the default claim for God's existence...

[Fangrim]

...is not that he doesn't exist. It's "neutral," or simply "blank," and either side must provide evidence to attempt to prove a fairly unprovably claim. Neither one can "win by default."

I was in class at school and an athiest declared that God didn't exist, obviously challenging those who would oppose him.
I replied, and asked him for evidence.

He smugly replied that he wasn't the one that needed evidence, but instead I needed evidence to prove that he did exist. Essentially, he was defaulting to a negative claim, with me having the burden of proof.

Of course, that's absolutely ridiculous. If an athiest is going to try to prove that God doesn't exist, he's going to have to have evidence, just as a theologist needs evidence for his respective claims.

Athiests: why do you think that the default claim must be negative? Are you just scared to lose?

[Note: I am not referring to any specific God, like the Christian one, but I will if you want me to. I'd prefer to keep it non-denominational/specific to a religion]

Edit: Heh, I didn't see the Weak Athiesm post before I wrote this thread. How embarassing...eh, I guess the talk could move over here anyway, since it seemed it turned somewhat into spam, and I'm the first partial-thiest to address it.

[Slevin57]

I'm going to say God, because spirtual being annoys me

The absence of God does not prove he doesn't exist. Therefore the burden of proof should fall equally on both sides.

Most people will use there religous text to prove that God does exist. Unfortunatly the opposing side doesn't actually think the religous text is valid, yet will sometimes atempt to defend there position with the religou text.

Now if you are on the side of Atheism, and are trying to use Science to prove God doesn't exist, well, you have your work cut out for you. Chances are the person that thinks God exist conviently wont' recognize some of your important scientific dependencies.

The way I see it, It's quite possible that God in his infinite wisdom could have logical design to all of creation. You know, if I belived in God.

I don't belive in God for historical reasons, not scientific.

[Jack]

Athiests: why do you think that the default claim must be negative? Are you just scared to lose?

I agree that anyone who would claim to be able to disprove the notion of gods should be able to provide evidence to substantiate their claim. But don't stop thinking there. The term atheist is about as specific as the term Christian. Just like you guys, on one level we all agree; there are no gods. How we came to accept that and how we express our attitude toward atheism is often as different as the difference in the beliefs of the Baptists and the Roman Catholics.

I don't claim to know that gods don't exist. In my reality there are no gods. None of the people who try to tell me that they believe in gods haven't been able to convince they have a clue about the actual existence of their particular god.

The gods have certainly failed to provide any credible evidence of their existence, as have their believers. So why should I be obligated to give the notion of gods any creedence at all? Why would I be obligated to disprove something that has never been proven? Had the reality of gods ever been proven beyond doubt we wouldn't be having this conversation.

The fact that so many people have so many belief systems tells me that belief is important, but no one belief has been so convincing as to be beyond criticism, weak and subject to human frailties.

Nope, gods aren't real, BigFoot isn't real, no Santa or the bunny. Prove to me otherwise and I'll consider your evidence. In the mean time I'd rather examine life with as few restrictions on my perceptions as possible. Excuse me for declining the blinders of religion.

[Fangrim]

Quote by: Isherwood Nope, gods aren't real, BigFoot isn't real, no Santa or the bunny. Prove to me otherwise and I'll consider your evidence. In the mean time I'd rather examine life with as few restrictions on my perceptions as possible. Excuse me for declining the blinders of religion.

Heh, no, I don't have much "evidence" for God either. The real point is that what is enough evidence is different depending on the person. A child listening to his Dad talk about Santa Claus is getting all the evidence he needs to believe. You and many other people are somewhat less swayed by simple assertions of God's existence, or the text of the Bible, for the Christian God.

Basically, soft or weak athiesm is the default claim. It's what we're born with: no knowledge of God, or Santa, or leprechauns. We have no belief in God, which is what weak athiesm is.
What the default claim is not is hard athiesm. For that, you're going to need to provide some evidence or credible statements, just like children are taught Christianity or Hinduism with evidence that's good enough for them (in that case, simply saying it is enough). Of course, what's credible obviously depends on who you're talking to.

[gallo]

Quote by: Fangrim ...is not that he doesn't exist. It's "neutral," or simply "blank," and either side must provide evidence to attempt to prove a fairly unprovably claim. Neither one can "win by default." I was in class at school and an athiest declared that God didn't exist, obviously challenging those who would oppose him. I replied, and asked him for evidence.

And since he made the assertion, I think that you are correct in asking for evidence. Of course, there is none in the absolute sense. But there is evidence against some specific views of the nature of God. For example, the benevolent God who provides for the lowly sparrow of the field is also the God who provides sparrow meals for hawks. I see it in my back yard on a regular basis.

He smugly replied that he wasn't the one that needed evidence, but instead I needed evidence to prove that he did exist. Essentially, he was defaulting to a negative claim, with me having the burden of proof.

Then his mistake was in asserting that God does not exist. Of course he is no more able to provide evidence to support his assertion than you or anyone else is able to support the opposite.

Of course, that's absolutely ridiculous. If an athiest is going to try to prove that God doesn't exist, he's going to have to have evidence, just as a theologist needs evidence for his respective claims.

Exactly! There is no evidence for either position.

Athiests: why do you think that the default claim must be negative? Are you just scared to lose?

Most atheists don't make such claims. Most atheists simply withhold belief because there is no evidence that any god exists.

[Note: I am not referring to any specific God, like the Christian one, but I will if you want me to. I'd prefer to keep it non-denominational/specific to a religion]

OK. But can you offer any evidence for any god?

[Jack]

What you think of as strong atheism I would call exteme atheism. I'm not an extremist. I'm just not a believer.

Christianity is no different than any other club. It has its own rules, accepted behavior, obedience to a charter, a common creed. And you have to want to join. I don't want to join. I used to belong and eventually realized that the club had grown insignificant. I have no interest in renewing my membership.

[Zhavric]

Quote by: Fangrim ...is not that he doesn't exist. It's "neutral," or simply "blank," and either side must provide evidence to attempt to prove a fairly unprovably claim. Neither one can "win by default."

This is a topic I've debated here ad nauseum. For some strange reason I seem to never grow tired of it. Once more into the breach...

When we make a claim (any claim) we have to take into account what's already known to be true. This dictates the default position a claim takes. Let's look at the following three claims:

"Fangrim posts to volconvo.com." - This claim agrees with the evidence we have. The individual whose screen name is 'Fangrim' has a post count which is greater than 1.

"Fangrim posts to volconvo.com from California in the U.S." - This claim is unknown. We don't know where Fangrim is but he is somewhere and California fits into the plausible category of 'somewhere'. It's not impossible for you to in California nor is it impossible for you to be elsewhere. California is a sound guess thus the 'unknown'. Whatever the answer is, we know the answer is going to be a yes or a no; more on that later.

"Fangrim made his last post to volconvo.com after he became deceased (in the bodily meaning of the word)." - This claim is not unknown. We know it's false at face value because dead people caannot type posts to internet message board. Stating it's "unknown" means we're giving credence to the idea of posthumous posting by labeling it 'possible'... which we know it's not.

Claims which contradict existing proven claims default to a position of 'false' until such time as evidence comes along to prove the claim true. We must be open to examining new evidence but we are under on obligation to give credence to obviously impossible things.

Turning to the question of what started the universe, the hypothesis it was created by a god is highly problematic. The claim "god exists" presents a tremendous number of problems which theists cannot explain away.

We know that complex things don't just pop into existence. They come as the result of gradual processes. We know that claiming god "always existed" is a tremendous cop out. Whatever god is, he has to be complex and powerful; by many orders of magnitude more complex than our universe. If our universe requires a creator based on its sophistication, so does god. Also, we know that only very simple things existed in the beginning of the universe (protons, electorns, etc) so claiming something as sophisticated as god existed back then is like claiming a Boeing 747 existed before the Wright Brothers ever flew.

So, god does not default to unknown. God defaults to false. As soon as theists provide evidence for god we can reconsider this state of things. Until then...

[Zhavric]

Oh, important note: there is a pack of fundamentalist agnostics who will stop at nothing to keep god labeled as "possible". To them, god's only definably attribute is his complete mutability to avoid any message board argument. Don't let them drive this off-topic with their foolish evasions.

[Fangrim]

Quote by: Zhavric This is a topic I've debated here ad nauseum. For some strange reason I seem to never grow tired of it. Once more into the breach...

There is a fairly obvious, at least to me, flaw in your logic that the default claim is that God does not exist. Using your own example, you provided the claim that I post to volconvo.com. You then provided evidence to back up that claim, being that my profile indicates I have posted.
You stated a claim later that I posted after I died. However, what you claim as "what we know" is actually evidence. "We know it's false at face value because dead people caannot type posts to internet message board." Even things that we "know at face value" are pieces of evidence that can be used to verify or debunk claims. Just because one uses obvious truths to verify a claim does not make the claim default true, nor does using obvious truths to debunk a claim make that claim default as false. We only term it a "given" because we have accepted that evidence as a given.

So, it's easy to say that defaulting the God claim to false is illogical, for you provided evidence with "what we know" about the beginning of the universe, and other statements that theists have too many problems to explain away for the God hypothesis to be unknown until proven. A theist could then respond to that evidence with counterevidence. Your evidence of "what we know" is not innately given or capable to the point of defaulting the target claim as true. You provided evidence in the attempt to disprove God. That does not default the God claim as false, simply because no theist has been able to debunk your evidence. It just means you won the argument, or that your evidence remains uncontested. Congragulations, you may have disproved God (though of course I don't believe you. I have too much religious intolerance for science...) but you did NOT prove that the God claim defaults to false.

EDITED for greater comprehension

[5010]

It is not generally necessary for the cause to be more complex than the effect created. Consider the complexity of shards created when a simple glass orb strikes another simple glass orb.

[jascowhiz0]

Quote by: Isherwood I agree that anyone who would claim to be able to disprove the notion of gods should be able to provide evidence to substantiate their claim. But don't stop thinking there. The term atheist is about as specific as the term Christian. Just like you guys, on one level we all agree; there are no gods. How we came to accept that and how we express our attitude toward atheism is often as different as the difference in the beliefs of the Baptists and the Roman Catholics. I don't claim to know that gods don't exist. In my reality there are no gods. None of the people who try to tell me that they believe in gods haven't been able to convince they have a clue about the actual existence of their particular god. The gods have certainly failed to provide any credible evidence of their existence, as have their believers. So why should I be obligated to give the notion of gods any creedence at all? Why would I be obligated to disprove something that has never been proven? Had the reality of gods ever been proven beyond doubt we wouldn't be having this conversation. The fact that so many people have so many belief systems tells me that belief is important, but no one belief has been so convincing as to be beyond criticism, weak and subject to human frailties. Nope, gods aren't real, BigFoot isn't real, no Santa or the bunny. Prove to me otherwise and I'll consider your evidence. In the mean time I'd rather examine life with as few restrictions on my perceptions as possible. Excuse me for declining the blinders of religion.

You mention you haven't met anyone who could give you a good enough reason to believe in a god or gods. Maybe you have been talking to the wrong people. There are people who have a PHD in Philosophy who believe in a god or gods. This means they have covered all of philosophy ancient to modern and through it all they believe in a god. Try talking to them to see their point of view, because the average Joe can't even understand philosophy (one reason religions exist to have answers and not try and explain the philosophy behind it) and talk to a person who knows and understands this stuff and could give you an intelligent answer. If you have already spoken to an educated person, then just blow off this post.

I believe in a God. I can't give you enough evidence or metaphysical reasoning to change your mind because I don't have a Ph D in philosophy nor understand enough of it to show why my idea is more logical than yours. All I can tell you is, from what I know, its more reasonable to me to believe in a God than to not believe in one.

[Zhavric]

Quote by: Fangrim Just because one uses obvious truths to verify a claim does not make the claim default true, nor does using obvious truths to debunk a claim make that claim default as false.

What a strange assertion? Claims do not exist in a vacuum. We really can and do rely heavily on existing knowledge.

For example, if I claim "rockets can fly into space" I do not need to provide detailed definitions and defenses of the meanings of rocket, fly, space, can or into. It's a given that we know the meanings of these words. If the meanings need clarification then we clarify.

Point being we do not erase massive amounts of knowledge to consider each claim.

Thus, we know dead people cannot post to message boards. A claim involving a dead person posting to a message board defaults to false. Not unknown. It's a very silly argument to state otherwise:

"It's true Fangrim posted to volconvo.com posthumously."
"It's unknown if Fangrim posted to volconvo.com posthumously."

Nope. Neither one works. These are clearly invalid defaults.

A theist could then respond to that evidence with counterevidence.

Okay. Let's examine the counter evidence theists have at their disposal which supports god:





































...And there you have it.

There is no valid evidence supporting god's existence. God contradicts too much of what we already know to be true to be "unknown". God defaults to false.

[Jack]

Maybe you have been talking to the wrong people.

Belief is dependent on talking to the right people? I don't expect these proposed god's minions to be responsible for revealing their god's existence. The gods should be able to do that themselves, if they posses the abilities ascribed to them by their followers.

[pandaz xx]

Quote by: Zhavric Oh, important note: there is a pack of fundamentalist agnostics who will stop at nothing to keep god labeled as "possible". To them, god's only definably attribute is his complete mutability to avoid any message board argument. Don't let them drive this off-topic with their foolish evasions.

you say that like you have something against agnostics.
which in fact, you shouldn't.
they just don't know what to choose yet.
they need more evidence.
atheists.
on the other hand.
they don't have full proof that god doesn't exist, when they think they do.

imo.
most atheists think they know everything, when really, they are have a big head about everything.

[Jack]

they don't have full proof that god doesn't exist, when they think they do.

How could anyone claim to have evidence of the non-existence of something that as yet hasn't been shown to exist? Can I prove unicorns don't exist? Well, show me evidence that supports their existence and I'll see if I can counter it. Until then I choose not to consider their existence as probable, just like god's.

[Zhavric]

Quote by: jascowhiz0 You mention you haven't met anyone who could give you a good enough reason to believe in a god or gods. Maybe you have been talking to the wrong people. There are people who have a PHD in Philosophy who believe in a god or gods. This means they have covered all of philosophy ancient to modern and through it all they believe in a god. Try talking to them to see their point of view, because the average Joe can't even understand philosophy (one reason religions exist to have answers and not try and explain the philosophy behind it) and talk to a person who knows and understands this stuff and could give you an intelligent answer. If you have already spoken to an educated person, then just blow off this post.

I don't like speaking for Isherwood, but I'm going to go out on a limb here: There isn't a Ph.D. alive who can demonstrate 1+1=3. The greatest artist in the world cannot draw a square circle... and all the social experts & detectives in the world will never locate a married batchelor.

For me, the issue isn't the people. It's the subject matter. It's demonstrably false.

I can't give you enough evidence or metaphysical reasoning to change your mind because I don't have a Ph D in philosophy nor understand enough of it to show why my idea is more logical than yours. All I can tell you is, from what I know, its more reasonable to me to believe in a God than to not believe in one.

An ID supporter once said that evolution is about as reasonable as believing a hurricane moving through a junk yard could assemble a Boeing 747. The problem here (as Richard Dawkins points out) is god has to be many magnitudes more sophisticated than a jet aircraft. God is the ultimate Boeing 747; Stating it's reasonable to believe in god is beyond the hurricane in the junk yard example.

So, it is in no way 'reasonable' to believe in god. It is the height of illogic.

[Zhavric]

Quote by: pandaz xx you say that like you have something against agnostics. which in fact, you shouldn't. they just don't know what to choose yet. they need more evidence. atheists. on the other hand. they don't have full proof that god doesn't exist, when they think they do. imo. most atheists think they know everything, when really, they are have a big head about everything.

The more I read from agnostics the more I understand they're not willing to look at all the facts logically. That's an issue for another thread. If you take a look at my sig, you'll see where one of the agnostics admitted agnosticism is faith based.

[shunyadragon]

Quote by: Fangrim ...is not that he doesn't exist. It's "neutral," or simply "blank," and either side must provide evidence to attempt to prove a fairly unprovably claim. Neither one can "win by default." I was in class at school and an athiest declared that God didn't exist, obviously challenging those who would oppose him. I replied, and asked him for evidence. He smugly replied that he wasn't the one that needed evidence, but instead I needed evidence to prove that he did exist. Essentially, he was defaulting to a negative claim, with me having the burden of proof. Of course, that's absolutely ridiculous. If an athiest is going to try to prove that God doesn't exist, he's going to have to have evidence, just as a theologist needs evidence for his respective claims. Athiests: why do you think that the default claim must be negative? Are you just scared to lose? [Note: I am not referring to any specific God, like the Christian one, but I will if you want me to. I'd prefer to keep it non-denominational/specific to a religion] Edit: Heh, I didn't see the Weak Athiesm post before I wrote this thread. How embarassing...eh, I guess the talk could move over here anyway, since it seemed it turned somewhat into spam, and I'm the first partial-thiest to address it.

The best argument centers around the question, 'Is there a reason to believe in God?' Many (weak?) atheists focus their beleif on this point. The common statement is, 'There is no reason to believe in God, because there is no evidence for the existence of God.'

I believe this argument works for the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God of ancient scriptures, because of the modern horizon of knowledge reveals so many flaws in the divided conflicting worldview, but I believe there is a better argument for God than represented by these and other ancient worldviews..

The next step to the flat statement that 'God absolutely does not exist.' is responded to by theists with, 'Prove God or Gods do not exist. Both sides have issues to deal with. The atheist may respond and say, 'Like unicorns, elves, fairies, and hobbits, there is no need to prove their nonexistence, because of the overwhelming lack of evidence.'

[Kamehameha34]

Quote by: Zhavric The more I read from agnostics the more I understand they're not willing to look at all the facts logically. That's an issue for another thread. If you take a look at my sig, you'll see where one of the agnostics admitted agnosticism is faith based.

The more I read from you, the more I'm convinced that you just want a redefinition of "god", so you feel adequate.

And no, that's not what you'll find in that sig. You'll find a demonstration of your own commision of the four terms fallacy.

[Kamehameha34]

That's a great summation of the agnostic stance. Too bad it will be buried in claims that a "creator of the universe" contradicts certain claims, after attempts to redefine it.

The extremist atheistic stance is formulaic, and demonstrably illogical. You should just ignore any posts operating on a different meaning for "god" - they obviously don't want to debate the same subject