Let's say there's a group of Christians living their lives happily. Then an Atheist comes and says: "Stop that! There is no God!"

Christians say: "Why should we stop believing in God? We think that it's like impossible to prove that there's no God."

Atheist says: "Yeah but like the burden of proof is on the person that believes there's some being existing."

Christians say: "Why can't you just leave us alone? Like why should we believe you? Like I know we would have the burden of proof if we were claiming to you that there's God. But we're just claiming to each other that there's God and we believe that claim."

So like my question is that isn't it kind of like maybe the Atheist's job to prove there's no God if he's like the aggressor and just bothering the Christian people who would like to be left alone?

if someone wants to believe something without justification then it doesn't matter if they are committing a fallacy or not. The burden of proof fallacy should only be used when you are actually engaged in discourse for the existence of something. in that situation (such as a forum like this) the burden of proof is indeed on the one who claims the thing in question exists.

Yeah I think I agree. Like it's okay for someone to believe in God or whatever. Personally I think there's like about 0.0000000000000000000000001% chance of Christian God, but like by definition, atheists can't ever shut it completely out, cos like if it's supernatural, it can't be proven/disproven by science. IT'S A PARADOX!!!

And like I think I actually read about this on Wikipedia and like some really advanced agnostics think the same as me, so like I think I'm an agnostic.

You can't really "prove" anything outside of logical consistencies.. Like math.

Agnosticism is about "not knowing" what do you believe though?

Yeah yeah, agree about the logical consistency math part. And like yeah I was just referring to the not knowing part. Like it said on Wiki that Bertrand Russell believes that like you can't know what happens really after death, and I agree.

In the example in OP, the atheist is the one who bears the burden of demonstrating the reasonableness of his challenge. You will notice in OP that the atheist it the first one to make an affirmative claim ("There is no God!"). That's the claim that requires a form of justification.

Consider the following exchange:

A: X is true!
C: Why should we believe X?
A: Prove to me not-X.

Do you see the similarity? It has less to do with claiming existence as it is the structure of the conversation.

In general, there's no sense in which there is an automatic burden to prove everything immediately upon being questioned at any time. This does not imply that beliefs are automatically justified, nor does it imply that the beliefs aren't justified.

The context of this forum is no different. If an atheist posts a "PROVE YOUR GOD EXISTS" thread, there's no burden for all the theists to have to present their evidence. Simply raising a challenge is not a sufficient cause to require a response. Some may choose to do so in order to engage in the conversation, but there's no blanket burden placed on all the theists to respond.

If they wanted to be left alone i would just do that instead of providing the proof.

The atheist is acting in a rather bullish manner. Much better to ask the Christians about their belief system so that the atheist can address specific points in detail. You're not going to convince someone of anything until you understand their position, when its even possible you might realise they have a point.

A blanket you're wrong I'm right look how awesome I am, never goes down well.

You do realise the OP is a bit of a strawman?

I can say "no god exists" and not bear any burden to prove that claim based on the fact that "god" hasn't been demonstrated to exist. That which has no evidence can be dismissed without evidence. I mean how sure must we be of something before its ok to dismiss it?

No, you can't. This is one of the classic errors that atheists make. You've made a affirmative claim. You made statement X. You must justify it. It doesn't matter that it's a "No"-type claim. It's still a claim.

Also notice how you've already assumed your conclusion. This is not a classic atheist error. It's just bad logic.

Notice that I never said that you couldn't dismiss their belief. I also never said you must adopt it. We're talking about the burden of proof.

How sure must we be of something before it's okay to accept it?

I justify my claim by saying that the existence of X has not been demonstrated. Therefore x does not evidently exist. If it becomes evident that X exists I will change my position.

Can you elaborate on what assumptions I have made?



Yes, and the one who is positing the existence of something always has the burden until that burden is met. Then it is up to me to demonstrate why they are wrong.


Sure enough that more than one person can test it and predict the outcome. That would be a start.

Edit:

I think we are using "burden" differently. I can simply use "lack of evidence" as sufficient reason to justify my position. With that I have met my "burden of proof"

Saying that X is not demonstrated to exist is reason to withhold assent to the proposition that X exists, it is generally not sufficient to support the claim that X does not exist.

Saying that the existence of X has not been demonstrated is not the same as taking the position that X does not exist.

Also, your use of the word "evidently" here is telling.

You're assuming that it has already been shown that God doesn't exist. You're assuming your position is somehow a "default" position that doesn't require any particular justification. Here's what you said:

Here's how it reads: "I can say X and not have to prove it because not-X has not been proven."

That's just not how it works.

No. I've already explained this. The one to make an affirmative claim has the burden. The nature of the claim is irrelevant.

What does it mean to "test" God and "predict the outcome" of God? This naive approach is not sufficiently robust for many statements that are true.

It is not always the case that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. For all we know, you could just be ignorant of the relevant information.

To be clear, I agree with you on the burden thing. I think I started off misunderstanding what you meant by burden or the level of burden rather.

If I define God as the character described in the bible, I can point to things we should see but don't if he were to exist. Such as, no wordwide flood and no mass slave revolt in egypt. We know those things did not happen so Yahweh (As described) is either not described accurately or does not exist. So I can safely say with justification that that character is fictitious.

Okay.

It is not the case that if God exists then the book of Genesis must be read as literal fact. It is harder to make the case of how Exodus should be read and understood. So it's not clear that this reasoning is sufficient to make your claim, though it certainly does provide some level of justification for your belief.

Yes, but I see no way of distinguishing what is supposed to be parable and what is supposed to be fact. For all I know the whole book could be parable. It is clear however that the character Yahweh is not as described.

Do you believe that you can just walk up to a book of ancient literature and just start making decisions about it without any training? I think that would be an ignorant approach to information and knowledge.

Think about the previous question and then think about this claim. It is "clear" to you based on an "for all I know" attitude. This doesn't make you right or wrong, but it does challenge that you have a sufficient level of understanding of what you're drawing conclusions about to make strong conclusions. You should really be taking a significantly more tentative view until you have increased your understanding.

No, but I think that the experts agree that genesis is intended to be literal. Am I wrong that the the flood story was supposed to be a literal translation of events? Also, I think the same thing can be said about Moses. Although, I don't go to school and learn everything I can about a subject before I start talking about it, I do attempt to listen to those that have before I have an opinion on the matter.

It is clear because the events that are supposed to have taken place did not happen. The flood, slave revolt in Egypt etc... If those events did not take place yahweh is a legend at best and more than likely just a figment of their imagination.

You are mistaken. The literal reading of the book of Genesis is largely popularized by American fundamentalism and not some deeply held belief throughout history.

It depends on who you ask.

You should do deeper research.

This is a huge jump. The story of George Washington and the cherry tree is a legend at best and more than likely just a figment of people's imagination, but George Washington remains a real person in spite of this fabrication.

Without genesis you don't have the fall, without the fall there is no need for jesus.. Wouldn't dismissing genesis as a literal story sort of self refute the logic of the whole thing? Also, what large denominations do not think Genesis and specifically the flood and moses story are not literal?

We have evidence for GW existing. And most of what we know about GW is not extra ordinary. The existence of GW does not rely on the cherry tree. The existence of Yahweh (in the way we know him) does rely on these stories, if these stories are incorrect then he isn't who we think he is and what we know about him is just legend. Kind of like Hercules. Hercules could have been a real person but pretty much everything we know about him are fabrications.

Thinking about it in terms of "denominations" is an error. Within denominations and even theological traditions, there is a lot of variation in theological positions.

For example, here is Westminster Theological Seminary's statement on a literal reading of Genesis 1:

http://www.wts.edu/about/beliefs/sta.../creation.html

Also, a very thorough article by Charles Hummel argues against a literal reading of Genesis 1:

https://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted..._gen1_jasa.htm

This is not speaking directly to the question of the theological significance of a literal Adam and Eve, but it shows how a literal reading of Genesis is not required in any sense.

I don't deny this. I'm simply denying that the argument presented was clearly insufficient to draw any strong conclusions.

You're mixing many ideas all at once. You've got "extraordinary claims" mixed in with concepts of myth and legend, and you've also got an assumption that God's existence relies only upon the early stories of the Bible. This is way too much to do all at once while making a coherent point.

I will read your links and respond tonight. I've enjoyed this exchange