English Deutsch Français Italiano Español Português 繁體中文 Bahasa Indonesia Tiếng Việt ภาษาไทย
All categories

When I - an atheist - reply to God believers that I don't believe in God because his existence is not proven, I am answered with this question:
Can you prove that there is no God?
But why should I prove that there is no God? I mean is, I'm not the one who is stating something?

2007-01-12 08:13:15 · 19 answers · asked by Marlon 1 in Society & Culture Religion & Spirituality

19 answers

In case you didn't understand the first poster, you are correct. It is the responsibility of the person making the assertion to prove the assertion. It is NOT the responsibility of the doubter to 'disprove' anything. That is why in our courts, the burden of proof is on the accuser, not the accused. You cannot prove a negative, only a positive.

2007-01-12 08:18:44 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 4 0

The burden of proof is, indeed, upon the claimant.
However, in our book (The Holy Bible), it is stated, "Only fools say in their hearts,'There is no God.' "
You do not have to prove that there is no God and neither do we have to prove that there is.
Our job is only to provide the truth, not to 'gather the harvest'.
Our instruction reads, in part,"Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"

All will be made plain in the last day.

2007-01-12 16:28:20 · answer #2 · answered by credo quia est absurdum 7 · 1 0

People that tell you that you have to prove that there is no god, are effectively asking you to defend your belief's You should not have to prove that there is or is not a god because everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. At the moment no-one can prove that there is or is not a god.

2007-01-12 16:20:27 · answer #3 · answered by snakestersnake 4 · 1 0

Wow, how can anybody compete with that first answer? I don't think they can, so I won't and will applaud it. Sometimes the first answer is the best as well.

And I was going to write that the burden for proof of existence of anything from aliens to gods is on the person who claims it's existence, not the one who doubts it.

2007-01-12 16:20:17 · answer #4 · answered by vertical732 4 · 0 0

You don't have to prove anything, No one can prove of his existence, and if they say there is the bible well yeah and how are we supposed to know that "he" wrote it. I believe that there is something, but I am unsure of exactly what it is and if it is not proven then it is not real to me. But back to your question, you don't have to prove jack!

2007-01-12 16:28:56 · answer #5 · answered by passionfire2k4 3 · 0 0

The proof is in the puddin' so the saying goes. I agree that you should not have to support your position...it is a loose/loose situation. If I felt I absolutely had to support my position I would say that I have sought evidence everywhere and never been able to look through a microscope and say definitively "Yep, there's God, alright...now I have proof." Nor can they. It is a never ending battle.

2007-01-12 16:24:05 · answer #6 · answered by smecky809042003 5 · 0 0

The person making the claim is obligated to prove it.

I admit I can't prove that God exists, because my belief is by faith.

So, prove what you believe. Or, do you also believe by faith?

2007-01-12 16:20:36 · answer #7 · answered by Born Again Christian 5 · 2 0

You are the one stating there is no God.

Hint hint.

So, unless you can prove that there is no God, you can't state there isn't one since you can't prove it with actual evidence, other than what you believe to be true. Which what you say, cannot be proven to be true.

2007-01-12 16:16:24 · answer #8 · answered by May 4 · 2 2

Russell's teapot, sometimes called the Celestial Teapot, was an analogy first coined by the philosopher Bertrand Russell, intended to refute the idea that the burden of proof lies upon the sceptic to disprove unfalsifiable claims of religions. In an article entitled "Is There a God?," commissioned (but never published) by Illustrated magazine in 1952, Russell said the following:

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

In his book A Devil's Chaplain, Richard Dawkins developed the teapot theme a little further:

The reason organized religion merits outright hostility is that, unlike belief in Russell's teapot, religion is powerful, influential, tax-exempt and systematically passed on to children too young to defend themselves. Children are not compelled to spend their formative years memorizing loony books about teapots. Government-subsidized schools don't exclude children whose parents prefer the wrong shape of teapot. Teapot-believers don't stone teapot-unbelievers, teapot-apostates, teapot-heretics and teapot-blasphemers to death. Mothers don't warn their sons off marrying teapot-shiksas whose parents believe in three teapots rather than one. People who put the milk in first don't kneecap those who put the tea in first.

Similar concepts to Russell's teapot are the Invisible Pink Unicorn and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

2007-01-12 16:16:08 · answer #9 · answered by eldad9 6 · 3 2

Correct. The burden of proof is on the one making the (postive) claim - the theists. Atheists simply do not believe until we see some evidence or even absolute proof.

Do people who don't believe in unicorns have to PROVE there aren't any to others? You can't prove a negative.

2007-01-12 16:16:31 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 5 4

fedest.com, questions and answers