Teak421's thread on the philosophical burden of proof

[Rocinante]

While I appreciate the kudos, I’ve never said really anything about BoP. My contention from the start of this fun mess has been that the atheist must provide evidence that God does not exist. I was not asking the atheist to prove anything, only offer evidence. However, I was wrong. My error was in that I should have used the term argument, not evidence. The atheist should provide a reasonable argument against God… how they construct that argument is up to the atheist.

I really think the position that I’ve come to is reasonable… No?

• Michael

i think your position is reasonable. an atheist ought to be able to defend his disbelief by constructing an argument perhaps of that takes this form:

if such a god existed, we would expect the world to be like such and such. since we don’t have these experiences and in fact experience quite a different world, i doubt that such a god exists.

 

[Rocinante]

We’re both making claims [let’s call them claim (1) and claim (2)] about whether the evidence is sufficient to justify belief in claim (X), but only one of us is trying to support claim (X).

The only way I can support claim (1) (“There arguments you’ve cited in support of claim (X) are insufficient to warrant belief that (X) is true”) is to respond to arguments that have been cited.

The burden of proof for claim (X) rests with the person who made claim (X).

what is proof? do we usually have sufficient information for our believes to say that they have been proven to be true? or do we rather make the best assessment we can based on the available evidence and arguments?

since proof is not even the issue, the question of who has “the burden of proof” is moot.

 

[tonyrey]

what is proof? do we usually have sufficient information for our believes to say that they have been proven to be true? or do we rather make the best assessment we can based on the available evidence and arguments?

since proof is not even the issue, the question of who has “the burden of proof” is moot.

The burden of proof is an academic question which leads nowhere. If a person produces no argument whatsoever but simply poses questions he has nothing to offer and that is a weakness. If we cannot make any positive contribution to a discussion we are in an impregnable position but it’s not worth having! Questions are important - as Socrates demonstrated - but they need to be supplemented by at least one explanation…

 

[Rocinante]

The burden of proof is an academic question which leads nowhere. If a person produces no argument whatsoever but simply poses questions he has nothing to offer and that is a weakness. If we cannot make any positive contribution to a discussion we are in an impregnable position but it’s not worth having! Questions are important - as Socrates demonstrated - but they need to be supplemented by at least one explanation…

i might agree.

i would say that one can only doubt position A from standing on position B. there is no perspective-less perspective from which socratic questioning can come. so part of calling position A into question is being able to defend position B as one worthy of calling position A into question, the position from which those questions come.

is that what you mean?

 

[tonyrey]

i might agree.

i would say that one can only doubt position A from standing on position B. there is no perspective-less perspective from which socratic questioning can come. so part of calling position A into question is being able to defend position B as one worthy of calling position A into question, the position from which those questions come.

is that what you mean?

Precisely!