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[Tabbyman]

Upon taking a few breaths, I'm just gonna say, I've posed my view, I've done a wee bit of arguing, but really I don't want to spend my weekend feeling like I'm at war with an opposing view. Conflict makes it hard for me to relax and enjoy the final hours of freedom before the next 8 hours of paid slavery commences.

Being at war with an opposing view would mean that you think it necessary to defend your view, which is entirely the wrong approach. You may defend your view as much as you can, but participating in an argument means that the aspects of your side of the conflicting viewpoint are wrong about 50% of the time, unless your argument is about belief in different logically sound and undisprovable concepts, in which case there isn't an argument. The point of an argument is to share as much knowledge as necessary for both participants to align their views, because given the same knowledge, two intelligent people will make the same conclusions. You can't go into an argument expecting both parties to agree on your viewpoint, because either the other person is stupid (in which case he will ignore your arguments just like he ignored the same arguments from other people already), or he has as good reasons to have a different viewpoint as you have reasons to have yours.

That's why I like to avoid arguements. It's easy to get into them yet they go nowhere, no matter how right either side is on what points and counterpoints they make. And it feels like war. Call me a hippy but I like peace. Peaceful disagreement is a complicated subject I haven't mastered by any means.

Edit: I mean, this is an atheism v. religion thread... It's expected to be full of conflict. Might as well be glad I manage to get on with my day without a flamewar of some kind. If I were looking for that, though, I'd go to 4chan.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

This thread hasn't been very full of conflict, but that's because we've had two or three others in the past so most of us have gotten on our soapboxes already.

[MrWiggles]

Even the last couple of threads have been like this.

[Phmcw]

"God" is a concept so loaded that it's worthless. The universe is god, if you want to.
It is omnipotent, of sort, conscious, since we are conscious and part of it, and contain every possible information about himself, so omniscient (of sort).

Well, probably. Ask me a better question than "do you believe in god".

And no, I don't believe that the consciousness of the universe choose a random warlord/carpenter/sf writer/whatever to give us his grand scheme for humanity (that happen to match exactly the flavour of your sect).

[EveryZig]

Maybe I should have called this one scientific atheist fundamentalists, ones who tout the big bang as verified truth like it's been reproduced in a lab.

[Kind of pedantic]
Reproducing in a lab is for testing effects, not for testing specific events.
For example, you cannot reproduce the French Revolution in a lab and nobody alive has seen it directly, but you can still say that it happened with a high degree of certainty because it is consistent with a large amount of testable evidence.
Saying that the Big Bang happened works on the same principle, just with different types of evidence (astronomy and physics rather than history and archeology). Arguing that the evidence is invalid or does not support the theory is one thing, but just saying "it hasn't been proved" about an established theory and leaving it at that really gets on my nerves.
[/Kind of pedantic]

[Hanslanda]

"God" is a concept so loaded that it's worthless. The universe is god, if you want to.
It is omnipotent, of sort, conscious, since we are conscious and part of it, and contain every possible information about himself, so omniscient (of sort).

Well, probably. Ask me a better question than "do you believe in god".

And no, I don't believe that the consciousness of the universe choose a random warlord/carpenter/sf writer/whatever to give us his grand scheme for humanity (that happen to match exactly the flavour of your sect).

Is it your belief that there is a god out there, that is consistent with the definition of a god as set forth by the Christian, Abrahamic, or Islamic faiths? If not, explain why. If so, explain why.
Do you believe there is a pantheon of gods following the definition of gods as set forth by the Greek, Roman, or Egyptian religions? If so, explain why. If not, explain why.
Do you believe that there is something out there that could match the description and definition of a god as set forth by the discussion in this topic, while retaining several of the main characteristics of the monotheistic descriptions of god, such as an ability to manifest in various forms and give messages to human beings directly and of its' own will, an ability to cause highly destructive events such as earthquakes, floods, locust swarms, or water transmutating into blood? If so, Etc.
 
Are these questions preferable and precise enough?

[Supercharazad]

I'm just not quite comfortable calling it a god in and of itself

I don't believe that any god exists, because he hasn't shown himself to anyone.

THERE! You're an atheist, get over it.

You quoted out of context.

I don't believe that any god exists, because he hasn't shown himself to anyone.
I don't believe he *doesn't* exist, because I haven't been shown decisive proof on that either.

That is the quote with the other bits. I don't believe that he exists, or that he doesn't, because there is no solid evidence either way.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

That is the quote with the other bits. I don't believe that he exists, or that he doesn't, because there is no solid evidence either way.

As before, there is no evidence "either way" for an infinite number of untestable ethereal concepts, but you don't give any of the others the golden mean treatment.

[MonkeyHead]

So, where do people feel the burden of proof lies? Or, at least, where should it lie?

I personally hold that those professing the exisistance of anything have to produce the proof to back up thier convictions ("I will agree with the as of yet unproven idea if you can show me it is true"). I think it makes less logical sense for proof of the non-existance of something being needed to make a solid point ("I will only stop thinking this unproven idea if you can show to me it is wrong").

[Graknorke]

But it is proven, it's in the Bible. And it's not a standalone source because the Qur'an says it too.

Yeah, blasting into a serious thread with childish namecalling. Clearly nothing can go wrong with this finely laid out scheme, it is completely foolproof and everything is perfect.
Hello.

The burden of proof lies with whoever has it, as far as I'm concerned anyway. If you have proof, then you put it forwards. Whether or not it's for your side, it's not particularly good sport to deliberately withhold information from the other side of the debate. Unless it's something serious like in court, then I would actually not have a problem with withholding evidence because it's all part of fucking over the subjectively moral legal system. Preventing the advance of knowledge is not a thing people should be doing though.

Really, both sides should be able to put forwards some proof, but the side it is demanded from should be those making the positive statement (My dog is grey, you ate the last slice of pizza, there is a god, electrons have negative charge). Because that just seems logical to me, I don't really have a good explanation for that one. It would just seem kind of odd to say "X is true, now prove me right".

[Frumple]

So, where do people feel the burden of proof lies? Or, at least, where should it lie?

I personally hold that those professing the exisistance of anything have to produce the proof to back up thier convictions ("I will agree with the as of yet unproven idea if you can show me it is true"). I think it makes less logical sense for proof of the non-existance of something being needed to make a solid point ("I will only stop thinking this unproven idea if you can show to me it is wrong").

That's... not actually controversial, to any meaningful degree. Burden of proof lies on the one making a positive claim, ferex an existence claim. No one with any actual ground -- at all -- seriously expects proof of non-existence. Just proof of existence. That's something that's been pretty well established in the last couple thousand years of logic and epistemological inquiry (of varying sorts). Would take access to material I don't actually have access to at th'mo to pull up the particulars of why that is so, but it's pretty much universally accepted, so far as I know.

What gets (much) trickier is what is accepted as sufficient evidence, what counts as proof. That can vary absolutely tremendously depending on who you're dealing with.

[lemon10]

When debating any issue, there is an implicit burden of proof on the person asserting a claim. "If this responsibility or burden of proof is shifted to a critic, the fallacy of appealing to ignorance is committed".[1] This burden does not necessarily require a mathematical or strictly logical proof, although many strong arguments do rise to this level (such as in logical syllogisms). Rather, the evidential standard required for a given claim is determined by convention or community standards, with regard to the context of the claim in question.[2][3]

Any assertion places the burden of proof on the one who asserts it.

It doesn't matter if a claim is positive or negative, both saying "The sun is blue", and saying "The sun is not blue", both are assertions and both require proof.
Similarly saying "The bible is the absolute truth and the word of god" requires proof as does saying, "The bible is not the absolute truth and the word of god" (which can be pretty much proven by using logical inconsistencies and innacuracies in the text).


This does differ a bit from common sense however, since having to disprove/prove everything to a high degree of certainty with a large amount of proof is a bit ridiculous.

EDIT: Logically, this extends to existence claims (since they are claims) as well.
Saying: "You don't have a house", which is claiming something is non existent, isn't automatically true if the person you are saying it about doesn't have a sufficient amount of proof to prove it. You have to have a sufficient amount of proof to prove that he/she doesn't have a house.

[kaijyuu]

When debating any issue, there is an implicit burden of proof on the person asserting a claim. "If this responsibility or burden of proof is shifted to a critic, the fallacy of appealing to ignorance is committed".[1] This burden does not necessarily require a mathematical or strictly logical proof, although many strong arguments do rise to this level (such as in logical syllogisms). Rather, the evidential standard required for a given claim is determined by convention or community standards, with regard to the context of the claim in question.[2][3]

Any assertion places the burden of proof on the one who asserts it.

It doesn't matter if a claim is positive or negative, both saying "The sun is blue", and saying "The sun is not blue", both are assertions and both require proof.

Ding ding.


Burden of proof lies on those asserting non-existence if existence is the commonly accepted conclusion, or status quo. If you claim the Higgs Boson doesn't exist, you have to prove that now (though you wouldn't of a while back). You don't get a free pass just because your claim is in the non-existence pile.


So if you walk into a church and say "you're all wrong!", then it's up to you to make arguments, not them.

[Frumple]

Right, assertions. I think I was mentally translating them into statements of the nature "It is true that X is true/untrue" which was why I was thinking positive statements. Rather irrelevant quibble, really. Wiki's pretty much accurate on the subject, at least as far as that quote goes.

[Graknorke]

I'd still say a positive claim should be expected to give more proof than a negative one. I mean, to prove "You have no house", I would have to check through an entire list of residences in the world and show that none were registered under your name, whereas to prove that you did have a house, all you would have to do would be show me it, and that you have the deeds to that house.
Of course, it would be a lot harder for everyone if you said your house was invisible, intangible, did not have any documentation and interacts with the world at only arbitrary points, then it would be very difficult for anyone to prove anything.
That is to say, it should really be expected for somebody with a positive claim to have absolute proof of it, and especially with existance claims, a negative proof would entail a sweep of the entire universe, which may or may not be infinite. Other things such as colour would be simpler for both parties though, where the biggest doubt would be vision problems with one of the participants.
It still to me just seems to make more sense to have the person making the positive claim provide evidence. Because, there will only be one circumstance under which something will be perfectly true, but many ways that same thing could be wrong. To prove something positive, it only needs to show that one example. To prove something negative, every single case needs to be shown as not being the case.