Christianity and the Burden of Proof

[zippy2006]

I'm reading this dialogue with great interest the idea of "negation/rejection = belief" is a commonly held thought among theists and seems to be difficult to break free from this type of thinking. It's a fundamental logical flaw and I don't understand it. I'm kinda hoping there is a way to assist in understanding. I thought the coin toss example would be clear but alas..

Negative beliefs are beliefs just as much as positive beliefs. There is no reason to say otherwise, unless you have an agenda. Here's a set of negative beliefs:

• Michael Jordan is not a white man.
• God is not finite.
• Mermaids do not exist.
• There is not any reason to believe in the existence of unicorns.

All of these claims are negative, they are "not claims," they are predicating the negation or non-existence of something. All of them are also beliefs. This shouldn't be so hard.

Furthermore, as I have argued thoroughly in this thread, the atheist who "doesn't believe in God" rests this statement on the "negative" claim, "God is not worthy of belief."

 

[AV1611VET]

We don't think with our hearts, we think with our brains.

Proverbs 23:7a For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he:

 

[AV1611VET]

Is there accompanying text to go along with your unhelpful emoji?

Yes.

Dear Lord Jesus, open this man's eyes that he may see the truth of the Gospel and accept your Son Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour before it's eternally too late.

In Christ's name I pray, amen.

 

[zippy2006]

I'm still holding out that he's not a native English speaker. It at least gives him some ethical leeway in all the semantic gymnastics.

Strike one, strike two, strike three. If you answered any of them the silly game you are playing would be up--the sophistical game that began when you claimed to dispute 13 commonsensical propositions. When you begin with sophistry, you inevitably end in absurdity.

 

[HitchSlap]

And we could come up with 1,000,000 scenarios to refute each claim, couldn't we?

Anything to insure the burden of proof is on Christianity, I suppose.

But when it's all said and done, God is not going to accept anyone claiming it could have been a false label, or they didn't know if they were odd or even ... or any of the other 999,998 excuses.

And if God isn't going to buy it, I'm not either.

My version of Christianity includes a gullibility test. Goes something like this: Arrives at Pearly Gates and St. Peter asks if you believed in any deities, supernatural or otherwise? I reply, 'nah,' those things are for wish thinkers. Pete replies, 'you pass,' enter into heaven, live music's on the right, bar's on the left!

 

[bhsmte]

Negative beliefs are beliefs just as much as positive beliefs. There is no reason to say otherwise, unless you have an agenda. Here's a set of negative beliefs:

• Michael Jordan is not a white man.
• God is not finite.
• Mermaids do not exist.
• There is not any reason to believe in the existence of unicorns.

All of these claims are negative, they are "not claims," they are predicating the negation or non-existence of something. All of them are also beliefs. This shouldn't be so hard.

Furthermore, as I have argued thoroughly in this thread, the atheist who "doesn't believe in God" rests this statement on the "negative" claim, "God is not worthy of belief."

Depending one's psychological makeup, some people dont believe in things, because they dont see any logical reason or evidence to believe they exist. People with a different type of psyche, may believe in things because the belief simply brings comfort and evidence is not important.

 

[HitchSlap]

Strike one, strike two, strike three. If you answered any of them the silly game you are playing would be up--the sophistical game that began when you claimed to dispute 13 commonsensical propositions. When you begin with sophistry, you inevitably end in absurdity.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

So my couch is an atheist? Not to mention all mathematical and other abstract objects? My cat is an atheist. Not to mention all babies. Even those claiming to be agnostics now, on your definition, become atheists.

This paragraph in no way addresses anything I wrote. Either you've misunderstood what I've written or you're being intentionally obtuse.

This may be news to you, but inanimate objects like couches don't have the capacity to believe or not believe anything.

Cats and babies lack the ability to understand claims, so they're not in a position to either believe or not believe either.

And none of this addresses the fact that the burden of proof falls to the person making an acutal claim anyway.

See the difference? And why educated people don't waste their money on books by New Atheists.

I see that you seem to have missed the point. I also see that the term "New Atheist" is quite silly, since a disbelief in theistic claims 200 years ago is the exact same as a disbelief in theistic claims today. No need for the word "new" to be added to it, unless it's meant as a slur, which of course would be childish to do.

However i do recommend J. H. Sobel, Graham Oppy, Michael Ruse, Antony Flew, and Quinten Smith to my atheist friends. They do an excellent job defending the positive claim of atheism while joining me calling New Atheists philosophically naïve.

I prefer books that deal with actual Philosophy. And I see that since you're still mistakenly saying that atheists are making a positive statement, you really haven't understood what I've written.

Let me try again:

The phrase "I disbelieve theistic claims" unpacks to "For anyone I've heard so far making a theist claim, either the lack of evidence in the claim or the unconvincing or fallacious nature of the evidence in the claim does not lead me to believe that the claim is true."

This is a disbelief of a claim of an existent god. Whether or not a god is actually existent is not expressed in my disbelief in the claim. My disbelief isn't a claim that a god doesn't exist, it merely says that the case for the claim was not sufficiently made.

Do you understand now?

 

[HitchSlap]

Yes.

Dear Lord Jesus, open this man's eyes that he may see the truth of the Gospel and accept your Son Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour before it's eternally too late.

In Christ's name I pray, amen.

 

[zippy2006]

Let's do a test to see if you believe "(consciously) not believing something" has a burden of proof, or at the very least, a requirement of justification:

Depending one's psychological makeup, some people dont believe in things,

Does the statement, "some people don't believe in things" need justification?

...because...

This word is the first clue that you think it does need justification.

...because they dont see any logical reason or evidence to believe they exist.

And voila! The justification for the belief is presented. The person has looked around and has not found any evidence. Therefore they don't believe in the thing. It seems that you agree that it is a belief that requires justification.

 

[zippy2006]

In my imagination you were younger.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

Yes.

Dear Lord Jesus, open this man's eyes that he may see the truth of the Gospel and accept your Son Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour before it's eternally too late.

In Christ's name I pray, amen.

Not exactly apologetics. Do you have any of that?

 

[ToddNotTodd]

Lol. I've finally realized that some people will stubbornly argue about anything, and no amount of logic will change their minds.

 

[Uber Genius]

This paragraph in no way addresses anything I wrote. Either you've misunderstood what I've written or you're being intentionally obtuse.

This may be news to you, but inanimate objects like couches don't have the capacity to believe or not believe anything.

Cats and babies lack the ability to understand claims, so they're not in a position to either believe or not believe either.

And none of this addresses the fact that the burden of proof falls to the person making an acutal claim anyway.



I see that you seem to have missed the point. I also see that the term "New Atheist" is quite silly, since a disbelief in theistic claims 200 years ago is the exact same as a disbelief in theistic claims today. No need for the word "new" to be added to it, unless it's meant as a slur, which of course would be childish to do.



I prefer books that deal with actual Philosophy. And I see that since you're still mistakenly saying that atheists are making a positive statement, you really haven't understood what I've written.

Let me try again:

The phrase "I disbelieve theistic claims" unpacks to "For anyone I've heard so far making a theist claim, either the lack of evidence in the claim or the unconvincing or fallacious nature of the evidence in the claim does not lead me to believe that the claim is true."

This is a disbelief of a claim of an existent god. Whether or not a god is actually existent is not expressed in my disbelief in the claim. My disbelief isn't a claim that a god doesn't exist, it merely says that the case for the claim was not sufficiently made.

Do you understand now?

Let's try again

You seem to have not had the benefit of philosophy as you are using your "disbelief" as an equivocation in order to avoid defending (justifying your belief).

Atheists have an epistemic duty to justify the claim, "there is no God," just as theists have the duty to justify their claim that there is a God."

No tricks.

"If an atheist says I disbelieve theistic claims," was what you said and I quoted and responded to.

Why misrepresent yourself? It is in print!

Obviously an atheist doesn't think that theistic claims are believable (that is a tautology)!

Nice red herring BTW. Point is who has the burden to justify claims. Philosophers recognize that to go from beliefs to knowledge one must JUSTIFY ones claims with evidence. There is no special pleading for atheists.

Not believing theistic claims entails every other being (including abstract objects, especially for platonists), e.g. Pets and Babies and chairs. This is why atheist philosophers hate Richard Dawkins and his ilk because they are tantamount to Ken Ham representing christians in the area of science.

Here is a link to propositional equivalences and truth tables that will help you understand that by double-negation you have created the equivalent (logically that is ) statement.

The less educated will mis the rhetorical trick by reversing your positive claim to a negative. But any first-year college student with a philosophy 101 class will see right through the tricks.

I just gave you a laundry list of the brightest atheists of the last 75 years with great arguments in them. Don't be lazy, use good arguments to defend atheism!

 

[zippy2006]

Lol. I've finally realized that some people will stubbornly argue about anything, and no amount of logic will change their minds.

How true! And it doesn't take much effort to see it.

To quote an atheist:

The second problem is bias. Despite loud claims to be rational, objective and focused on evidence, when it comes to history the New Atheists seem happy to accept any interpretation that puts religion in the worst possible light without question. And their followers don't simply do this but also resist and reject any correction to their pseudo historical fairy tales as "revisionism" or "apologism". Confirmation bias is a powerful force and hard for even objective historians to resist. The New Atheist acolytes seem to have no inclination to do even try.

This leads them into some very weird positions for people who claim to be rationalists. Ideas that historians rejected long ago, such as the "Conflict Thesis" regarding the historical relationship between science and religion, are accepted without question by many New Atheists. Hoary theories and pseudo historical ideas dating back to Gibbon and Voltaire are embraced as truths. Old time Protestant anti-Catholic canards about the Papacy and the Bible, ironically, live and thrive. And crackpot fringe theories about Jesus are embraced while the scholarly consensus is derided. These "rationalists" behave very much like the Creationists and fundamentalists they scorn.
​

This also explains why no atheist is willing to correct a fellow atheist, even when they assail common sense directly. Excepting, I suppose, the honorable atheist who wrote the quote above. His distinction between old and new atheists is apropos.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

Let's try again

Atheists have an epistemic duty to justify the claim, "there is no God," just as theists have the duty to justify their claim that there is a God."

It seems like you're not reading for comprehension.

Have I ever claimed "There is no god"? No, I have not. So your entire argument is a strawman.

Once again, saying "I disbelieve theistic claims" is not saying "I believe there is no god". That's simple logic. If you go back and read what I wrote, carefully, you might understand.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

How true! And it doesn't take much effort to see it.

To quote an atheist:

The second problem is bias. Despite loud claims to be rational, objective and focused on evidence, when it comes to history the New Atheists seem happy to accept any interpretation that puts religion in the worst possible light without question. And their followers don't simply do this but also resist and reject any correction to their pseudo historical fairy tales as "revisionism" or "apologism". Confirmation bias is a powerful force and hard for even objective historians to resist. The New Atheist acolytes seem to have no inclination to do even try.

This leads them into some very weird positions for people who claim to be rationalists. Ideas that historians rejected long ago, such as the "Conflict Thesis" regarding the historical relationship between science and religion, are accepted without question by many New Atheists. Hoary theories and pseudo historical ideas dating back to Gibbon and Voltaire are embraced as truths. Old time Protestant anti-Catholic canards about the Papacy and the Bible, ironically, live and thrive. And crackpot fringe theories about Jesus are embraced while the scholarly consensus is derided. These "rationalists" behave very much like the Creationists and fundamentalists they scorn.​

Like I've said earlier, the term "New Atheist" is silly and meaningless.

This also explains why no atheist is willing to correct a fellow atheist...

Demonstrably false. In fact, I tend to see Christians clam up when one of their own spouts something that I know they don't agree with. I of course would never be so ridiculous as to say that no Christian corrects a fellow Christian, but I do see it often...

 

[zippy2006]

Like I've said earlier, the term "New Atheist" is silly and meaningless.

Not at all. Old atheists such as Nietzsche, Feuerbach, Marx, Sartre, and Freud were contentful atheists who understood theism. Those are the two diving lines between Old and New Atheists: content and understanding. The New Atheist hides in his skepticism, repeating the same tired claim that "There is no evidence for God." He makes no substantial contribution to any field of knowledge, and this is because he has no fundamental understanding of the theistic foundations he desires to undermine. Indeed, New Atheists are only shades and shadows of Old Atheists insofar as they don't even have a deep understanding of theism. Old Atheists understood the roots, altered them, and brought up new plants: Nihilism, Historical Materialism, Communism, Existentialism, Phenomenology, Psychology, etc.

New Atheism bears no fruit. It would be characteristic of a New Atheist to dispute that 2 + 2 = 4 rather than to own up to a theistic argument. The difference between Old and New Atheism is night and day.

 

[HitchSlap]

Let's try again

You seem to have not had the benefit of philosophy as you are using your "disbelief" as an equivocation in order to avoid defending (justifying your belief).

Atheists have an epistemic duty to justify the claim, "there is no God," just as theists have the duty to justify their claim that there is a God."

Fine, there is no evidence for the god/s existence.

How's that?

 

[HitchSlap]

Not at all. Old atheists such as Nietzsche, Feuerbach, Marx, Sartre, and Freud were contentful atheists who understood theism. Those are the two diving lines between Old and New Atheists: content and understanding. The New Atheist hides in his skepticism, repeating the same tired claim that "There is no evidence for God." He makes no substantial contribution to any field of knowledge, and this is because he has no fundamental understanding of the theistic foundations he desires to undermine. Indeed, New Atheists are only shades and shadows of Old Atheists insofar as they don't even have a deep understanding of theism. Old Atheists understood the roots, altered them, and brought up new plants: Nihilism, Historical Materialism, Communism, Existentialism, Phenomenology, Psychology, etc.

New Atheism bears no fruit. It would be characteristic of a New Atheist to dispute that 2 + 2 = 4 rather than to own up to a theistic argument. The difference between Old and New Atheism is night and day.

lol right, because there is zero evidence for the "old" god/s, much less the "new" god/s.