No, what i am arguing against is that the Atheists shifting the burden of proof onto the Thiests . Arguing that their claim is negative, and negative claims require no justification. This is an extremely inaccurate position. Even within the peer-reviewed scientific literature, negative claims are studied, analyzed and evaluated. Several scientific studies reach negative conclusions and they justify such using evidence.
Many scientific papers are published solely to provide evidence for a negative conclusion that is against previously held conclusions and theories. If an atheist argues that negative claims require no justification, then they are in disagreement with much of the peer-reviewed academic literature who all require evidence to substantiate negative conclusions.
Did what I write in the previous post go over your head? Scientific claims are falsifiable. A negative scientific claim is falsifiable by virtue of being scientific. Metaphysical claims are not.
Secondly exposing the fact that some Atheists use defense mechanisms like Agnostic Atheism , which some fall back on when confronted after they make claims relative to God which they can't prove.
Now you are back to the mislabelling you were on about in the other thread. You can't just label a philosophical position a defense mechanism. It doesn't make sense.
First of all that is not a straw man argument because i am not misrepresenting someones argument either. I am not generalizing by saying all atheists or using anecdotes as my premise to my argument as i put ''If'' as in case.
Surely it would be incorrect ''IF" you were to claim that no atheists makes claims against God.
It's in fact a classical example of a strawman. The conditional phrase 'if this is the case' refers to testimonial evidence, which is not permitted philosophically.
Secondly. You didn't deal with the point i was making. That if Atheists make a claim against God they have to provide evidence and if an Atheist for examples states ''There is no proof of evidence against God'' to this a Theist can just that ''There is no evidence for the non-existence of God''.
I'm sure this made sense in your head, but it hardly makes any.
I don't think you know what a Strawman means since you are using it very incorrectly because you affirmed what i was saying but just worded it differently to make it appear as if the Atheist argument is more plausible. What i essentially did was flip the argument
It's a strawman. You basically reinstated the whole position with your testimonial/anecdotal evidence and then tried to refute that instead of the actual argument.
Kind like stating for example ''It is not rational to believe that God does not exist , because there is no evidence for the non-existence of God'' is perfectly valid from a rationalist viewpoint because rationality requires sufficient reason for any belief to be considered.
Now you're basically arguing the lack of a belief in God from the rationalist would amount to a belief requiring sufficient reason. You need to argue this.
Do you see how all you are doing is shifting the burden of proof and committing fallacies.
The reason why i reverse the argument against the atheist is not to frustrate them or discourage intellectual debate, but to show the atheist the deficiencies in their reasoning skills.
But so far you have failed to do any of those things. Using emoticons in the middle of the post isn't going to help you with this.
But that wouldn't make you Atheist but Agnostic. Anyways you can just reverse the argument and ''Becaus there is absence of any evidence to support the belief that god doesn't exist'' You see it doesn't warrant any dismissal or rejection because that would violate the fact that ''We don't know''.
Nope, it would actually make you an atheist. I can't even believe that I've to this out to you. But anyway, you're the one who brought up the rationality issue - and it turns out you don't know anything about that school of thought. Why am I not surprised?
Like i stated before when i replied to
@Jujuman and
@You using Chamberlains argument.
''Just because we have not being able to solve a related problem doesn't follow that we have automatically settled the problem we set out to solve in the first place.
Neither can two unknowns be equated beyond the fact that they are unknowns. Attempts to remove the first cause or negate the need to know the "cause" ends up violating everything else in our aggregated knowledge base. One would think from purely a logical perspective that the starting point for any investigation should have focused on the "cause" or the "first cause", even if the exact nature of that cause necessitate waiting. After all we know next to nothing about nature of gravity but use it extensively as a cause in order to understand everything around us.''
I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with this quote. If you think it's relevant to the argument, then explain that in your own words.
Overusing the word ''Rationality'' will not make anything you say sound more rational or logical. What kind of psuedo-intellectual mumbo jumbo is this.
Less rhetoric and more coherent arguments aimed at the substance of the opponents argument.
That's rich coming from you, and again, there's a nice emoticon you got there instead of an actual argument.
Rationalist, Rationalist, Rationalist bla bla bla
. Repeating Rationalist/Rationality over and over or using ad hominems is not an argument nor is it a valid rebuttal.
Now you're just losing it.
Walahi You are are a psuedo intellectual
you don't make any argument or address my points. You just repeatedly emphasize that your standing is correct and that somehow makes it automatically correct by default
I answered your argument and pointed out so many issues you had in there. It seems like you have no reply... except an emoticon!
Its every bit valid painting the position i am arguing against. The point of this thread was to expose the fact that creating defense mechanisms and using cop outs are intellectually dishonest and arguing against the Atheists burden of proof..
Just because you label philosophical positions as defense mechanisms and op outs doesn't make them so. You're acting as if you're going to make this stick by repetition. And no, and I've explained many times, you can't repaint the position you're arguing against and then argue against your own painting. This is exactly what a strawman is. Look it up.
The point i am making is straight forward, if you actually care to read it instead of concocting ways obfuscate it.
It might straightforward but your arguments border on being incoherent. If you want make a good argument, make it in such a way that you're free of the many of the issues I've raised.
Nativity is your condescending remarks that neither attacks my points or my arguments intellectual manner. Because creating intellectual dishonest positions are invalid and exposing them is every bit as reasonable if we are going to have an plausible intellectual discourse.
Creating deceptive tactics by intentionally committing fallacies is unwarranted.
My point was that if the position is actually philosophically untenable, the intellectual dishonesty shouldn't matter. It appears to me the position that the atheist takes defeats you and that's why you attack the intentions instead.
I will paraphrase myself in the opening statement.
Almost all people in the new Atheists camp of this century have taken intellectual dishonest positions when it comes to the questions of existence. Thats why i have never encountered one and says more about the so called Atheist philosophers camp then it does me.
You've already become incoherent in your paraphrasing. The intellectual dishonesty that you have accused of atheists was that they took the position of making no claim and claiming the absence of belief in God. Yet you say the reason you haven't encountered any of them is because they're intellectually dishonest when it comes to the question of existence (precisely meaning they take the aforementioned position that you have just admitted to be widespread). This doesn't make sense!
Firstly some Atheists make claims relative to God then , falling back on their defense mechanism stating they are Agnostic Aheists, when that is trivial and meaningless. The only thing that matters is the claims you make and not your belief. If you make
If you make what? Now you're not even completing your sentences!
Or frequently shifting the Burden of proof by postulating that the burden of proof like you just did lies solely on Theists and not the Atheists. Because the fallacious notion ''negative claims'' don't need proof which just utter rubbish and any lay-man philosopher can pick that apart in seconds.
Again, you're not explaining yourself. You can call it rubbish, but justify it. I've no problems with this either way, but I've problem for you throwing out labels like 'fallacious' on these notions you speak of.
I made an accusation not an insult. Its more likely you are frustrated since you seem more frusrtated considering you took offense to that.Atheists have to provide evidence for the non-existence of God. Because all truth claims bear a burden of proof.
Oh, yeah a coward is not an insult? You learn something new everyday!
'Just because we have not being able to solve a related problem doesn't follow that we have automatically settled the problem we set out to solve in the first place.
Neither can two unknowns be equated beyond the fact that they are unknowns. Attempts to remove the first cause or negate the need to know the "cause" ends up violating everything else in our aggregated knowledge base.
Stop throwing other people's words in contexts where they don't make sense, and use quotation marks.
Lastly my argument isn't moot i could just reverse what you are saying. The simple lack of evidence is sufficient in having a belief in God or to simply suspend Judgement.
WTF! I had to read it twice. Read it to yourself and tell me if you're making sense.
At end of the day all you are doing is shifting the burden of proof.
First of all, I haven't shifted anything. Second of all, shifting indicates that it was somewhere all alone. Is this a Freudian slip?
Yes it is unfalsifiable metaphysical question but how does that make disbelief or lack of belief in God more scientific then Lack of belief in non-existence or belief in God.
It doesn't.
Its not a false equivalence there is nothing scientific about Atheism.
First of all, that's not why it's a false equivalence. I've specifically explained it why it was a false equivalence in a syllogism. Secondly, no one made claims on the scientific standing (or lack thereof) of atheism. You're confused now.
Furthermore something being unfalsifiable just means its outside of science, it doesn't mean its disproof or evidence of anything.
No one made claims either way.
It is a complete straw-man to think i was attacking Atheism. If you still don't understand let me just summarize my points in one sentence.
Atheists and Theists have to provide evidence for the non-existence of God , their beliefs don't matter only the claims they make.
Whether you were attacking atheism or not my point still stands. As for your bold statement, the statement itself isn't that meaningful. It's when you explain it that one can extract the full meaning you intend to ascribe to it. But this is when you keep failing. Your explanations and justification are quite frankly horrible.
Lastly what the hell are you rambling on about,
what the hell does these ''mysterious entire theories you don't disclose'' that have to do with my arguments or topic of Burden of Proof. Whether you are a Skeptic or not you still have to provide evidence if you are going to make a claim about the non-existence of God.
Why put quotation marks on something I haven't said? My point was to illustrate the power of skeptical thinking in philosophy. But you don't understand the basics, and if anything this post of yours indicated that you also suffer with incoherence. I mean half what you write is just gibberish. If you can't see the relationship between skepticism and the burden of proof then you have no business in proposing arguments like this.
