Me(Christian) and Paul S.(Atheist) argued over our beliefs, who makes the more reasonable claim and why?

Question

I would appreciate it very much if you give me your thoughts about it. Thank you.

Here is our argument.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071022061818AAql03N&r=w

Also if you were the atheist, how would you have gone about it differently?

Please refer back to this question, since I may respond back.

Answer 1

YOU MADE THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT...


You asked, "As worded, your question is similar to asking "What evidence do you have for your belief that there are no polka-dotted chimpanzees dancing on your head?"."

This is COMPLETELY irrational, beyond belief. Here's why very simply:

The burden of evidence to prove pokadotted chimpanzees is NOT my burden, BECAUSE I simply do not claim to believe this..........on to your 4th statement....

REPLACE THAT WITH:


the burden to prove GOD is NOT my burden,BECAUSE I simply do not claim to believe this..

You don't get how you refuted YOURSELF?

Answer 2

You write: " I agree that you cannot prove either belief, otherwise it wouldn't be a belief....."

That's absolutely wrong. A belief is a factual assertion that you believe is true. If you believe it with no reason, then you have an unsupported belief, a bare belief, even an unreasonable belief, but still a belief. If you believe it based on evidence, then you ahve a supported belief, a reasoned belief, a justified belief, but still a belief. Sometimes your beliefs eventually turn out to have been true, sometimes false.

By claiming that a belief is only a belief if it is unsupported, you are (1) maiming the English language, and (2) making all discussion of religious beliefs as factual or counterfactual into a farce.

One other item: You are heading down the wrong path in your "you have no evidence" argument. For an atheist to lean toward agnosticism is a minor event, as the difference between "I don't believe there is one" and "I believe there is not one" is not earthshaking.

But for you to make a similar concession toward agnosticism would be a fundamental change in worldview.

So don't compete on the grounds that neither side has much evidence. It's a loser for the theist every time.

ps. One positive in your favor most have not pointed out is that you asked for evidence, as opposed to proof. A lot of the responses to you have hammered on you for demanding a proof of the negative, which is impossible, and which you didn't really ask for in the first place.

That being said, evidence -- not proof -- for non-existence of god is easy to come by, and a couple of the responses to your earlier question gave some good examples.

Answer 3

Though Paul S did not do a terrific job, your arguments were nonetheless weaker. He gets a B, and you come in at a (very charitable) C-minus.

(I know your question here is "who makes the more reasonable claim", but if you literally mean whose position on the underlying argument is more reasonable, then you are doing nothing more than repeating the last question, so I am assuming you mean, "who makes the more reasonable (or stronger) arguments").

You totally missed the polka-dot monkey point. It is by its nature a hypothetical, which assumes that one person is arguing pro-polka-dot-monkeys, and the other against. It is a less dry version of: "If you assert any absurd (to me) belief about a fact, and all I do is disbelieve that assertion, then it is your burden, not mine, to prove the point."

You sidestep this by nitpicking on his particular example.

You generally make similar logical mistakes throughout your argument, including your tree-in-a-cupboard point.

As for "no evidence", again, you miss the point. Of course no one can truly know with certainty that there is no evidence anywhere in the universe for polka-dotted-monkeys, or for God. But a person can say that he has never come across or heard any such evidence. That's as good as anyone can do on any subject when being asked to prove the negative. To nitpick that, in this forum, the writer is not every single time taking the time to type: "to my knowledge, and in my experience, there is no evidence . . . , nor has anyone reported to me that they have personally seen any such evidence in any verifiable or falsifiable way," is to make this kind of quick dialogue impossible, as every posting would have to be turned into a 70- page law review article.

You are saying that because maybe maybe maybe somewhere deep in the ocean there is a long-lost videotape of dancing monkeys, therefore I can't say I disbelieve in them due to lack of evidence.

That's just silly.

You can do much better than that.

Edit:
Btw, I am a non-atheist, so this is not a substantive disagreement masquerading as an analysis of your arguments, it's really an analysis of your arguments. I just think you really let down the side -- poor show, mate.

Answer 4

It's too much and too disorganized to read through all.
But as far as I got: you agree that the burden of providing some evidence is on you and I didn't see you provide any which goes beyond a fuzzy warm feeling on your side. If you are really into debating, you should take a class in it to learn at least the basics.

The fact that the earth is positioned in the right distance to the sun to support life is no evidence for god. It can be much easier explained in that there would be no life wondering why the earth is so suitable if it wouldn't be possible for life to develop.

Please come up with some evidence e.g. for a miracle which violates a natural law, which only could come by intervention of god. An example which would have everybody agree is if god regrows somebodies missing limb (no chance of a placebo effect there.)

Answer 5

Paul S. won.

Many of your statements were based on the idea that you can prove a negative or that the burden of proof shouldn't rest on the person making the claim. The chimpanzee comparison was apt. Lack of belief is not something that must be believed in.

Here's another example if you did not get his original statements. Assume this person could substitute the word "god" for whatever he believes in:

Person A believes that Aphrodite is the a true god as provided in ancient Greek beliefs. There is no evidence for Aphrodite, and plenty of evidence that belief in her changes over time.

Person B lacks belief in Aphrodite. B sees that there is no evidence, and thus no compelling reason to assume that Person A is telling the truth.

Does everyone who does not believe in Aphrodite automatically fit into a belief system, and do they need to provide "evidence" for the "lack of evidence" for this belief? Your logic contradicts itself. The lack of evidence means there is no positive evidence to justify belief.

Same goes with any supernatural belief.

Answer 6

Without spending an hour on it, you provided no positive evidence that there was a god that I saw. You played semantics with words a lot to avoid that glaring fact. Your argument was that we couldn't prove there isn't evidence, but you provided none. That is just dodging the question

I would have added positive evidence that people do make up gods all the time because it is part of human nature. But Paul did a pretty good job.

Answer 7

Your error is basic logic: the person responsible for making the claim is ALWAYS the one with the burden of proof. Doesn't matter if I'm claiming god(s), angels, unicorns, flying spaghetti monsters, goblins, or whatever exist, the burden of proving their existence is on me.

Looking at the reverse, ALL unsubstantiated claims - those taken on faith - are equally valid. Of course, that is why we have hundreds of religions and gods.

Atheists, mostly, make no claim to prove, no more than you need to prve it when you look outside at night and see nothing. Those making claims at all are basing their claims on religion's own self-contradiction; for example, the claim that an all-knowing and loving god created fleas, diptheria, AIDS, etc. is obviously absurd, unless your idea of love is abuse.

Answer 8

You can't win a debate by jumping up & down and saying I'm right, you're wrong.

You lost this debate and you will always lose a debate with an educated atheist, because you cannot prove the existence of God. That's because there IS no evidence. There is really nothing to debate. There is only BLIND faith, which proves nothing.

Debating is not your game. Try something else.

Answer 9

Since Paul is undeniably correct, you lost when you posted the question. You do not prove a negative PERIOD. This has nothing to do with religion, it is a recognized rule of logic, with good supporting reason. The primary reason for this is that statements like "Prove that X doesn't exist" can never be proven regardless of what is said.

Therefore you asked people to do the impossible and are trying to claim victory by default.

Answer 10

Paul, as it can be seen his arguments are not only backed by a logical stance on the subject in discussion but has also proved that your argument was flawed. Also you tend to discredit the source rather than the subject in question, this is rather infantile on your behalf.

Answer 11

You make an assumption that because I'm an atheist I have a 'belief in no God'.

I don't 'believe in no God' I just have no evidence TO believe in one. So it is kind of moot. Just like I imagine you have no evidence to believe in an invisible flying monkeyhorse that poops out love and newborn babies?

Don't you get that subtle difference? I deal in facts, not beliefs.