Why "God does not exist" is a positive claim

[McBell]

There is no such thing as a "burden of proof". Proof is an individually subjective determination based on individual, subjective criteria. No one of us can logically be expected to concede to such a demand from any others of us, nor to be expected to meet it.

So please, let's stop with the "burden of proof" nonsense.

What is being wrongly labeled as a "burden of proof" is a responsibility to offer one's justifications for whatever truth assertion they are proposing.

But justifications are not proof. So please stop demanding proof, expecting proof, and then whining negation when you don't get it.

Now watch everyone ignore this as usual.

Unfortunately for you, the term "burden of proof" is a well defined term that you are trying in vain to ignore.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Unfortunately for you, the term "burden of proof" is a well defined term that you are trying in vain to ignore.

Yeah, but a defined term is not the same as a fact.

 

[McBell]

Yeah, but a defined term is not the same as a fact.

um...
So what?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

um...
So what?

So it is not a fact, that anybody has to meet a burden of proof. It is a norm and there is no objective universal standard for proof.

 

[PureX]

A burden of proof is in philosophical argumentation. You should understand that. Not by default which is called epistemic injustice. Do you understand?

It’s a nonsensical term that only serves to mislead everyone that is foolish enough to take it seriously. And the only reason we can’t get rid of it is that we humans just love to play the “Kangaroo Judge” over everyone else’s ideas of truth and reality.

 

[ratiocinator]

What is being wrongly labeled as a "burden of proof" is a responsibility to offer one's justifications for whatever truth assertion they are proposing.

That's actually what 'burden of proof' does mean. I agree that the name is an unfortunate misnomer, but it's firmly stuck in the relevant literature, so it's best to get used to it, rather than have a strop about it when people use it.

It's far from the only example of a technical term that doesn't really mean quite what it says, it even happens in mathematics. Things get misnamed for historical reasons and the name sticks.

It happens.

Learn to live with it.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

That's actually what 'burden of proof' does mean. I agree that the name is an unfortunate misnomer, but it's firmly stuck in the relevant literature, so it's best to get used to it, rather than have a strop about it when people use it.

It's far from the only example of a technical term that doesn't really mean quite what it says, it even happens in mathematics. Things get misnamed for historical reasons and the name sticks.

It happens.

Learn to live with it.

Well, the joke is that then the justifications have to be valid, rational, reasonable and/or what not.
In philosophical terms we still live with in effect the postive idea of the truth.

 

[PureX]

Well said. I notice most theists seem to believe that their belief in a God carries some significance in itself, as if they are somehow beyond reproach.

But that’s what ‘belief’ is … that blind presumption that what we ‘believe’ to be true IS TRUE. Not that it is maybe true, or that we might be wrong About it being true. To ‘believe’ is to believe that we are right.

They also seem to believe the prevalence of religious belief somehow verifies and validates any belief in God, and that any skeptic is missing something. What is this thing skeptics are missing? The gullibility that social pressure acts upon. No believer has made a rational conclusion that a God exists via the evidence. They end up believing due to how the humamn brain evolved, and the social influence to adopt one religious framework or another. There's a reason why religions are geographical, and tied to cultural evolution.

Many theists believe that God is a given, and that atheists have to prove this popular social idea isn't true. It's a huge error. Believers are the claimant, where's their evidence that any of the many thousands of Gods exist outside of human imagination?

 

[PureX]

Unfortunately for you, the term "burden of proof" is a well defined term that you are trying in vain to ignore.

I am very clearly and deliberately NOT ignoring it. I am pointing out that it is a stupid and illogical demand that many people will not let go of because it serves their bias rather than their serving logic, or honesty.

 

[PureX]

That's actually what 'burden of proof' does mean. I agree that the name is an unfortunate misnomer, but it's firmly stuck in the relevant literature, so it's best to get used to it, rather than have a strop about it when people use it.

It's far from the only example of a technical term that doesn't really mean quite what it says, it even happens in mathematics. Things get misnamed for historical reasons and the name sticks.

It happens.

Learn to live with it.

I’m not going to “get used to” a term being used to deliberately or inadvertently crash a discussion or debate just because we’re too lazy, stupid, or dishonest to be bothered to recognize it’s fundamental irrationality. Are we really incapable of acknowledging deceptively inarticulate language, and then stop using it? Or if we do use it, can’t we do so knowing and admitting that it’s deceptively inarticulate?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

"God does not exist" is a positive claim because it asserts a specific proposition about the nature of reality

"God does not exist" is a positive assertion and a negation of the positive assertion that a god or gods do exist.

I dispute that assertion. It would entail that pretty much every supernatural thing is actually natural and essentially empty the category of supernatural things. I don't find that to be an useful approach.

I do. The concept of supernaturalism is incoherent. Everything that exists and is able to interact with other existing things is part of nature. If there are islands of reality causally disconnected from nature - other natures - claims of their existence or nonexistence are unfalsifiable and they are irrelevant to us.

So what. People want lots of things for us and from us that we don't want to oblige. Does our not wanting to oblige them mean they shouldn't want what they want?

He wrote, "far too often they want their beliefs to apply to everybody else." So what? He described an enemy, somebody who wants to curtail my freedoms and degrade my life. Such people need to be kept in check.

we humans just love to play the “Kangaroo Judge” over everyone else’s ideas of truth and reality.

Who does that more than you? You're doing it now.

Polytheist theology is so divergent from classical monotheism that I might as well be an atheist to most in English-speaking countries.

I classify you as an atheist. I don't consider your beliefs different from my own just because you give aspects of nature names or personalities. One benefit of my years on RF has been to get a better sense of what it is that I object to regarding gods and religions. The dharmics and pagans are just fine with me. They don't want to run my life and they aren't typically bigots. It's the Abrahamic monotheists that I have a problem with, especially the Christians and Muslims.

What makes evidence convincing? Clearly many people are indeed convinced. Why should your subjective mental state be superior to theirs?

Because it's less subjective. There are all kinds of rogue logics out there that allow people to justify whatever conclusion they prefer, but one set of rules for generating sound conclusions with a lot of interobserver agreement, which reduces subjectivity. Contrast that with believers' descriptions of their gods, which are all over the place, and the arguments if any they present in support of those beliefs, which are rife with fallacy.

Instead, they play a semantic game, to wit: "I am not claiming no God exists. I am merely saying I haven't seen convincing evidence God exists. Hence, I am making no affirmative claim at all and have no burden of proof at all. The burden is on you if you wish to convince me God exists. You're the one making the affirmative claim."

Why call that a semantic game? That an accurate description of the agnostic atheist's position.

 

[wellwisher]

Unfortunately for you, the term "burden of proof" is a well defined term that you are trying in vain to ignore.

A good example, where the burden of proof can be made next to impossible, has occurred during the House Committee investigating Hunter and Joe Biden. Recently, they have asked to see the recording of President Biden's interview with the FBI, where he was released from his classified document liability. Trump gets a different shake from the system, with far more scrutiny and even Court. The House wants or see for themself what made the difference.

The burden of proof by the House, needs that video tape, but the DOJ is not being forth coming. Does this means you can tamper with the burden of the burden of proof and make it harder or impossible? When you deal with crooked people, proof is often hidden or destroyed and it becomes a burden trying to get that proof. It takes years to get Freedom of Information Act requests processed. In the mean time, the crooks continue, assumed innocent; even though they foot drag evidence and add extra burden to the burden of proof. Is that proof of guilty? Innocent wants a speedy trial, while guilty tries to foot drag and run out the clock.

A more recent burden added to the burden of proof, was the RNC wanted all the testimony of the Jan 6, kangaroo court. It took years to get access to all the interview data, so their investigation would not impact the Kangaroo Court and the political advantage gained by that scam. When they did finally get access, much of its was hidden behind fire walls, encrypted and even missing. They did find where Nancy Pelosi blamed herself for the riot since she refused the National Guard, like Trump said. As long as that proof was hidden, by adding a burden to the burden of proof, another scams could be run, like blame Trump, and not Pelosi, where they had the burden of proof; confession.

 

[ratiocinator]

I’m not going to “get used to” a term being used to deliberately or inadvertently crash a discussion or debate just because we’re too lazy, stupid, or dishonest to be bothered to recognize it’s fundamental irrationality.

Its meaning is perfectly clear to anybody with any familiarity with basic logic applied to debate, or with critical thinking in general. Just like (say) 'begging the question' means assuming your conclusion, rather than its more colloquial use, and 'theory' meaning something different in the context of science than in its colloquial sense.

It's not even as obscure as those examples, it's just using 'proof' in a rather broad sense: it's up to those who make claims that they expect others to accept to provide some sort of justification for them.

It's actually quite difficult to think of a level of understanding at which it would become confusing. Those who know nothing of formal logic or critical thinking, may well think of 'proof' in a loose sense anyway, and if you know enough to see that absolute 'proof' is impossible outside of mathematics or pure logic, then one would probably know of the term anyway.

Anyway, good luck with changing the basic terminology of an entire subject because it seems so irritate you so much.....

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Its meaning is perfectly clear to anybody with any familiarity with basic logic applied to debate, or with critical thinking in general. Just like (say) 'begging the question' means assuming your conclusion, rather than its more colloquial use, and 'theory' meaning something different in the context of science than in its colloquial sense.

It's not even as obscure as those examples, it's just using 'proof' in a rather broad sense: it's up to those who make claims that they expect others to accept to provide some sort of justification for them.

It's actually quite difficult to think of a level of understanding at which it would become confusing. Those who know nothing of formal logic or critical thinking, may well think of 'proof' in a loose sense anyway, and if you know enough to see that absolute 'proof' is impossible outside of mathematics or pure logic, then one would probably know of the term anyway.

Anyway, good luck with changing the basic terminology of an entire subject because it seems so irritate you so much.....

Well, I understand what you are saying. Now with in broad sense of proof, give proof that proof matters. And yet you can't. In other words what matters is not a question of proof including that proof matters.
So we will for other terms always end in the is-ought problem.

 

[ratiocinator]

Now with in broad sense of proof, give proof that proof matters.

If it matters to somebody that other people accept what they propose, then it matters that they are able to give reasons for it that are acceptable to said other people.

The rest of your post is just your usual obsession. Sorry, but I lost interest in that some time ago, so it doesn't matter to me.....

 

[Koldo]

I do. The concept of supernaturalism is incoherent. Everything that exists and is able to interact with other existing things is part of nature. If there are islands of reality causally disconnected from nature - other natures - claims of their existence or nonexistence are unfalsifiable and they are irrelevant to us.

But what if they are not causally disconnect from nature? Something that is supernatural could in principle still have causal power over the natural.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

If it matters to somebody that other people accept what they propose, then it matters that they are able to give reasons for it that are acceptable to said other people.

The rest of your post is just your usual obsession. Sorry, but I lost interest in that some time ago, so it doesn't matter to me.....

Yeah, intersubjectively acceptable.

 

[ratiocinator]

But what if they are not causally disconnect from nature? Something that is supernatural could in principle still have causal power over the natural.

If something we currently don't know about is interacting with the natural world we know, what about it makes it 'supernatural' instead of just an aspect of the natural world we don't know about yet?

I've never understood 'supernatural', to be honest. If a God exists, surely it's the most natural thing there is?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

If something we currently don't know about is interacting with the natural world we know, what about it makes it 'supernatural' instead of just an aspect of the natural world we don't know about yet?

I've never understood 'supernatural', to be honest. If a God exists, surely it's the most natural thing there is?

I consider supernatural as connected to metaphysics as the idea of something beyound the physical. Not that it means that there is something supernatural but rather that we can imagine that there is.

 

[Quintessence]

I classify you as an atheist. I don't consider your beliefs different from my own just because you give aspects of nature names or personalities. One benefit of my years on RF has been to get a better sense of what it is that I object to regarding gods and religions. The dharmics and pagans are just fine with me. They don't want to run my life and they aren't typically bigots. It's the Abrahamic monotheists that I have a problem with, especially the Christians and Muslims.

Fair enough, though in that case, I classify you (and all humans for that matter) as theists. I've yet to meet anyone who is so narcissistic and arrogant to genuinely think there is nothing in the universe greater than themselves, or meet anyone who actually disbelieves in all reality and the universe and nature. But, as I should, I will call others by what they wish to be called instead of projecting labels onto them that they don't want. So please, I am NOT an atheist any more than you are a theist. I'll grant both the terms "atheist" and "theist" are utterly useless rubbish without context (gods can be literally anything so the terms mean nothing without articulating what god-concept is being referenced), but still.