Why does an atheist have to disprove anything? (page 2)

real one

Because people that do believe affect public policy.

This is very true. God affects public policy. Atheist do not know everything I keep saying so there are realy no atheist, only agnostics.

Narkissos

Atheist do not know everything I keep saying so there are realy no atheist, only agnostics

Theists do not know everything so there are really no theists, only agnostics?

nvrgnbk

God affects public policy

You mean like this?

The Oracle

religion doesn't really have a great track record when you look at everything objectively does it?

There has been some goodness without question...but with it there has been unspeakable evil.

The Oracle

Arguing from the theistic point of view is very simple, because one can simply say God did it when it comes to anything that one doesn't understand. From the volcanoes being the forge of Vulcan, to some god causing the Big Bang; humanity has always turned to the supernatural to explain the (currently) unexplainable.

Take God out of the equation and take a more atheistic approach to explain something, and it suddenly becomes a lot more complex. Gods exist in the gaps. As science has advanced, humanity's knowledge of the world around us has increased, and filled in the gaps where gods once were.

Because God(s) 'exist(s)' in the unknown areas the burden of proof will almost always lie with the one trying to wrest god from the gap in our knowledge and fill that area with testable theories. It has been that way since the Ionians, and probably will be until long after we are all gone.

SacrificialLoon

Carl Sagan has a story about how maddening it can be to disprove something unprovable.

The Dragon In My Garage
by Carl Sagan
"A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage"

Suppose (I'm following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin) I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!

"Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle -- but no dragon.

"Where's the dragon?" you ask.

"Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."

You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.

"Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floats in the air."

Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.

"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."

You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.

"Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick." And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so. The only thing you've really learned from my insistence that there's a dragon in my garage is that something funny is going on inside my head. You'd wonder, if no physical tests apply, what convinced me. The possibility that it was a dream or a hallucination would certainly enter your mind. But then, why am I taking it so seriously? Maybe I need help. At the least, maybe I've seriously underestimated human fallibility. Imagine that, despite none of the tests being successful, you wish to be scrupulously open-minded. So you don't outright reject the notion that there's a fire-breathing dragon in my garage. You merely put it on hold. Present evidence is strongly against it, but if a new body of data emerge you're prepared to examine it and see if it convinces you. Surely it's unfair of me to be offended at not being believed; or to criticize you for being stodgy and unimaginative -- merely because you rendered the Scottish verdict of "not proved."

Imagine that things had gone otherwise. The dragon is invisible, all right, but footprints are being made in the flour as you watch. Your infrared detector reads off-scale. The spray paint reveals a jagged crest bobbing in the air before you. No matter how skeptical you might have been about the existence of dragons -- to say nothing about invisible ones -- you must now acknowledge that there's something here, and that in a preliminary way it's consistent with an invisible, fire-breathing dragon.

Now another scenario: Suppose it's not just me. Suppose that several people of your acquaintance, including people who you're pretty sure don't know each other, all tell you that they have dragons in their garages -- but in every case the evidence is maddeningly elusive. All of us admit we're disturbed at being gripped by so odd a conviction so ill-supported by the physical evidence. None of us is a lunatic. We speculate about what it would mean if invisible dragons were really hiding out in garages all over the world, with us humans just catching on. I'd rather it not be true, I tell you. But maybe all those ancient European and Chinese myths about dragons weren't myths at all.

Gratifyingly, some dragon-size footprints in the flour are now reported. But they're never made when a skeptic is looking. An alternative explanation presents itself. On close examination it seems clear that the footprints could have been faked. Another dragon enthusiast shows up with a burnt finger and attributes it to a rare physical manifestation of the dragon's fiery breath. But again, other possibilities exist. We understand that there are other ways to burn fingers besides the breath of invisible dragons. Such "evidence" -- no matter how important the dragon advocates consider it -- is far from compelling. Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion.

Galileo

As the title of this thread indicates, the atheist need prove nothing. Atheism is a negative belief, and a negative is unprovable, therefore the burden of proof is on the theist. With apologies to J. M. Barrie, I don't believe in fairies. I also don't believe in unicorns, the Loch Ness monster, Thor, Zeuss, Jehovah, Baal, Wotan, Apollo, Isis, Osiris, Vishnu, Allah, Krishna, Brahma, Ganesh, Chalchiuhtlicue, or any other made up deities. I don't need to prove any or all of these do not exist. If you have evidence that any of these actually exists, the burden of proof is on you to persuade me and the world with the weight of your evidence. Until then, intellectual honesty requires, not agnosticism, but atheism. If you are agnostic about one of these things, you must be agnostic about all, and if you are agnostic about all, I don't know how you ever make a decision about anything, as you must be indecisive about everything. After all, if you are agnostic about everything you cannot disprove, than you are agnostic about every idea ever conceived by anyone. At some point, you must realize that the only rational position is to believe only that which is supported by evidence.

BurnTheShips

religion doesn't really have a great track record when you look at everything obvectively does it?

Atheism does?

Humans have a lousy track record, regardless of persuasion, and atheist public policy is also stained.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM4WOAm7D3w&watch_response

real one

Theists do not know everything so there are really no theists, only agnostics

I don't have to know everything to know there is a God, but as for an atheist they would have to know everything to say there is no God

real one

You mean like this?

Yes, God allowed this for his own reasons

Why does an atheist have to disprove anything?

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