bodecea
Diamond Member
- Jul 22, 2009
- 185,066
- 66,558
Exactly.....as you just pointed out....it's the proving they exist. Not the proving they don't exist.Why? People have different ideas about dinosaurs, planets, etc. yet we can prove they exist.But it does mean that God cannot be proven to existProve what? That there isn't something?If you are an atheist you should be able to prove that there is no God.Cannot disprove a negative, the onus is on the ones that claims a positive statement about a god. That's like me saying prove that invisible blue monkeys don't fly out of the exhaust of a car
That's why in religion its called faith and not fact
Some people believe there is no God. It is an act of faith. You could call it faith-based pessimism.
Don't atheists make the positive statement: Belief in God is ill-considered. Don't they have to prove it?
Argument from ignorance
Arguments similar to, "Belief in proposition X is justified because you can't prove it's not true," are based on the premise that belief in something is justified until sufficient evidence refutes its existence (i.e. argument from ignorance). In this case, the theist is asserting that belief in God is justified even without evidence. While this view may seem reasonable to those who already accept the existence of God, this approach to belief merely represents a form of compartmentalization. If we were to broadly accept the general premise (i.e., "belief is warranted because you can't prove a negative"), we would be unable to develop any useful picture of reality because every claim would be necessarily accepted as true until it was disproved. This is a burden that is impossible to meet when dealing with supernatural claims. The theist is compartmentalizing his or her supernatural beliefs and applying standards different from those applied to other beliefs. To put it more bluntly, a rational person does not seriously claim that leprechauns or unicorns must be assumed to exist because we have not disproved their existence.
Tellingly, apologists typically apply this premise only to questions pertaining to their particular religion — and not to questions pertaining to other religions. The Christian who argues, "You can't prove God doesn't exist," would almost certainly reject such an argument from a Hindu who says, "You can't prove Vishnu doesn't exist!" This compartmentalization, in which one's cherished beliefs are subjected to a special set of standards, is a form of special pleading.
Atheism can be defined as "the doctrine or belief that there is no God." Following this definition you would have to prove there is no God to be an atheist.
Never said this: Belief in proposition X is justified because you can't prove it's not true.
Religions have different ideas about God, though they agree sometimes as well. This doesn't mean there isn't a God behind the speculation.