Burden of Proof: where it lies

[NonServiam]

What I all too often see the unspoken absolutizing of the scientific method to ascertain true statements about reality, switching the burden of proof, and demanding that theists prove to the satisfaction of the scientific method that God, who is by definition immaterial and ex professo outside of the scientific method, exists.

Well, I wouldn’t say that I’ve ever seen the scientific method “absolutized” as a method to ascertain truth statements about reality.

It would take a pretty dull person to claim that truth statements can only be evaluated by means of science. However, I would say that truth statements can only be evaluated by means of evidence and reason (what I call “evidence-based inquiry”).

Formal science is part of evidence-based inquiry, but it’s far from the entirety of it. Let’s face it: I don’t need to do endless scientific experiments to know, beyond any reasonable doubt, that it’s very likely that my car will start when I turn the key. I know this because of evidence (all the times I’ve done it before) plus reason (induction to arrive at general principles) plus more evidence (the fact that I know I have gas in the tank and that I know I just recently had a tune-up) plus more reason (deducing from evidence applied to the general principles).

Reason and evidence together are, I hope we would agree, the only way to evaluate truth statements.

What I see among theists in these discussions are typically attempts to side-step around the need to rationally meet the burden of proof by declaring, via special-pleading, that their claim isn’t subject to the same rules of evaluation that all other claims are.

One mistake I frequently see theists make is to claim that emotional experience can reveal some kind of truth about the external world. They often try to claim that emotional experience of a god is “universal,” and so atheists are the ones with the burden of proof for trying to question it. I got the sense that you were making this mistake in your last post, so I offer the following critique:

Atheists claim a particular new insight into the human condition, new level of consciousness: it is more reasonable to dispense with the conviction that God exists.

I wouldn’t describe atheism as any kind of insight into the “human condition,” any more than not believing that our dreams are prophetic is an insight into the human condition.

If you insist on framing this issue in terms of, “But…but…most people believe in god! They feel him in their hearts!!! You’re denying this!! What an extraordinary claim!!!” then the “insight” of atheism really boils down to the rather unimpressive and almost self-evident observation that our feelings, gut reactions, intuition, and imagination are very often dead wrong about reality.

We don’t really need to even appeal to the massive amounts of evidence that tell us that the mind evolved in ways that make it deceive us regularly. We have the evidence of our own experience of getting fooled and realizing that we fooled ourselves. If you’ve ever seen a shape in a shadow or thought you heard a voice on the wind, you’ve demonstrated to yourself that the pattern-recognizing aparatus built into your mind by evolution is working overtime to make you see things that aren’t there.

It doesn’t stop with basic perception, either. If you’ve ever taken something that someone has said in the wrong way and then worked yourself up into a tizzy about what that person meant, what that person thinks about you, what it means about you as a person, etc. – only to find out later that you were completely and totally mistaken – you’ve demonstrated to yourself that your emotions can be very, very misleading and carry you away from reality, not into it.

We don’t even need to go as far as citing the example of the schizophrenic whose “feelings” tell him that “everyone is out to get me” to realize that your “feelings,” all by themselves, aren’t sufficient evidence for anything, any more than your dreams are evidence are anything.

Humans are really, really good at fooling themselves. If you think that this is some kind of stunning new insight into the human condiiton, frankly, I think you have some work to do.

So the fact that a great deal of people since the dawn of time have reported “feeling” connections to gods – all sorts of different gods, from conflicting religions and god claims, by the way – might be evidence of something, but it’s most certainly not evidence for the claim that a god exists.

 

[You]

As I explained, non-belief is the default position unless you’re convinced by evidence. In many day-to-day situations, we waive the requirement for looking at the evidence when the claims strike us as ordinary.

“You can have eternal life” is not, for me, an ordinary claim. For me, it’s up there with “I’m going on vacation to the moon.” So I’m going to remain in the default position of non-belief until someone provides some pretty compelling evidence.

Yes, if the offer is something extraordinary with absolutely no evidence to suggest that it’s true.

Your premise that “good offers” should be accepted without question is ludicrous. Consider this good offer: “I have inherited five million dollars, but I need a way to get it out of my country. If you send me your bank account information, I’ll wire the money to you and let you keep some of it as a fee for helping me out.”

Variations of that scam e-mail were circulating the internet a decade or two ago, and lots of suckers fell for it because they didn’t question whether the “good offer” was true or not.

Now, again, ordinary offers I would be perfectly happy to accept. If my friend said he wanted to buy me a beer, of course I’m going to believe that (especially if I have the evidence of my past interactions with my friend that demonstrate him to be trustworthy). But if my friend offered to call in his alien friends to take me for a ride in their space ship over Disney Land, I most certainly would not believe that, no matter how much of a “good offer” it sounds like.

Truth can’t be confirmed by how good an offer sounds…it can only be confirmed through reason and evidence.

Do you want this 5 million dollars I am offering you. Yes or No?

Can you respond without equivocation?

 

[NonServiam]

Do you want this 5 million dollars I am offering you. Yes or No?

Can you respond without equivocation?

I don’t believe you have five million dollars, and I don’t believe you’re making a real offer.

Whether I would want five million dollars is a different question from whether I believe you – we were talking about belief, not desire.

EDIT: And, to make the obvious connection, whether I would want eternal life is a different question from whether I believe it exists. Perhaps your confusion stems from your apparent mixing-up of belief with desire.

 

[You]

I don’t believe you have five million dollars, and I don’t believe you’re making a real offer.

Whether I would want five million dollars is a different question from whether I believe you – we were talking about belief, not desire.

You are not able to do it.
If you were an animal or a child you would just say Yes to the food or the money.
The default position in nature must be the ready acceptance of good things.
Later in life, with disappointing experiences? or cynicism? one Learns a default position of distrust and disbelief. But this is not true in nature. Nature takes the direct route to good offers.

 

[TruthSeeker60]

The question of the burden of proof arises frequently in discussing a claim. I would advance the following proposition. (A) The burden of proof for a given intellectual community generally is on the historically newer claim.

The burden of proof has nothing to do with how new a claim is.

Would you honestly say that if most people throughout history believed an invisible china teapot were orbiting around Mars that it does not hold a burden of proof?

Reasons:

(1) “Burden of proof” is a technical expression in the sphere of argumentation and persuasion given the social, dialogic, and historically-conditioned nature of human knowledge and its advancement. In this field proposition (A) is overwhelmingly held. See appended quotes as examples of the common view.

(2) The “burden of proof” falls under argumentation, not epistemology. It is not the same as the principle of sufficient reason even though the bare words “burden of proof” could be taken to mean that principle. It is in the technical sense that I use “burden of proof” and it is here that the fallacy of shifting the burden of proof lies.

Correction: Burden of proof does fall under epistemology because it has to do with what we can know and justifiably believe without evidence. If a belief carries a burden of proof, it means that one aught to hold that belief only if there is evidence for it.

(3) It is widely claimed that the burden of proof is on the party making the positive/affirmative claim. However this is ambiguous at best and false at worst. Because:
(a) In debate the “affirmative” side bears the burden of proof. But here the affirmative side advances the newer claim or policy, etc., which is not necessarily an affirmative proposition as in logic.

The fact that the affirmative side advances the newer claim is not necessarily true and would only be accidental if it was true.

If a debate were set up that side A made a claim, and the position of side B was that the claim of side A was not substantiated (i.e., did not meet its burden of proof), side B does not have the burden of proof. One could also set up a debate in which both sides have a burden of proof.

(3) It is widely claimed that the burden of proof is on the party making the positive/affirmative claim. However this is ambiguous at best and false at worst. Because:
{snip}
(b) “The earth revolves around the sun” is an affirmative claim. It does not bear the burden of proof today in our intellectual community.
“The earth does not revolve around the sun” is a negative claim. It would bear the burden of proof today.

Both of those affirming claims bear a burden of proof. Status quo does not change that. That does not mean, however, that someone could reasonably not believe that the Earth revolves around the sun because that claim has met its burden of proof to such a high degree that one would be unreasonable to not believe it.

Now it aught to be noted that one can abstain from believing a positive claim without asserting a negative claim. A juror can vote “not guilty,” meaning that he does not believe that the defendant is guilty, without necessarily being convinced that the defendant is innocent either.

(4) The reasons for an older claim (status quo) are already known and accepted. Subsequently a sufficient reason (or an apparent one) has been discovered to reject the former conviction in favor of something else newer. However this evidence (sufficient reasons, proof) must be presented (burden) to and defended against those holding the older claim for the newer assertion to be accepted and the community advance toward truth.

This is partially true. If claim A is incompatible with claim B, which has already been established by evidence, claim A has to at least have more convincing evidence than claim B in order to meet its burden of proof. If claim A is shown to be equally supported by evidence as claim B is, then one aught to stop believing claim B and suspend belief until there is enough evidence to believe one claim over the other(s). However, both claims have a burden of proof regardless of how old and/or popular they are.

Consider the idea of spontaneous generation overthrown in Redi’s famous experiments. If Redi said to the spontaneous generation crowd: “I think you’re mistaken. Prove to me spontaneous generation is true.” What good would that do? They would just repeat what they already maintain based on what they already think proves their claims. It falls upon Redi to show the evidence he has discovered for his newer claim if they are to move forward toward the truth. If he meets their objections, then they can abandon the older position in favor of his claims.

Again, this has nothing to do with how new the claim is. If a claim has apparently meet its burden of proof, one does have to demonstrate that there is reasonable room for doubt in order to reasonably not believe. But to meet a burden of proof means to demonstrate with sufficient evidence. Just because something is generally accepted doesn’t mean it is backed up by evidence.

 

[samiam1611]

If you were an animal or a child you would just say Yes to the food or the money.
The default position in nature must be the ready acceptance of good things.
Later in life, with disappointing experiences? or cynicism? one Learns a default position of distrust and disbelief. But this is not true in nature. Nature takes the direct route to good offers.

Obviously our tendency to accept something good has nothing to do with whether or not the thing being offered actually exists. Like when I make a throwing motion with my arm, my dog thinks I threw a ball. In fact, most of the time I don’t, and I am just laughing at her naïvety for falling for it.

If your point was that belief in an afterlife is child-like wishful thinking, I am inclined to agree!

 

[lilies456]

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[lilies456]

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Cardiff, “fashion” mournful!!!

 

[lilies456]

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[Fr_of_Jazz]

The burden of proof has nothing to do with how new a claim is.

Would you honestly say that if most people throughout history believed an invisible china teapot were orbiting around Mars that it does not hold a burden of proof?

Correction: Burden of proof does fall under epistemology because it has to do with what we can know and justifiably believe without evidence. If a belief carries a burden of proof, it means that one aught to hold that belief only if there is evidence for it.

In both cases you are confusing the burden of proof with the principle of sufficient reason =PSR].
“There must be a sufficient reason [often known only to God] for anything to exist, for any event to occur, for any truth to obtain.”
[Leibniz from Leroy Loemker, Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters. 2nd ed., Reidel, 1969, p. 717.]

The burden of proof, as your definition states, applies to a “dispute” about epistemic claims. Sure, it’s not a dispute about whose spaghetti sauce tastes better. One party (the status quo) already believes it has sufficient reasons for an epistemic claim and a newer party contests this, often with counter claims. No advance in the truth can be made until the contesting party meets the burden and gives its reasons since the status quo reasoning is already known. The question of where the burden of proof lies arises only when there is a dispute.

The teapot crowd would think they have sufficient reasons. Fortunately you have come along later with the newer claim that such is not the case and meet the burden of proof by explaining to them the error of their ways.

The fact that the affirmative side advances the newer claim is not necessarily true and would only be accidental if it was true.

Not true in forensic debates which is what I was talking about. See quotes.

If a debate were set up that side A made a claim, and the position of side B was that the claim of side A was not substantiated (i.e., did not meet its burden of proof), side B does not have the burden of proof. One could also set up a debate in which both sides have a burden of proof.

Again confusing the burden of proof with the PSR. Side B must still back up its claim that side A has no real evidence—a negative claim incidentally. That is the burden of proof for the particular claim B is making.

Both of those affirming claims bear a burden of proof. Status quo does not change that. That does not mean, however, that someone could reasonably not believe that the Earth revolves around the sun because that claim has met its burden of proof to such a high degree that one would be unreasonable to not believe it.

Now it aught to be noted that one can abstain from believing a positive claim without asserting a negative claim. A juror can vote “not guilty,” meaning that he does not believe that the defendant is guilty, without necessarily being convinced that the defendant is innocent either.

Again confusing the burden of proof with the PSR. All convictions need a sufficient reason. The burden of proof doesn’t even enter in until a dispute occurs. A newer claim disputes the status quo. But no advance in truth can occur until the newer one gives its reasons, i.e., meets the burden of proof.

This is partially true. If claim A is incompatible with claim B, which has already been established by evidence, claim A has to at least have more convincing evidence than claim B in order to meet its burden of proof. If claim A is shown to be equally supported by evidence as claim B is, then one aught to stop believing claim B and suspend belief until there is enough evidence to believe one claim over the other(s). However, both claims have a burden of proof regardless of how old and/or popular they are.

Sorry, it’s completely true. Again you’re talking about the PSR not the burden of proof. Both claims need the PSR. Again no advance in truth occurs until the newer one gives its reasons.

Again, this has nothing to do with how new the claim is. If a claim has apparently meet its burden of proof, one does have to demonstrate that there is reasonable room for doubt in order to reasonably not believe. But to meet a burden of proof means to demonstrate with sufficient evidence. Just because something is generally accepted doesn’t mean it is backed up by evidence.

The PSR does not depend on newness, but the burden of proof most certainly does depend on how new a claim is. If there were no new claim, there would be no dispute.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

Obviously, most people who have lived have been theists of some kind or another.

My point is that in any particular discussion of the subject, the default posiiton for a rational investigator of the claim is non-belief until evidence compels him to accept the claim. Now, if I’m talking to a theist, presumably that theist has already reviewed the evidence in the past and moved from non-belief into a position of belief because of the evidence. The theist and I, then, can talk about whether the evidence was actually sufficient to support the claim or not. But the burden of proof remains on the party making the affirmative claim (“There is a god”).

You haven’t established that the burden of proof is on the affirmative instead of the historically newer claim. You just keep repeating this.

No, the default position is the status quo until evidence compels. The default position for an atheist is non-belief until evidence compels. As you said most people are and have been theists. Even many atheists have been theists earlier. All I am asking is for you to show me why it is more reasonable to abandon theism and adopt atheism. You claim theism is misguided. Just tell me why?

As far as I’m concerned, this is just a language game. It’s simpler to represent the discussion as a disagreement about whether claim X has met its burden of proof. You think it has because here is the evidence and here are the reasons that this evidence supports the claim and meets the burden of proof. I think it hasn’t because here are the reasons that the evidence you just presented doesn’t meet the burden of proof.

I don’t think it is a language game at all. It seems you’re confusing the burden of proof here with the principle of sufficient reason. Those of us living in the tradition of theistic humanism are convinced we have sufficient reasons for our position. Atheism comes along much later asserting it has sufficient reasons for disputing the theistic claims. Great. What are they? Tell me, why is it more reasonable to abandon theistic humanism?

You’re equivocating. First you were talking about evaluating claims, like having good reason to believe the claim “A god exists.” Now, you’re talking about having good reasons to be part of a “living tradition.” They’re different things.

I am not at all equivocating. I never asserted—in fact I deny—that the burden of proof is on the logical affirmative for the mere fact that it is such. I have stated it is on the newer claim and I have provided evidence for it. Atheism is historically newer re the Western status quo.

Of course theists have good reason to be part of a tradition: it is part of our society, after all, and in many cases, religious groups provide a lot of good things for the community. It provides people with a sense of a belonging, well-being, it provides relief for those in need, it provides social events and companionship, etc. Obviously, people have very good reasons for being part of this living tradition.

But that’s totally different from the question of whether or not the claim underlying this “living tradition” is true. A very useful living tradition can be nominally built around a false claim. Whether or not the god claim is true, organizations and communities like that would still be useful, and people would still have good reason to be part of them.

So before we can really talk about this subject, we have to be in agreement about what it is we’re talking about. We’re not debating whether people have good reason to be part of a nice community because, quite obviously, there’s nothing to debate there. The debate is about whether the factual claim that the community is nominally organized around is true.

That there is a spiffy “living tradition” that is nominally organized around the claim tells us precisely nothing about whether or not the claim is true.

The reason you’ve probably seen few attempts to meet this supposed “burden of proof” you’ve dreamed up is that this particular “burden of proof” exists only in your head. No one interested in talking about the truth of god claims has any rational obligation to meet an entirely dreamt-up burden.

This is all true for a conversion initiated by a theist with an atheist to convince him of the existence of God.

But as you may have noted from the section of my post to which this responds I am speaking about the situation of atheism as an intellectual current vis-à-vis the status quo Western tradition of theistic humanism. Again, the claim of atheism is that the set of tenets regarding existence God in this worldview are false. There is no dreamt up burden. There is the real burden of you as an atheist making good on proving your claim. Contrary to your assertion many atheists don’t seem interested in talking about the truth of atheist claims regarding theism.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

One mistake I frequently see theists make is to claim that emotional experience can reveal some kind of truth about the external world. They often try to claim that emotional experience of a god is “universal,” and so atheists are the ones with the burden of proof for trying to question it. I got the sense that you were making this mistake in your last post, so I offer the following critique:
…
If you insist on framing this issue in terms of, “But…but…most people believe in god! They feel him in their hearts!!! You’re denying this!! What an extraordinary claim!!!” then the “insight” of atheism really boils down to the rather unimpressive and almost self-evident observation that our feelings, gut reactions, intuition, and imagination are very often dead wrong about reality.

We don’t really need to even appeal to the massive amounts of evidence that tell us that the mind evolved in ways that make it deceive us regularly. We have the evidence of our own experience of getting fooled and realizing that we fooled ourselves.
. . .

Humans are really, really good at fooling themselves. If you think that this is some kind of stunning new insight into the human condiiton, frankly, I think you have some work to do.

So the fact that a great deal of people since the dawn of time have reported “feeling” connections to gods – all sorts of different gods, from conflicting religions and god claims, by the way – might be evidence of something, but it’s most certainly not evidence for the claim that a god exists.

The only way I am framing the issue is that you need to verify the atheist claim. I am certainly not making emotional appeals nor can one reduce a tradition to a mass shared feeling. Heidegger was quite clear, for example, that philosophy is a tradition.

The problem here is that psychologizing works both ways. If you haven’t discovered this yet, you may have some work to do yourself. There is also an emotional response called denial, a defense mechanism in which the existence of unpleasant internal or external realities is kept out of conscious awareness. Another one is intellectualization, a defense mechanism where excessive and abstract ideation is used to avoid or block difficult or uncomfortable emotions or truths. I’m sure you’re smart enough to fill in the details as to how the argument might run with these regarding atheism as you did with wishful thinking, delusions, over active imagination regarding theism.

I would also point that you could make none of your observations about human fallibility had we not the capability to correct ourselves. The only reason I can talk about a mistake is because I’ve noticed it and corrected it.

Reason and evidence together are, I hope we would agree, the only way to evaluate truth statements.

I certainly agree. But how do we define “reason and evidence?” Is evidence understood exclusively as physical evidence; or called “objective” but essentially equivalent to or directly modeled after physical evidence? Reason then being an analysis of and deduction from this? Therefore we go in search of “evidence” for God with, for all intents and purposes, our intellectual lab coat on to see if there is a God object or God law or God effect out there.

I would argue that reason and evidence must be inclusive enough (1) to take into account and rigorously evaluate the full range of human experience based upon (2) the nature of the reality we are investigating.

Methods of verification must be suitable to their object. Even in the natural sciences methods vary somewhat. How one verifies the discovery of a new species differs from how one verifies the quantum properties of light or sub-atomic particles.

The domain of religious experience* is not primarily one of a physical or metaphysical explanation of objects, but of an encounter and relationship between subjects (divine and human). Consequently, approaching religious thought, experience, and traditions (in view of some adjudication) a priori and detached like the naturalist observing the Geico Gecko in the commercials is not methodologically consistent with the subject matter.

God is not a physical object. To insist on evaluating theistic claims in this way is like a man saying I’ll believe in the existence of atoms when I can see them with my own eyes. Even if the reality did exist, the method has ruled it out.

*Perhaps it would help if I defined religious experience.

By religious experience I not only mean (à la William James) individual religious experience. I mean all that one experiences in a religious tradition over time including a collective connection with God in community, ritual prayer, applying ones experience in service to fellow human beings, individual prayer and meditation, connection with nature, philosophical thought, etc. It is in all of these over time that the ontological status of God is given in a kind of intuition or perception.

The dependability of my religious experience as an avenue to the reality of God is tested and substantiated by traditional methods of verification. It is thought through within the philosophical tradition of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, and Aquinas; discussed and subjected to evaluation by experienced guides; lived out in the tradition of service going back to early hospitals, orphanages, schools, and outreach to the poor; and it is appraised by the effects in my life on a day to day basis. By this classic spiritual method my sense of God’s reality, presence, and action in my life and in the world is tested, interpreted, born out, and verified.

Why is it more reasonable to abandon this?

 

[NonServiam]

All I am asking is for you to show me why it is more reasonable to abandon theism and adopt atheism. You claim theism is misguided. Just tell me why?

First of all, “adopting atheism” is just another way of saying “abandoning theism.”

Once one stops believing in theism, one is automatically, by definition, an a-theist.

Second of all, it’s more reasonable to abandon theism because theism has not been demonstrated to be true. It is always more reasonable not to accept claims that haven’t been demonstrated to be true than it is to accept them.

As an illustration of this fact, I’ll gladly take any evidence that has convinced you of theism and demonstrate why it’s insufficient to support the claim that a god exists.

I’ll start with your attempts to present the evidence of “religious experience”:

The domain of religious experience* is not primarily one of a physical or metaphysical explanation of objects, but of an encounter and relationship between subjects (divine and human).

This is an unsubstantiated claim. You’re just declaring these experiences to be an encounter between the divine and the human – and, in the process, assuming that the divine exists, which renders your whole argument circular.

The proper way to begin investigation is to start with the phenomenon. We have lots of people who claim to have strong emotional experiences when they engage in devotional acts; we have other people who claim to see bright lights and have beatific visions after fasting and praying for days on end; etc., etc.

You claim that these experiences – which are diverse, which span believers from all kinds of different religious traditions and even no religious traditions (it’s rather easy to generate these kinds of feelings in yourself via meditation, you know, even if you’re a nonbeliever), which have been used to support contradictory religious claims – are evidence that there is a “divine” interacting with humans, but these experiences demonstrate no such thing.

We know that human beings are capable of getting worked up into emotional fits over just about anything, whether it’s something they consider secular or sacred. We know that starving yourself and trying to shut off your conscious thoughts with mantra-like prayer alters your brain ways and causes trippy visions to be triggered by the brain. We know that stimulating certain spots on the brain triggers “religious” feelings and experiences.

The evidence points very strongly away from what you are suggesting: it seems that there is no indication that these experiences are encounters with non-human entities, and there is a great deal of indication that these experiences are completely natural events triggered by the normal functioning of brains (or, in some cases, brains placed under extraordinary stress or abnormal conditions).

As a trivial example, if you have any experience in meditation, you can prove to yourself in a few days that these kinds of “spiritual experience” are downright easy to generate, simply by sitting still and shutting off your conscious thoughts for a while. I’ve done it, and I don’t believe in any gods – I got that glorious, numinous, “one-with-everything” feeling.

Whoop-dee-do. It’s a feeling.

A feeling you have, no matter how strong, cannot demonstrate that an entity outside of you exists objectively in reality.

Please understand that I’m not “absolutizing” the physical or insisting on learning everything through “science.” I’m starting from the phenomenon that you want to claim is evidence, and I’m showing you why it’s insufficient to support the claim “a god exists.”

 

[TruthSeeker60]

In both cases you are confusing the burden of proof with the principle of sufficient reason =PSR].
“There must be a sufficient reason [often known only to God] for anything to exist, for any event to occur, for any truth to obtain.”
[Leibniz from Leroy Loemker, Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters. 2nd ed., Reidel, 1969, p. 717.]

I did not mention anything related to the principle of sufficient reason, which states:

The principle of sufficient reason states that anything that happens does so for a reason: no state of affairs can obtain, and no statement can be true unless there is sufficient reason why it should not be otherwise.

Carefully re-read what I posted. You should notice that what I wrote has nothing to do with this. I said, “Burden of proof . . .] has to do with what we can know and justifiably believe without evidence.” This has nothing to do with whether or not something or everything happens for a reason.

The burden of proof, as your definition states, applies to a “dispute” about epistemic claims. Sure, it’s not a dispute about whose spaghetti sauce tastes better. One party (the status quo) already believes it has sufficient reasons for an epistemic claim and a newer party contests this, often with counter claims. No advance in the truth can be made until the contesting party meets the burden and gives its reasons since the status quo reasoning is already known. The question of where the burden of proof lies arises only when there is a dispute.

Since you clearly are confused and were thrown off by that word, I’ll simplify it for you. To have a burden of proof means that one should have evidence to justifiably believe a proposition. It has nothing to do with the status quo or whether it is being challenged by a party.

TruthSeeker60;8436763:

The fact that the affirmative side advances the newer claim is not necessarily true and would only be accidental if it was true.

Not true in forensic debates which is what I was talking about. See quotes.

Now you are equivocating. In those debates, they are not saying that the accepted views don’t have a philosophic burden of proof. Instead, they mean that since the accepted views are accepted because they have already met their burden of proof *, if they are to convince others to change their ways, they have to “win” the argument.

Again confusing the burden of proof with the PSR.

Again, I’ve never mentioned the PSR. You brought it up.

Side B must still back up its claim that side A has no real evidence—a negative claim incidentally. That is the burden of proof for the particular claim B is making.

In order to “win” a debate side B would need to do that, but that is not what the burden of proof is about. Someone on side B may be justified in not accepting as true (i.e., believing) what side A claims.

Again confusing the burden of proof with the PSR. Side B must still back up its claim that side A has no real evidence—a negative claim incidentally. That is the burden of proof for the particular claim B is making.

Again confusing the burden of proof with the PSR. All convictions need a sufficient reason. The burden of proof doesn’t even enter in until a dispute occurs. A newer claim disputes the status quo. But no advance in truth can occur until the newer one gives its reasons, i.e., meets the burden of proof.

Sorry, it’s completely true. Again you’re talking about the PSR not the burden of proof. Both claims need the PSR. Again no advance in truth occurs until the newer one gives its reasons.

The PSR does not depend on newness, but the burden of proof most certainly does depend on how new a claim is. If there were no new claim, there would be no dispute.

Again confusing the burden of proof with the PSR. All convictions need a sufficient reason.

I think that you might be thinking that I’m confusing the burden of proof with the principle of sufficient reason because you are confusing reason [meaning “cause” when you’re talking about PSR] with evidence. Evidence means data that supports a claim. Every claim about reality has a “burden of proof,” meaning that one must abstain from believing it until sufficient evidence is found to confirm it. On the other hand, the wikipedia page for PSR indicates that the PSR is unrelated:

The principle [of sufficient reason] has a variety of expressions, all of which are perhaps best summarized by the following:
For every entityx, ifxexists, then there is a sufficient explanation whyxexists.
For every evente, ifeoccurs, then there is a sufficient explanation whyeoccurs.
For every propositionp, ifpis true, then there is a sufficient explanation whyp*is true.

In short, the PSR just says that everything has a cause. It is irrelevant to this discussion about default belief.

EDIT: If you still think that I’ve been talking about PSR, then please tell me what you mean by burden of proof and principle of sufficient reason.

 

[TruthSeeker60]

TruthSeeker60;8436763:

This is partially true. If claim A is incompatible with claim B, which has already been established by evidence, claim A has to at least have more convincing evidence than claim B in order to meet its burden of proof. If claim A is shown to be equally supported by evidence as claim B is, then one aught to stop believing claim B and suspend belief until there is enough evidence to believe one claim over the other(s). However, both claims have a burden of proof regardless of how old and/or popular they are.

Sorry, it’s completely true.

I’m not sure you are aware of the implications of what you are saying. Essentially, you are saying that a belief that is accepted as the status quo does not need to backed up by evidence.

What I was trying to say was that all claims need to be backed up by evidence, but those claims which contradict other claims that seem to be backed up by evidence need stronger evidence than they would if they didn’t contradict competing beliefs that are supported by evidence.

The PSR does not depend on newness, but the burden of proof most certainly does depend on how new a claim is. If there were no new claim, there would be no dispute.

Let me make this really simple. In a hypothetical world in which only one person exists, and there is no evidence for or against their being a god, should that person, by default believe there is a god or not?

 

[tonyrey]

In a hypothetical world in which only one person exists, and there is no evidence for or against their being a god, should that person, by default believe there is a god or not?

One should have an open mind - mindful of the fact that the world is not self-explanatory!

 

[TruthSeeker60]

TruthSeeker60;8437395:

Let me make this really simple. In a hypothetical world in which only one person exists, and there is no evidence for or against there being a god, should that person by default believe there is a god or not?

One should have an open mind - mindful of the fact that the world is not self-explanatory!

Why are your posts usually irrelevant to what you are responding to? Are you trying to be evasive or are you really missing the point that often?

 

[tonyrey]

Why are your posts usually irrelevant to what you are responding to? Are you trying to be evasive or are you really missing the point that often?

Can you explain why my post is irrelevant rather than make unsubstantiated allegations?

 

[You]

Obviously our tendency to accept something good has nothing to do with whether or not the thing being offered actually exists. Like when I make a throwing motion with my arm, my dog thinks I threw a ball. In fact, most of the time I don’t, and I am just laughing at her naïvety for falling for it.

If your point was that belief in an afterlife is child-like wishful thinking, I am inclined to agree!

See the thread title; the Burden of Proof: where it lies. Your dog proves my point. In nature, as with your dog there is no burden of proof. The offer of good things is accepted naturally.

If you keep messing with your dogs mind however your dog will learn not to believe you.

 

[Patrick_Cox]

If I may add a new thought to this discussion:
Is it perhaps possible that the burden of proof lies with the party arguing a minority viewpoint?
This might seem somewhat trite at first, but having read through the entire thread and thought about it, is this a possible tenet from which to work?

A “new” viewpoint will always be a minority viewpoint, will it not? It has to be expressed, shared and then “spread”… Hence it will require to be proved over the current (and hence majority) view.

When one comes to a debate such as the theism vs atheism discussion, is it absurd to argue that if 60% of human being’s argue for theism, then the burden of proof lies with the 40% to prove otherwise?

I am open to being shot down on the basis of over-simplification here, but I would simply request the person doing so to give me an example of where a minority view trumps a majority standpoint in terms of burden of proof. Working with an example which shoots my theory down would perhaps be the best basis to work from…