimportant1234]

This escaleted quickly.
1. I was not discussing strictly the God debate, I was speaking more in general.
2. I do know that the person that makes the claim  needs to prove it, but I wanted to discus the semanthycs, how the burden shifts and that you can't use this as an counter argument.

This short exercise will show whether or not you understand the BoP.

The claim: Tarot cards can foretell your future.

The counter claim: No they can't.

Who carries the BoP; the claimant, the denier  or both?

The claimant but the denier isn't exempt of offering a counter argument after the claimer stated his argument.

[Succubus]

This short exercise will show whether or not you understand the BoP.

The claim: Tarot cards can foretell your future.

The counter claim: No they can't.

Who carries the BoP; the claimant, the denier  or both?

The claimant but the denier isn't exempt of offering a counter argument after the claimer stated his argument.

The claimant! Full stop! The denier is not obliged to say one word.
Ok, there will no doubt be some sort of debate with the usual back and forth but never take your eye off the ball, at no time during the exchange is the denier under any obligation to 'prove' anything. It is even the case that the denier may not have the remotest idea what he's talking about, he could be completely full of shit, it doesn't matter, he's still holding all the cards.

[RoadRunner79]

You can look it up if you like... but the burden of proof is on the one making the claim. Any claim; it’s up to the making it to support it. .

Now if you are not making any claims except for your own mental state, then you have no burden of proof for that.

From your support of the claim that the burden of proof is used by us to avoid supporting a claim, you don't seem to actually understand that. Even if you do, reading comprehension still seems to be a challenge for you. See the bolded above.

I, like the vast majority of atheist, do not make the claim that there is/are no god(s). There could be one out there somewhere. But, until given sufficient reason, why should I be bothered to believe in one?

All I'm saying, is that the one making a claim, has the burden of proof, to support that claim.   Whether it is a positive claim, or a negative claim, you need to support what you are asserting.

 But this isn't always the case.   If you are just making a statement about your belief, and not saying anything about something objective and outside of yourself, then you do not have a burden of proof.  You might also note, that just because someone is a Christian or a theist, it doesn't lay an inherent burden upon them to offer proof every time an atheists wants to change the subject.  I think that too often atheist think that the burden is inherent to the Christian belief and not their own, when really it has more to do with the immediate discussion.

[The Grand Nudger]

The BOP would -have- to be on the christian in a comparison of christians and atheists..since they're the only one in the comparison with a belief, the latter position nothing but a comment on the former's, lol.

You, RR, as the person who posits a god, solely and uniquely..always and forever.... hold any burden of proof for that god business in any god discussion. It doesn't matter what goddism you're discussing, the baby is always yours. If that burden rankles you to the point where you are forced to imagine and reference some discussion between you and I about which can of spray cheese has the faster rate of flow and our competing claims...then yes, we both have some burden for whatever our position may be and you've completely lost the pulse.

[GUBU]

So, last week I was browsing the internets and came across a blog post by Eve Keneinan entitled "Intellectually Dishonest Atheists." 

I clicked the link hoping to find an article which would make some significant points and perhaps challenge me to become more intellectually honest. I was sorely disappointed. The article did not challenge me at all. Well... maybe a little bit... but for the most part I felt like I didn't get my money's worth (and keep in mind the article was free to read online.)

Keneinan made three main points, each divided into various subpoints:

1) Atheists often suffer from a "persistent inability or refusal to distinguish God from a god or gods"

2) Atheists often presume  "belief in scientism, the logically incoherent claim that 'only scientific knowledge is valid/real/genuine knowledge'"

3) Atheists often engage in "persistent use of the burden of proof fallacy, that is, the rhetorical trope which combines an argument from ignorance (“my position is the default position,” i.e. “my position is true until proven false, so I need not argue for it) with special pleading.

I would like to see discussion of all three main points in this thread, but to keep the OP as concise as possible, I will only treat the first point here.

A persistent inability or refusal to distinguish God from a god or gods. This is a distinction 3 or 4-year-old children can easily grasp, so any atheist who claims not be be able to grasp it is either severely intellectually impaired or lying. In almost all cases, the atheist is simply attempting to conflate God with a god in order to set up a strawman and/or trying to annoy you by belittling God—while ignoring the basic conceptual distinction that all European languages mark by differentiating the word “God” from the word “god” by capitalization. As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains, in the entry written by atheist philosopher J. J. C. Smart:

‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God. I shall here assume that the God in question is that of a sophisticated monotheism. The tribal gods of the early inhabitants of Palestine are of little or no philosophical interest. They were essentially finite beings, and the god of one tribe or collection of tribes was regarded as good in that it enabled victory in war against tribes with less powerful gods. Similarly the Greek and Roman gods were more like mythical heroes and heroines than like the omnipotent, omniscient and good God postulated in mediaeval and modern philosophy.

So, lets unpack this.

A persistent inability or refusal to distinguish God from a god or gods. This is a distinction 3 or 4-year-old children can easily grasp

Bullshit. If you have programmed your three-year-old to distinguish Yahweh from Zeus, she can regurgitate what you have told her to believe. But no child at that age cares about such a distinction, nor can she articulate it in her own words.

the atheist is simply attempting to conflate God with a god in order to set up a strawman and/or trying to annoy you by belittling God—while ignoring the basic conceptual distinction that all European languages mark by differentiating the word “God” from the word “god” by capitalization.

Who gives a shit? Some people have the bizarre habit of capitalizing a pronoun when "God" is the antecedent. This practice has no precedent outside of circles of believers and in no fucking way marks a logical distinction. If I chose to capitalize the word "house" when referring to my own particular place of habitation, would this assign my particular livingspace special significance over others? --"My House is the third house on the left. Just past the white house with the red trim, you will find my House." I fail to see how capitalization proves anything. And, even if it does... guess what? Zeus is capitalized!

"‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God. I shall here assume that the God in question is that of a sophisticated monotheism. The tribal gods of the early inhabitants of Palestine are of little or no philosophical interest."

This is probably the most valid point made in the article. When arguing with an adherent of a "sophisticated monotheism," one ought not use arguments which ignore the sophistication of one's opponent's particular god concept. In layman's terms: An argument that utterly refutes Drich may not even be appropriate to make against Neo. Oftentimes I find myself leveling criticisms against Christians in general that only really apply to Christian fundamentalists. In this instance, Keneinan makes a valid point. We ought to keep our opponents' actual views in mind, lest we be guilty of strawmanning.

But what about the vast majority of Christians who do not have a "sophisticated monotheism"? I'd estimate around 90% of the Christians I know, do not worship the eternal being of whom Aquinas and Anselm spoke. They worship the tribal god of the Israelites, and they will tell you as much if you inquire about the nature of their god. It seems quite unfair to atheists to have them respond to god-claims that resemble paganism with counterarguments that refute an eternal, cosmic being.

I like to work on myself intellectually. Working on one's own intellectual honesty requires one to reevaluate one's position, trying to spot prejudices and false assumptions. To be intellectually dishonest is to not care if one is wrong. All an intellectually dishonest person cares about is winning an argument. (Plato's critiques of sophism drive this point home.) An intellectually honest person cares about the validity of his or her own arguments. I'm wrong about tons of stuff. I, like anyone else, am susceptible to intellectual foibles (ie accepting false premises as true, logical fallacies, etc.) But why do I feel like this article misrepresents the position we are actually arguing? Why do I feel this article criticizes atheists for minor intellectual transgressions while ignoring the fact that theistic apologetics often uses these selfsame transgressions as the foundation of its position? Why do I feel that this article, in the course of criticizing intellectual honesty, is it itself intellectually dishonest?

I tried to read the article linked with an open mnd but it quickly became clear the article's author was only interested in administering ad homs, and had nothing constructive to say. Here's my response:

And your first “evidence” for atheists not being serious is “they don’t accept my assertion that my god is special”. Yeah I don’t think it’s our fault your arguments aren’t taken seriously.

Yhwh is no more special than any other god created by human imagination. So quit your whining and start looking for intellectualy rigorous reasons to believe.

I dindn't get as far as the "sceintism argument", but then again that's a universal indicator of "oh, shit! We can't reute that".

[Neo-Scholastic]

If the atheist is simply saying they don't believe in God, then they have no burden of proof to bear.

Bullshit and dishonest. You, and the rest of your we-simply-lackers, truly believe that the proposition "God exists" is false. You're just a cowardly pussy who isn't willing to stand up for what he actually believes.

[GrandizerII]

If the atheist is simply saying they don't believe in God, then they have no burden of proof to bear.

Bullshit and dishonest. You believe that the proposition "God exists." is false. You're just a cowardly pussy who isn't willing to stand up for what he actually believes.

I do believe that it is false. I didn't say otherwise regarding myself. Fuckface.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Bullshit and dishonest. You believe that the proposition "God exists." is false. You're just a cowardly pussy who isn't willing to stand up for what he actually believes.

I do believe that it is false. I didn't say otherwise regarding myself. Fuckface.

Why do you believe that it is false? Or are you scared to state why you believe the proposition "God exists" is false.

[GrandizerII]

I do believe that it is false. I didn't say otherwise regarding myself. Fuckface.

Why do you believe that it is false? Or are you scared to state why you believe the proposition "God exists" is false.

Yeah, I must be sooo scared to state why I believe the proposition is false. Which is why I never made a fairly recent thread at all in which I attempted just that.

[The Grand Nudger]

If the atheist is simply saying they don't believe in God, then they have no burden of proof to bear.

Bullshit and dishonest. You, and the rest of your we-simply-lackers, truly believe that the proposition "God exists" is false. You're just a cowardly pussy who isn't willing to stand up for what he actually believes.

More an artifact of your own specific limitations on the term god, don't you think?  Plenty of people who would comfortable telling you that -your- god doesn't exist aren't, themselves, settled on the issue of god or gods..and more than a few are settled on the issue, do believe in gods, just not the fairy from magic book.

They're simply telling you that they think you're full of shit, lol. The statement above should satisfy any burden of proof on that count. You're clearly full of shit, regardless of whether or not any gods exist.