Burden of proof (philosophy)

its another thread bu you can view it if you like, while its possible to believe no deity exists its impossible to be without religion.

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/religion-and-morality.516320/

 

You don't seem to understand the difference between a positive and a negative assertion. You're commenting on the state of a box that exists.

Anyway, I'm still waiting on you to disprove the existence of my invisible dragon that can't be detected in any way. Do you recall that post?

 

Nevermind. Some people don't get when they're the victim of sarcasm.

 

Hey there. I don't think we have any argument. The only difficulty is in the use of the term "disbelief". You're using it in the sense of agnostics saying they don't have a belief one way or the other, but the atheists on this forum are using it in a completely different sense to say that they don't believe in God while claiming that there is no God is not a belief. But as the logicians point out, everything that is expressed as a negative can be turned around into a positive and vice versa and mean the same thing. "I do not believe in God" means the same as "I believe in no God." Atheists want to deny those statements' equivalence. And they use the expression "I disbelieve in God" in the sense of "I do not believe in God" rather than the agnostic sense of "I have an absence of belief in God's existence." Using a different term than "disbelief" may clear up the matter.

 

Yes because it can be tested empirically! Now I can say, but god had put air there and when you open the box there is air there. That's the whole problem with gods, they can do anything!

Talk about a logical fail, god cannot be proved empirically, astonishing how you like to mix logic and problems.

 

Logic (philosophy)
Philosophy

Answered Mar 12, 2015
Categorising assertions into "positive assertions" and "negative assertions" seems unnecessary to me.

For every proposition about the universe of discourse, an element is in the set defined by that proposition or it is not. While it is a negative assertion to state that "x is not in {x: P(x) is true}", it is a positive assertion to state that "x is in {x: not-P(x) is true}.

For example, where the universe of discourse is the set of integers.
"x is even" is a positive assertion.
"x is not odd" is a negative assertion -- but it is the same assertion as the positive assertion above.

since all negative assertions mean the same thing when converted to a positive assertion I do not really concern myself with splitting irrelevant minutia hairs unless it changes the meaning somehow.

I plead agnostic, I neither confirm nor deny.

 

Wrong.

A person doesn't "believe in something's non-existence." Rather, a person doesn't believe something exists. In other words, belief is proactive and disbelief is reactive. Huge difference.

 

How you prove the negative is not relevant to the fact that a negative can be proven in either case, our claim is that a negative cannot be proven inductively or deductively or a combination of both.

 

This is tiring. Am I arguing with you, or am I arguing with half-baked copypasta?

 

You can't prove a damn negative! You made a POSITIVE assertion about the inner nature of a box that emperically exists.

 

This guy doesn't even grasp the copypasta he hurls at us, which makes him doubly arrogant.

 

think of it like a court, when in court you bring in expert witnesses to collaborate your claim, sorry if you object to collaboration and validation of the point.

 

Your "evidence" supports what we're all trying to tell you, which just makes it annoying.

 

I am waiting for you to show using formal logic how this:

"I do not believe in God" means the same as "I believe in no God."

is wrong. Wsmith used formal logic, where is yours?

 

No philosopher will claim that it's possible to prove a negative unless he's religious and trying really hard to validate his faith.

 

Lol. What I'm telling you is basic philosophy stuff. Also, all the Wikipedia copypasta you give us . . . well, maybe you ought to read it, because all you're doing is embarrasing yourself. How many more threads will you create on your fetish for negative assertions before it finally clicks in your brain?


Anyway: You can't prove basic axioms. Belief is proactive and disbelief is reactive. There's nothing to formally prove.

 

Wrong. To express an opinion means that you have a belief, whether that belief is in the positive or negative. I don't believe in purple centaurs. I just expressed a belief, that purple centaurs do not exist. I didn't react to anything, I stated an opinion. And your statement that you cannot prove a negative has been debunked several times in several threads already. Any negative statement can be recast as a positive. "There are no purple centaurs," is the same as, "Purple centaurs are there none." By your logic, the first cannot be proven but the second one can be. But the statements are identical. As for your signature line, the tyrant who wanted to ban guns was Hillary, not Trump. Trump is trying to devolve power, not consolidate it. Which makes him the opposite of a dictator.

 

A dog returns to it's vomit.

A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in mud.

These are explanations of why you do not cast pearls before swine, not the pearls themselves. there is much more. In the telling, I cast pearls.

 

I guess all those citations from secular philosophers that I posted are all wrong, but you have still not used formal logic to validate your claim which mean your claim has to be filed as an argument from ignorance.

Sorry man you are making a plethora of assertions with zero validation for any of them. This has been hashed out to infinity countless times on this board

Title: Introduction to Logic

Homepage > Logic > Informal Fallacies > Fallacies of Relevance > Ad Ignorantiam

Introduction to Logic Argumentum ad Ignorantiam

Abstract: The argument from ignorance is characterized and shown to be sometimes persuasive but normally fallacious.

I. Argumentum ad Ignorantiam: (appeal to ignorance) the fallacy that a proposition is true simply on the basis that it has not been proved false or that it is false simply because it has not been proved true. This error in reasoning is often expressed with influential rhetoric.

A. The informal structure has two basic patterns:

Statement p is unproved.
Not-p is true.

Statement not-p is unproved.
p is true.

B. If one argues that God or telepathy, ghosts, or UFO's do not exist because their existence has not been proven beyond a shadow of doubt, then this fallacy occurs.

C. On the other hand, if one argues that God, telepathy, and so on do exist because their non-existence has not been proved, then one argues fallaciously as well.

 

You and the OP are just not getting this. You can't prove a negative. Simple. End of discussion.

 

what amazes me is that its in all the books and regardless if one is a logician they should be able to see it is true. Its not up to the academic field to disassemble years of work or simply turn a blind eye so it matchs their desired outcome but up to them to understand the material they are trying to argue.

 

Ah, nice, where did you get this one?

 

http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/ignorance.html

 

@OP:

Let's cut to the chase.

Since you claim that it's possible to prove a negative, I'm going to make a positive assertion and I want you to disprove it. If you manage this feat, then I will concede that you are correct.

Do you accept my challenge?

 

I dont accept composition fallacies as valid forms of argument if that is what you are about to attempt.