Stephen Hawking has died at the age of 76.

[Joods]

 If you are making a claim, then the burden is on you to support it.

Yet you and every other theist here seems to fail miserably every single time when asked to produce evidence of the god you believe in. 

[RoadRunner79]

 If you are making a claim, then the burden is on you to support it.

Yet you and every other theist here seems to fail miserably every single time when asked to produce evidence of the god you believe in. 

That could be, because many are inconsistent on what is evidence, when the subject comes to be about God. If you are insinuations, that theists don’t give reasons and evidence for what they believe, I think you are deluding yourself.

[GrandizerII]

Yet you and every other theist here seems to fail miserably every single time when asked to produce evidence of the god you believe in. 

That could be, because many are inconsistent on what is evidence, when the subject comes to be about God. If you are insinuations, that theists don’t give reasons and evidence for what they believe, I think you are deluding yourself.

What evidence? The incredibly uncompelling arguments that nevertheless provide a lot of leeway for alternative explanations excluding creator deities, when special pleading is controlled for? Personal experiences that are susceptible to biases and misinterpretations and inaccurate memories and selective attention? Abuse/misuse of logic and probabilities? Holding to incredibly naive/outdated notions of metaphysical phenomena, continually ignoring the suggestions of both science and philosophy when it comes to our intuition regarding such phenomena?

[Edwardo Piet]

Seems like semantics to me, and I don’t see where you are not just playing the pseudo-skeptic game. If you are making a claim, then the burden is on you to support it.

Prove that fire-breathing dragons don't exist. ("just semantics" is a cop-out. Literally all disagreement is just semantics)....

I'm not making any more of a claim that God doesn't exist than you are that fire-breathing dragons don't exist. To expect either of us to prove either 'claim' is absurd.

Lol what the fuck is a pseudo-skeptic? Skepticism isn't about absolute denial, or trying to prove a negative, it's about being skeptical. It seems to me that it's you who wants me to be a pseudo-skeptic, so you can knock down a strawman.

---

 If you are making a claim, then the burden is on you to support it.

Yet you and every other theist here seems to fail miserably every single time when asked to produce evidence of the god you believe in. 

He's wrong too of course. For every claim there is the claim that the claim isn't true, and for both the affirmation and negation of all claims... one is the null hypothesis and the other isn't.

Evidence would be required for both positions if one was any more than a claim to the fact that one has the null hypothesis when one indeed does... the point is that if all you're saying is that you have the null hypothesis, and you're right, then the other side needs the evidence.

I'm not saying that because I have the null hypothesis then my position must be correct and the other position must be false because it can't prove that it's right. THAT would be the argument from ignorance. Instead I'm saying that because I have the null hypothesis... I have the null hypothesis... and the opposite position... doesn't.

[Succubus]

That could be, because many are inconsistent on what is evidence, when the subject comes to be about God. If you are insinuations, that theists don’t give reasons and evidence for what they believe, I think you are deluding yourself.

You could fill a spreadsheet with reasons to believe, that doesn’t mean any of them are valid. Evidence for what they believe? You're playing tricksy word games again, 'evidence for what they believe' is not evidence for the existence of the God entity.

[Edwardo Piet]

Yet you and every other theist here seems to fail miserably every single time when asked to produce evidence of the god you believe in. 

That could be, because many are inconsistent on what is evidence, when the subject comes to be about God. If you are insinuations, that theists don’t give reasons and evidence for what they believe, I think you are deluding yourself.

On the contrary, you are literally believing in an entity that is by definition undetectable and entirely outside your experience.... you're believing in something that there CAN'T be any evidence of. But you know that's crazy so you must be self-deceived.

[RoadRunner79]

That could be, because many are inconsistent on what is evidence, when the subject comes to be about God. If you are insinuations, that theists don’t give reasons and evidence for what they believe, I think you are deluding yourself.

What evidence? The incredibly uncompelling arguments that nevertheless provide a lot of leeway for alternative explanations excluding creator deities, when special pleading is controlled for? Personal experiences that are susceptible to biases and misinterpretations and inaccurate memories and selective attention? Abuse/misuse of logic and probabilities? Holding to incredibly naive/outdated notions of metaphysical phenomena, continually ignoring the suggestions of both science and philosophy when it comes to our intuition regarding such phenomena?

If you think that I am ignoring something, please point it out.

---

Seems like semantics to me, and I don’t see where you are not just playing the pseudo-skeptic game. If you are making a claim, then the burden is on you to support it.

Prove that fire-breathing dragons don't exist. ("just semantics" is a cop-out. Literally all disagreement is just semantics)....

I'm not making any more of a claim that God doesn't exist than you are that fire-breathing dragons don't exist. To expect either of us to prove either 'claim' is absurd.

Lol what the fuck is a pseudo-skeptic? Skepticism isn't about absolute denial, or trying to prove a negative, it's about being skeptical. It seems to me that it's you who wants me to be a pseudo-skeptic, so you can knock down a strawman.

I'm not making any claim about fire breathing dragons though....

First you put a question mark, and ask what is a pseudo-skeptic, then you claim it is a straw man... Which is it? Wiki pedia has a good link on the subject, if you are not familiar with it.

[Edwardo Piet]

What evidence? The incredibly uncompelling arguments that nevertheless provide a lot of leeway for alternative explanations excluding creator deities, when special pleading is controlled for? Personal experiences that are susceptible to biases and misinterpretations and inaccurate memories and selective attention? Abuse/misuse of logic and probabilities? Holding to incredibly naive/outdated notions of metaphysical phenomena, continually ignoring the suggestions of both science and philosophy when it comes to our intuition regarding such phenomena?

If you think that I am ignoring something, please point it out.

---

Prove that fire-breathing dragons don't exist. ("just semantics" is a cop-out. Literally all disagreement is just semantics)....

I'm not making any more of a claim that God doesn't exist than you are that fire-breathing dragons don't exist. To expect either of us to prove either 'claim' is absurd.

Lol what the fuck is a pseudo-skeptic? Skepticism isn't about absolute denial, or trying to prove a negative, it's about being skeptical. It seems to me that it's you who wants me to be a pseudo-skeptic, so you can knock down a strawman.

I'm not making any claim about fire breathing dragons though....

That's completely irrelevant. Just because you're not saying you don't believe in them doesn't mean you don't believe in them.

Do you believe they exist or not?

Whether someone is talking about X is irrelevant to the matter of whether they're rational for actually believing or disbelieving in X or not.

First you put a question mark, and ask what is a pseudo-skeptic, then you claim it is a straw man...  Which is it?

The question was rhetorical.

  Wiki pedia has a good link on the subject, if you are not familiar with it.

You're very familiar with it. The point is you're strawmanning me because you're misrepresenting my skepticism as something less reasonable (this so-called pseudo-skepticism) so you can attempt to knock it down.

---

Never saw that article there before:

Truzzi attributed the following characteristics to pseudoskeptics:

1. Denying, when only doubt has been established
2. Double standards in the application of criticism
3. The tendency to discredit rather than investigate
4. Presenting insufficient evidence or proof
5. Assuming criticism requires no burden of proof
6. Making unsubstantiated counter-claims
7. Counter-claims based on plausibility rather than empirical evidence
8. Suggesting that unconvincing evidence provides grounds for completely dismissing a claim

He characterized true skepticism as:

1. Acceptance of doubt when neither assertion nor denial has been established
2. No burden of proof to take an agnostic position
3. Agreement that the corpus of established knowledge must be based on what is proved, but recognising its incompleteness
4. Even-handedness in requirement for proofs, whatever their implication
5. Accepting that a failure of a proof in itself proves nothing
5. Continuing examination of the results of experiments even when flaws are found

It's clear from this that I'm a true skeptic and not a pseudoskeptic.

[RoadRunner79]

If you think that I am ignoring something, please point it out.

---

I'm not making any claim about fire breathing dragons though....

That's completely irrelevant. Just because you're not saying you don't believe in them doesn't mean you don't believe in them.

Do you believe they exist or not?

Whether someone is talking about X is irrelevant to the matter of whether they're rational for actually believing in X or not.

I don't have any reason to believe that fire breathing dragons exist. But I'm not making any statements on the probability that they do exist or spend a lot of time on internet sites arguing that they don't exist either.

First you put a question mark, and ask what is a pseudo-skeptic, then you claim it is a straw man...  Which is it?

The question was rhetorical.

  Wiki pedia has a good link on the subject, if you are not familiar with it.

You're very familiar with it. The point is you're strawmanning me because you're misrepresenting my skepticism as something less reasonable (this so-called pseudo-skepticism) so you can attempt to knock it down.

If you think that my assessment is incorrect.... then why. It seems to me, that you are wanting to make a claim, and not support it (which is what started this thing), and then hide behind skepticism. This would be pseudo-skepticism. The fact that you think I making a straw man, says to me, that you are making an argument thus a claim, and thus cannot hide behind skepticism. Hence, I would say that pseudo-skepticism is not a (so called "straw man"), but an accurate description.

[Edwardo Piet]

I don't have any reason to believe that fire breathing dragons exist.  But I'm not making any statements on the probability that they do exist or spend a lot of time on internet sites arguing that they don't exist either.

So what if you're not making statements about it? You don't think their probability is unknown or 50/50, you think they're improbable, or you're an idiot.

If you think that my assessment is incorrect.... then why.   It seems to me, that you are wanting to make a claim, and not support it (which is what started this thing), and then hide behind skepticism.

I have said repeatedly that I'm not claiming anything, hence why you are misrepresenting me. I'm just saying that theism is improbable for the same reason that fire-breathing dragons are. You believe literally all the other gods are improbable, especially the mythological ones such as Zeus. There are many things that lack evidence that you consider highly improbable, so you're being disingenuous.

  This would be pseudo-skepticism.  The fact that you think I making a straw man, says to me, that you are making an argument thus a claim, and thus cannot hide behind skepticism.

What nonsense. I'm thinking you're making a strawman because you are misrepresenting my position.

 Hence, I would say that pseudo-skepticism is not a (so called "straw man"), but an accurate description.

If I'm guilty of "pseudo skepticism" so are you about fire-breathing dragons and literally all Gods you don't believe in. Who cares what you say is improbable or not, there are many things you believe to be improbable without saying it. So you are simply disingenuous.

It's highly rational to expect there to be evidence for something highly absurd before you believe in it. The absurd is improbable without evidence: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Absence of evidence isn't evidence that something definitely doesn't exist, but when evidence is to be expected for something to be far above 0% probable, then you're simply being irrational by pretending the probability of firebreathing dragons or God is 50/50.

Who cares what anyone claims, the point is that some things are more rational to believe in than others, and some things are more probable than others. You can't claim that I'm making an argument from ignorance if you haven't even defined the God you are claiming I am denying.