To the Anti-Religious

[PureX]

Good to know that you evidence is merely a semantic slight of hand.

You think that the mystery source responsible for all of existence is a "semantic slight of hand?" Then explain to me where energy comes from. Explain why it's able to express itself in some ways, but not in others. And then, explain how you know that these limitations on the way energy behaves have no intended purpose even though it results in a fantastically diversely structured universe.

 

[themadhair]

You think that the mystery source responsible for all of existence is a "semantic slight of hand?" Then explain to me where energy comes from. Explain why it's able to express itself in some ways, but not in others. And then, explain how you know that these limitations on the way energy behaves have no intended purpose even though it results in a fantastically diversely structured universe.

I do have to admire the bare-facedness this argument.

First you will label something that is unknown as ‘god’. You could have called it ‘doggie biscuits’ and accomplished the same thing. By trying to get away with calling it god you are trying to sneak the theological concepts you ascribe to your god in through the back door – all without having to confront the reality that you have no basis for doing so.

So when you get called you then (deliberately) attempt to inaccurately reframe the argument. What that unknown is doesn’t matter here. What does matter is that you cannot achieve any legitimacy for your theology by labelling that unknown ‘god’. But good luck posting those questions that serve only to distract from the blatant sleight of hand I pointed out.

And for reference, you calling something ‘god’ and attaching your theology to it offers absolutely no explanations or answers to the questions you asked. But you probably hoped I wouldn’t notice that.

 

[Dunemeister]

Hi guys!

I'm new here so please be gentle.

Welcome!

So from my skeptical viewpoint I can agree and say - yes, most people are theists - since I have no allegiance to a single version of "god", I can just throw them all in one basket. The christian God is just as untrue to me as Allah or any other god. I can also admit that it's not necessarily irrational for a person to believe in a god. It certainly would be irrational for me to believe in a god, since I've not seen any evidence for one or had a religious experience or anything like that. But I accept that other people have their own minds, their own experiences and their own interpretations. Of course, being rational doesn't equal being right.

Well said.

But isn't it irrational for a "believer" to use this argument, that "most of the world are theists" and therefore "our" claims are valid?

Yes, and that's not what I'm doing. Rather, I'm opposing the claim that theistic belief (well, in my case Christian theistic belief) is not extraordinary. Atheism is extraordinary, at least if raw numbers has anything to say on the matter. It's generally assumed that the theist has the burden of proof, but based on these numbers, it appears to be the opposite. I say these things only to bring some balance to the discussion. It's simply not fair to say of one side that they bear the full burden of proof.

As far as you (any theist) are concearned, most theists are wrong (even if you follow the most widespread religion).

That depends on the specificity with which you take "theist." I think, for instance, that Muslims are right that there is one and only one God. In this, Christians and Muslims agree. I think they are wrong about events concerning Jesus, however, and those events inform my concept of theism. Again, I agree with Deists that a person such as God is responsible for creation. On the other hand, I disagree with them that God is no longer involved in the world. So it's not as if I say all other theists are wrong simpliciter. Rather, I say that to an extent I agree and to an extent I disagree with theists of other stripes.

Unlike a skeptic, you can't throw all religions in one basket, because you know that there is only one true god. You're not all playing for the same team. Following that logic, we can come to a simple conclusion on which we should both agree: (at least) the majority of people who believe in a god are wrong.

With the qualifications made above, I suppose you're right. We can go even further. Everyone's particular understanding of God will differ in some shade from everyone else's. Therefore, everyone will regard everyone else as wrong to some degree or other. I just don't think that this rather banal observation has any momentous consequences.

No matter which religion you follow, you're in the minority. Most people do not believe what you believe. Luckily for you, using "numbers" to prove the validity of your case is never a good idea anyway.

Luckily for me, I'm not using numbers to prove the validity of my case. And also luckily for me, I'm capable of drawing relevant distinctions so as not to unduly prejudice my case (or my opponents').

 

[Kurt31416]

Religion has a long bloody history of persecuting and censoring those it disagrees with. That's the source of a lot of the rational hostility to religion.

 

[Dunemeister]

Pretty much. When you actually come close to addressing that then let me know. What you wrote in no way addressed this. And to attempt the reframing of the situation in the way you are doing is irrational. IIHS is a made up concept from what I can see (feel free to come up with something rational suggesting otherwise that isn’t as circular as your last post).

Your following comments show that you have deeply misunderstood the connection between what you said and what I said. So I'll try again.

Here's your claim:

Christian belief in the virgin birth and the resurrection is irrational because there isn't much evidence for these beliefs and what we know from biology suggests, nay screams out, that such things don't (can't?) happen.

My argument is that Christians, if Christianity is true, have rational sources for belief that don't appeal to physical (or even literary) evidence. So the lack of evidence is not relevant to whether the Christian is rational in holding these beliefs.

Faith (Acquinas' internal instigation of the Holy Spirit or IIHS) is part of that. Thus, faith is a rational process that is aimed at furnishing us with true beliefs about God and, at times, about history. If I know something by this process, and it conflicts with science, so much the worse for science. Or perhaps more charitably, science describes what is usually the case, but by IIHS I can learn about very occasional exceptions, such as virgin birth and resurrection.

In other words, I'm claiming (Christianity claims) that Christians have access to information other than history and logic: faith (IIHS). Faith is a rational process, part of our cognitive establishment designed to issue in true beliefs, that puts us in touch with truths such as the virgin birth and the resurrection. (More accurately, the bible or preaching puts us in touch with these truths, and faith -- IIHS -- reliably provides the true conviction that these things are in fact so.) All I say about this is that it's possible for these Christian beliefs to be warranted (or as we are saying in this thread, rational) if there is such a process.

Therefore, to say that Christianity is irrational is tantamount to saying that it is untrue.

Does this bury the problem? Not at all. It simply shows that Christian beliefs can have warrant apart from evidence. So the Christian need not be concerned that the evidence for the virgin birth or the resurrection isn't very strong (once IIHS is taken out of the equation). Christians might admit that but also say that they have another source of warrant for their beliefs, and therefore they are rational in so believing. To contradict them, the skeptic has to show that Christianity is actually false.

Is it irrational to appeal to IIHS? It's hard to see why. You have asserted that it is, but you haven't argued for it. IIHS is simply part of the Christian theological package. It's a claim about how we can know some of what we think we know. What's wrong with it?

No it doesn’t. The motivation has no bearing on the truth value. But good luck with the irrelevant tangent you decided to attack rather than the central point.

That's not what I said. I said that one's attitude may affect whether one accurately perceives the truth. Take a more mundane example. A man may refuse to heed his friend's warnings about the infidelities of his fiance. The friend patiently lays out the evidence. The friend is normally trustworthy. He has never been known to lie. Yet the man, in the throes of love, disregards this reliable testimony and rejects the evidence. Thus we can see how an emotion might make someone refuse to see the truth. And in fact, isn't this what skeptics and believers frequently say to each other? "You'd believe me if it weren't for <insert emotion that clouds judgment here>."

In this case then you would have to provide me with a defeater for my claimed godliness. This line of reasoning is irrational and I can only wish you good luck with it.

If that were your serious claim, then yes, I'd have to provide you a defeater if I wished to disabuse you of the belief.

 

[Dunemeister]

Why do you hold onto this point as if it has any significance? The number of followers a particular idea or concept has is not in any way indicative of how true it is.

At one point, everyone believed the Earth was flat. Therefore the Earth is flat. That's exactly where your line of reasoning goes into the garbage can.

As I've repeatedly said, I'm not arguing that theism is true because most people believe it. Truth isn't a matter of popularity. Rather, I'm refuting the claim that theistic (or Christian) belief is extraordinary. In terms of statistics, it's atheism that's extraordinary. For whatever that's worth, and it may not be worth much, but then, I didn't bring this issue up first.

 

[Dunemeister]

Really? Do you believe things like the Incarnation or the Resurrection are ordinary human experiences?

Quite the contrary. But for Christian, our conviction of their truth comes via what we consider to be an ordinary experience: the activity of the Holy Spirit.

Non-theism just means not believing in gods. That's it. If I say I'm a non-Christian, you understand that I don't adhere to some belief system called non-Christianity. Saying someone is a non-theist doesn't tell you anything at all about what he believes; it just tells you one type of belief he doesn't believe.

Yes, I realize this.

 

[PureX]

I do have to admire the bare-facedness this argument.

First you will label something that is unknown as ‘god’. You could have called it ‘doggie biscuits’ and accomplished the same thing. By trying to get away with calling it god you are trying to sneak the theological concepts you ascribe to your god in through the back door – all without having to confront the reality that you have no basis for doing so.

Most of the definitions of "God" that I am aware of, throughout human history, include defining god as the creative source and sustenance of all that exists. I didn't make this up. And I am not sneaking anything in any back doors. Nor did I invent the word "God". I am using common terms and definitions, and applying them in the most common way.

So when you get called you then (deliberately) attempt to inaccurately reframe the argument. What that unknown is doesn’t matter here. What does matter is that you cannot achieve any legitimacy for your theology by labelling that unknown ‘god’. But good luck posting those questions that serve only to distract from the blatant sleight of hand I pointed out.

It can't be all that blatant, as I am not seeing any "slight of hand", here. I think the problem is that you didn't understand that for most theists "God" is a word that defines a mystery, not just some "invisible guy in the sky". You were busy poo-pooing the IMAGE that religion gives to the mystery because that was easy for you, and because you weren't running into a lot of theists who were better able to articulate a definition of "God" for you. I assure you I am not just now inventing this definition up, even if it is the first you've heard it.

And for reference, you calling something ‘god’ and attaching your theology to it offers absolutely no explanations or answers to the questions you asked. But you probably hoped I wouldn’t notice that.

I have stated many times, now, that "God" refers mostly to a fundamental mystery. That certainly implies, I would think, that I have no explanations. What I have stated, however, is that this mystery does exist, and although it is a mystery, the questions themselves tend to lead us to contemplate the idea of "God". And this is true. It's also why so many humans throughout history have adopted the concept of "God" as a way of dealing with this most fundamental of mysteries.

It's not my fault that the universe is as it is. It's not my fault that the way the universe is tends to lead our minds in the direction of a concept of "God". All I did is point this out to you. And I do it because I myself can't get around it. This mystery exists. SOMETHING is causing energy to happen, and SOMETHING is controlling the ways in which energy can express itself. Whatever that something is, it fit's the traditional definition of "God" as the creative and sustaining source of all that exists.

The truth is what is. And this is the way it is.

 

[Commoner]

Welcome!

Yes, and that's not what I'm doing. Rather, I'm opposing the claim that theistic belief (well, in my case Christian theistic belief) is extraordinary. Atheism is extraordinary, at least if raw numbers has anything to say on the matter. It's generally assumed that the theist has the burden of proof, but based on these numbers, it appears to be the opposite. I say these things only to bring some balance to the discussion. It's simply not fair to say of one side that they bear the full burden of proof.

Well, from a logical standpoint, it is impossible to prove god does not exist, just as it is impossible to prove invisible pink unicorns don't exist . But I'm sure you understand the concept. Therefore the burden of proof can lie nowhere else, unfair as it may seem.

That depends on the specificity with which you take "theist." I think, for instance, that Muslims are right that there is one and only one God. In this, Christians and Muslims agree. I think they are wrong about events concerning Jesus, however, and those events inform my concept of theism. Again, I agree with Deists that a person such as God is responsible for creation. On the other hand, I disagree with them that God is no longer involved in the world. So it's not as if I say all other theists are wrong simpliciter. Rather, I say that to an extent I agree and to an extent I disagree with theists of other stripes.

Well, is any god good enough to be in your club? How about the devil worshipers? Animists? Is it just the Judeo–Christian religions? Where do you draw the line?

With the qualifications made above, I suppose you're right. We can go even further. Everyone's particular understanding of God will differ in some shade from everyone else's. Therefore, everyone will regard everyone else as wrong to some degree or other. I just don't think that this rather banal observation has any momentous consequences.

Well, yes, but there are some fudamental rules every member of a particular religion must abide by. Unless you want to burn in hell for all eternity, for instance.

I think it's pretty simple to draw the line (again, from an outsiders perspective) - if you would not be willing to follow another religion (or would be unable to because of the constraints of your current religion), you don't belong to the same club. Even republicans and democrats have points of agreement, that doesn't mean they belong to the same party.

 

[themadhair]

My argument is that Christians, if Christianity is true, have rational sources for belief that don't appeal to physical (or even literary) evidence. So the lack of evidence is not relevant to whether the Christian is rational in holding these beliefs.

Actually I never noticed this before. Essentially you expressed the sentiment that sceptics have to assume the falsity of Christianity in order to argue it is irrational. What you seem to have been doing is projecting. In order for you to argue Christianity is rational you have to assumed it is true to begin with!

Thus, faith is a rational process that is aimed at furnishing us with true beliefs about God and, at times, about history.

So in order to have true beliefs about god you have to faith in true beliefs about god. As I said – irrational.

If I know something by this process, and it conflicts with science, so much the worse for science.

Given that science is inherently concerned with testable propositions and providing evidence for those propositions I can only conclude your stance is irrational.

Therefore, to say that Christianity is irrational is tantamount to saying that it is untrue.

The truth is that I haven’t misunderstood anything you have written. What you wrote was simply irrational. Of course I must admire the notion you are forwarding here, that somehow having faith in something affects the rationality of a given proposition.

Does this bury the problem?

In your last post you have highlighted the problem and place giant flashing neon lights marking out where precisely the irrationality comes in.

It simply shows that Christian beliefs can have warrant apart from evidence.

You used this strawman again so I’ll clarify. Having no evidence for a given proposition doesn’t make that proposition irrational. But having no evidence, with plenty of evidence arguing against the proposition (biology for example), does make it irrational.

So the Christian need not be concerned that the evidence for the virgin birth or the resurrection isn't very strong (once IIHS is taken out of the equation).

Every piece of relevant evidence that comes from the analysis of human anatomy and reproductive processes argues strongly against this. Please stop ignoring this fact.

To contradict them, the skeptic has to show that Christianity is actually false.

To contradict any claim you have to falsify it? Presenting evidence against it, while noting the utter lack of evidence for it, isn’t sufficient? Well then my claimed godliness must be rational then.

Is it irrational to appeal to IIHS? It's hard to see why. You have asserted that it is, but you haven't argued for it.

You see I am god. And people know this because they have ‘knowingness’. This is the concept where people know the truth of my godliness and it is simply part of my theological existence. Bascially ‘knowingness’ is as rational as ‘IIHS’ – i.e. not very. Introducing additional irrational concepts don’t help your argument.

What's wrong with it?

What’s wrong with ‘knowingness’? Clearly you do not worship me so you must have a reason to reject it?

That's not what I said. I said that one's attitude may affect whether one accurately perceives the truth.

Given the above it appears you seem to flip between this attitude (which is rational) and the what I’ve addressed above (which isn’t rational).

If that were your serious claim, then yes, I'd have to provide you a defeater if I wished to disabuse you of the belief.

And you don’t think that my made up theology is as disprovable and as irrational as your theology is a problem?

 

[Dunemeister]

Well, from a logical standpoint, it is impossible to prove god does not exist, just as it is impossible to prove invisible pink unicorns don't exist . But I'm sure you understand the concept. Therefore the burden of proof can lie nowhere else, unfair as it may seem.

The point is that the Christian, if he's right, has a means of knowing Christian truths without appeal to the normal run of evidence. So if the skeptic wants to disabuse the Christian of his Christian notions, he'll have to show that Christianity is not true (or is unlikely even by Christian lights). Skeptics frequently deploy the problem of evil for this purpose. It's not a great argument (IMHO), but at least it's an argument.

Well, is any god good enough to be in your club? How about the devil worshipers? Animists? Is it just the Judeo&#8211;Christian religions? Where do you draw the line?

Asked and answered, at least by implication. I've said is that Christianity provides the materials to account for how we might come to know certain of its tenets.

Well, yes, but there are some fudamental rules every member of a particular religion must abide by. Unless you want to burn in hell for all eternity, for instance.

Yes, but these aren't epistemological rules, and those are what at issue in this particular discussion. But for giggles, let's go where you're going. The question is which doctrines are indeed divine. Taking scripture as our guide, it is sometimes not easy to say. That's not to say, though, that there's no way of proceeding. We usually have those debates in the form of biblical commentary. Of course, different commentators say different things. But you'll find that there are large areas of agreements among those who call themselves Christian. The creeds, for instance, are generally agreed by almost all Christians (who follow the historic faith -- restorationist churches tend to demur).

I think it's pretty simple to draw the line (again, from an outsiders perspective) - if you would not be willing to follow another religion (or would be unable to because of the constraints of your current religion), you don't belong to the same club. Even republicans and democrats have points of agreement, that doesn't mean they belong to the same party.

Christians do this similarly. See my previous comment.

 

[themadhair]

Most of the definitions of "God" that I am aware of, throughout human history, include defining god as the creative source and sustenance of all that exists.

Defining a concept doesn’t make that concept true. Defining a concept doesn’t make that definition applicable to reality. Defining a concept does not give it legitimacy. I can’t be any clearer than this.

I am using common terms and definitions, and applying them in the most common way.

You are taking a theological definition and applying it to an unknown. That doesn’t make that unknown known and it does not make that unknown conform to the qualities of your definition. That many people have done this throughout history does not render the practice correct.

It can't be all that blatant, as I am not seeing any "slight of hand", here. I think the problem is that you didn't understand that for most theists "God" is a word that defines a mystery, not just some "invisible guy in the sky".

I never made any comment regarding what you personally ascribed to your particular idea of god. I merely pointed out that by using your idea of god as a descriptor to an unknown is a means for you to apply the qualities of your god to that unknown. If you were really serious about this then you wouldn’t be applying a definition of god to an unknown, rather you would be using that unknown as the definition for your god.

You were busy poo-pooing the IMAGE that religion gives to the mystery because that was easy for you, and because you weren't running into a lot of theists who were better able to articulate a definition of "God" for you. I assure you I am not just now inventing this definition up, even if it is the first you've heard it.

The problem you have here is that your own words betray you. You said “ That mystery exists, and it's label is "God". That is our evidence. ” So while your little rant may make you feel better, it is contradicted by your own admission that you use the mystery as evidence for your particular idea of what you consider god to be. But, as noted above, simply sticking your definition on an unknown doesn’t it so.

What I have stated, however, is that this mystery does exist, and although it is a mystery, the questions themselves tend to lead us to contemplate the idea of "God".

This seems to be presupposing a concept of god.

It's also why so many humans throughout history have adopted the concept of "God" as a way of dealing with this most fundamental of mysteries.

I’ll issue a supposition that ‘god’ was a way of avoiding having to confront unknowns.

SOMETHING is causing energy to happen, and SOMETHING is controlling the ways in which energy can express itself. Whatever that something is, it fit's the traditional definition of "God" as the creative and sustaining source of all that exists.

And again you are simply trying to apply your definition of god to an unknown with no reason for doing so, and then taking this as evidence for that definition. If you really wonder about unknowns then why do you try and define them away?

 

[PureX]

Defining a concept doesn&#8217;t make that concept true. Defining a concept doesn&#8217;t make that definition applicable to reality. Defining a concept does not give it legitimacy. I can&#8217;t be any clearer than this.

And yet I see no opposing argument, here.

You are taking a theological definition and applying it to an unknown. That doesn&#8217;t make that unknown known and it does not make that unknown conform to the qualities of your definition. That many people have done this throughout history does not render the practice correct.

You have it backwards. I am not applying anything to anything. People throughout the centuries have extrapolated their theological definitions from their experience of existence. They didn't just recently invent the idea that God is a mystery. They define God as a mystery because that's their experience of existence. Always has been, and still is. This is not MY definition. It's simply the human experience. All I'm doing is reminding us that "God" was the ORIGINAL term for this fundamental mystery.

I never made any comment regarding what you personally ascribed to your particular idea of god. I merely pointed out that by using your idea of god as a descriptor to an unknown is a means for you to apply the qualities of your god to that unknown. If you were really serious about this then you wouldn&#8217;t be applying a definition of god to an unknown, rather you would be using that unknown as the definition for your god.

I am. But the unknown isn't totally unknown. The questions have a form based on our experience of the mystery of being. And it's from this that I derive my "theology".

The problem you have here is that your own words betray you. You said &#8220; That mystery exists, and it's label is "God". That is our evidence. &#8221; So while your little rant may make you feel better, it is contradicted by your own admission that you use the mystery as evidence for your particular idea of what you consider god to be. But, as noted above, simply sticking your definition on an unknown doesn&#8217;t it so.

The mystery exists. The term "God" is an age-old label for that mystery. It is a current label, too. You can't make that go away. Neither can I.

Just because I can't describe or define God much beyond saying that "God" is the divine mystery source and sustenance of all that exists, doesn't mean that anything I said is untrue. In fact, every word is true. Reason suggests that there IS a mystery source and sustenance of all that exists. "God" is the traditional word we've used to refer to this mystery. And reason dictates that this mystery source could have a purpose, which implies intelligence or agency of some kind. This is all true whether you like it or not. And it's because it's all true that so many human beings have adopted such similar definitions and models for this mystery over the centuries.

I&#8217;ll issue a supposition that &#8216;god&#8217; was a way of avoiding having to confront unknowns.

Avoidance is a way of dealing with it, too. Not a heroic way, necessarily, but one that often works.

And again you are simply trying to apply your definition of god to an unknown with no reason for doing so, ...

And again, this is not my definition of "God", but a universal definition. And the reason I am "applying it" to this mystery is because this is where IT COMES FROM.

If you really wonder about unknowns then why do you try and define them away?

We humans survive and thrive by our ability to understand how the world around us works. Ignorance represents danger, for us.

 

[Smoke]

It's simply not fair to say of one side that they bear the full burden of proof.

Of course it is. The person making the claim bears the burden of proof. If I say that I have evidence of leprechauns, it's up to me to produce it or have my claim disregarded. If you say you have evidence of god, it's up to you to produce it.

Luckily for me, I'm not using numbers to prove the validity of my case.

That's exactly what you've been doing, and at some length.

 

[Smoke]

Christian belief in the virgin birth and the resurrection is irrational because there isn't much evidence for these beliefs and what we know from biology suggests, nay screams out, that such things don't (can't?) happen.

My argument is that Christians, if Christianity is true, have rational sources for belief that don't appeal to physical (or even literary) evidence. So the lack of evidence is not relevant to whether the Christian is rational in holding these beliefs.

Faith (Acquinas' internal instigation of the Holy Spirit or IIHS) is part of that. Thus, faith is a rational process that is aimed at furnishing us with true beliefs about God and, at times, about history. If I know something by this process, and it conflicts with science, so much the worse for science. Or perhaps more charitably, science describes what is usually the case, but by IIHS I can learn about very occasional exceptions, such as virgin birth and resurrection.

In other words, I'm claiming (Christianity claims) that Christians have access to information other than history and logic: faith (IIHS). Faith is a rational process, part of our cognitive establishment designed to issue in true beliefs, that puts us in touch with truths such as the virgin birth and the resurrection. (More accurately, the bible or preaching puts us in touch with these truths, and faith -- IIHS -- reliably provides the true conviction that these things are in fact so.) All I say about this is that it's possible for these Christian beliefs to be warranted (or as we are saying in this thread, rational) if there is such a process.

Therefore, to say that Christianity is irrational is tantamount to saying that it is untrue.

Does this bury the problem? Not at all. It simply shows that Christian beliefs can have warrant apart from evidence. So the Christian need not be concerned that the evidence for the virgin birth or the resurrection isn't very strong (once IIHS is taken out of the equation). Christians might admit that but also say that they have another source of warrant for their beliefs, and therefore they are rational in so believing. To contradict them, the skeptic has to show that Christianity is actually false.

Is it irrational to appeal to IIHS? It's hard to see why. You have asserted that it is, but you haven't argued for it. IIHS is simply part of the Christian theological package. It's a claim about how we can know some of what we think we know. What's wrong with it?

IIHS is completely irrational. You have no way of knowing that your inner hunches do in fact result from the instigation of the Holy Spirit. You are saying, in effect, that the evidence for your belief is the fact that you believe it, and that amounts to no evidence at all.

Further, you talk about the near-universality of theism and the things theists have in common, but obviously the "evidence" all these theists might have does not result from the instigation of the Holy Spirit. That is, not unless the Holy Spirit is a kind of trickster god, telling you one thing about Jesus and telling Muslims something completely contradictory.

That's not what I said. I said that one's attitude may affect whether one accurately perceives the truth. Take a more mundane example. A man may refuse to heed his friend's warnings about the infidelities of his fiance. The friend patiently lays out the evidence. The friend is normally trustworthy. He has never been known to lie. Yet the man, in the throes of love, disregards this reliable testimony and rejects the evidence. Thus we can see how an emotion might make someone refuse to see the truth.

But in this story, the friend is able to lay out the evidence. The theist can do no such thing. The theist is asking us to believe on the basis of no evidence whatsoever -- or, in your case, claiming that the mere fact he believes it is evidence.

As I've repeatedly said, I'm not arguing that theism is true because most people believe it. Truth isn't a matter of popularity. Rather, I'm refuting the claim that theistic (or Christian) belief is extraordinary. In terms of statistics, it's atheism that's extraordinary.

Ah. In that case you're refuting a claim I haven't made, and have explicitly said I was not making. That's not what I meant by Christian claims being extraordinary, and I said so explicitly.

 

[Smoke]

The problem you have here is that your own words betray you. You said “ That mystery exists, and it's label is "God". That is our evidence. ” So while your little rant may make you feel better, it is contradicted by your own admission that you use the mystery as evidence for your particular idea of what you consider god to be. But, as noted above, simply sticking your definition on an unknown doesn’t it so.

I think you could have gone farther. If they apply their definition of god to the unknown, they are claiming that the unknown is in fact known -- and the whole argument evaporates.

 

[PureX]

I think you could have gone farther. If they apply their definition of god to the unknown, they are claiming that the unknown is in fact known -- and the whole argument evaporates.

How so? It's quite possible to know that we don't know something without knowing exactly what it is that we don't know. You seem to be implying that we can't know that we don't know something. Yet we all know that there is much we don't know.

If one were to label what they don't know, "the divine mystery", how would that proposition "evaporate"?

 

[Dunemeister]

Of course it is. The person making the claim bears the burden of proof. If I say that I have evidence of leprechauns, it's up to me to produce it or have my claim disregarded. If you say you have evidence of god, it's up to you to produce it.

And if you claim that there is no god(s), you share some burden of proof given the fact that very few people share that view. It's extraordinary.

That's exactly what you've been doing, and at some length.

No. The original claim was that theists make extraordinary claims, such as there is such a person as God. This claim is supposed to underwrite the further claim that theists share a disproportionate burden of proof. (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs.) My counter to that claim is to observe that (by a wide margin) most people throughout history and contemporarily believe in God and in his activity in their lives and/or in history. Those who deny this are in the puny minority. I argued from this, not that theism is true (or atheism false), but that atheism is in fact the extraordinary view. Thus, if the extraordinariness of the claim entails a burden of proof (something my opponent said, not me), atheists share a (relatively heavy) burden of proof to demonstrate that their position is superior to theism. The skeptic, in short, is in no intellectual or dialectical position to simply sit back and wait for the theist to provide an argument, idly remaining smug in their skepticism. The skeptic owes us one, too.

 

[dogsgod]

And if you claim that there is no god(s), you share some burden of proof given the fact that very few people share that view. It's extraordinary.

Claims presented without evidence can be legitimately dismissed without evidence. Those making the positive claim such as those claiming that the ancient invisible gods actually do exist in reality must share in the burden of proof.

No. The original claim was that theists make extraordinary claims, such as there is such a person as God. This claim is supposed to underwrite the further claim that theists share a disproportionate burden of proof. (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs.) My counter to that claim is to observe that (by a wide margin) most people throughout history and contemporarily believe in God and in his activity in their lives and/or in history. Those who deny this are in the puny minority. I argued from this, not that theism is true (or atheism false), but that atheism is in fact the extraordinary view. Thus, if the extraordinariness of the claim entails a burden of proof (something my opponent said, not me), atheists share a (relatively heavy) burden of proof to demonstrate that their position is superior to theism. The skeptic, in short, is in no intellectual or dialectical position to simply sit back and wait for the theist to provide an argument, idly remaining smug in their skepticism. The skeptic owes us one, too.

The bandwagon fallacy. No amount of believers can make something true just by believing. Most of civilization believed the earth was flat for thousands of years, it didn't make it true. Most then believed the sun orbited about the earth, again the majority were wrong.

 

[Amill]

Thus, if the extraordinariness of the claim entails a burden of proof (something my opponent said, not me), atheists share a (relatively heavy) burden of proof to demonstrate that their position is superior to theism. The skeptic, in short, is in no intellectual or dialectical position to simply sit back and wait for the theist to provide an argument, idly remaining smug in their skepticism. The skeptic owes us one, too.

What exactly are we supposed to get proof for? All skepticism suggests is that one should have compelling evidence that can be seen by all, before making any claims. There's no actual claims being made solely by categorizing oneself an atheist, or a skeptic. But if you want evidence for why skepticism is a superior quality, all one needs to do is to mention Hitler,the occult, and the idea that jews were an inferior race. Surely one can see the use of skepticism in this case. There's the evidence you requested.

Or how about the Native Americans and "manifest destiny". A skeptic would question why God would want human beings to have their land and their lives taken, just for the pleasure of some.