The Presumption of Atheism

[williamryan]

I often hear atheists say that the theist has the burden of proof. And often the theist will punt back that burden and the two will play burden-of-proof volleyball for a while. But they're both wrong.

There are about 5 positions on the proposition: "God exists."

1. Theism: the positive claim to know that God exists.
2. Atheism: the positive claim to know that God doesn't exist
3. Weak Agnosticism: the personal admission that the person just doesn't know
4. Strong Agnosticism: the positive claim that you cannot know whether God exists
5. Verificationism: the positive claim that the phrase "God exists" is neither true nor false. It's simply meaningless b/c it's non-falsifiable

(5) is the view that unless something can be verified by the five senses, it's not true or false, it's simply meaningless. It's like saying: "The slithy tog did gire and gimble in the wabe." Virtually no one holds to (5) anymore because it's self-refuting: is the following proposition verifiable by the five senses: "a proposition must be verifiable by the five senses to be meaningful."

The default position here is (3): weak agnostism because it's the only one w/o a burden of proof. Every other position is making a positive claim to knowledge, which means they have a proof-burden. When atheists collapse 2, 3, 4, and 5 together under the broad umbrealla of a theism, what they're really doing is bringing them together under non-theism. So they're defining "atheism" in a very nonstandard way.

Thus, the default position is weak agnosticism; not atheism or theism. Thoughts?

[Goat]

If someone says to me "I'm unconvinced", I expect them to support their unwillingness to agree with my point of view. For example, some folks nail "irreducible complexity" to their noggets, and then think they can just keep saying "I'm unconvinced" to every explanation they hear, thinking they bear no burden. At some point it's just not reasonable to remain "unconvinced". In my opinion, agnosticism, does in fact, bear a burden.

I think that there is a difference between "I'm unconvinced, but I have not really looked at it thoroughly" and "I'm unconvinced, I've looked at the arguments from various points of view, none of them are conclusive. " The first is simply ignorant or unknowing. Ignorance has no burden of proof. The second, I agree, does have a burden of proof.

There is also a difference between "I am unconvinced, because all the arguments that are used go against my preconceived notions, but I don't want to support my notions". There are a huge number of those kind when it comes to creationism and I.D. They reject any evidence that runs counter to their beliefs.

In the 1980's, the founder of the Discovery Institute (Phillip Johnson) declared evolution failed because it's evidence didn't met trial standards. Now, scientific evidence has nothing to do with trial standards. And , as was seen in the Dover trial, I.D. (which the discover institute promotes) fails at even being science.

[Beto]

I would further submit that "weak agnosticism", in the sense that a person claims "I don't know what to think" is cowardice, and an attempt to ignore arguments from either side, because of preconceived notions that are already "comfortable". Honestly, it doesn't matter if it's "default" or not. If it is, the "default" position is intellectually dishonest. There can be no absolute neutrality in this matter. That is an abstract notion, as any other absolute. The scale always tips to one side. And any inclination, no matter how subtle, warrants justification, and thus bears a burden.

[Evales]

FSM is one of the most flawed propositions circuclating, probably first and foremost beacause the author, in his apparent desire to make some money off his idea, (in December 2005, Bobby Henderson received a reported USD $80,000 advance from Villard to pen The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) admitted it was a spoof.


I cannot think of one sincere Christian person who claims that God is real and then at the same time says "Oh, BTW, my belief is a spoof."

Actually FSM was created as a spoof, all people who say they 'follow' it either understand the spoof or are complete idiots that they haven't even been on the site. FSM was created when the debate about teaching intelligent design in classrooms came up. The point was that if that can get recognition why not FSM. They have a worship day Friday, claiming that they get the day off to worship.

It was created as a joke.

[JoeyKnothead]

I hold my atheism on the grounds that the bible is so full of contradictions, genocide, and so many other hateful actions.

It's also the elephant in my trunk argument. Of course that possibility exists, but the probability of it being true are so great as to be unbelievable.

Then there is how religious requirements change with societal norms. The bible says you gotta sacrifice goats or some such before entering, but in my lifetime I have never seen a church do that. The bible says the blind, the crippled, the deaf are not allow to go into a church, but I haven't seen this restriction enforced. I have heard recently of a church that kicked out an autistic kid, so maybe that church can be believed?

The argument that you can't prove god doesn't exist I find bandied about because of its connotations. Of course I can't prove that something that doesn't exist doesn't exist. But to claim god exists should also be held to be provability.