Burden of proof (philosophy)

CourtJester and I know what we mean. As for your acceptance of it, I'm working on it. I believe I made the last post, so I'm waiting for your reply.

 

Well, this is logic, and in logic, there tends not to be exceptions.

I'm trying to prove that it is not impossible to prove a negative. You seem to think I'm going for the opposite.

I would say there are more or less never exceptions to rules. If you find an exception to a rule, you've misunderstood or misidentified the rule to begin with. Of course, it depends on how picky you are with what gets to be called a rule. Colloquially, it's used quite a bit.

 

I know what you mean too, but there is nothing that you can do within the meaning of the word to create an intersection with either atheist or theist, it would be pseudologic to do so.

 

there are pages of exceptions to general relativity, but we have not thrown it out have we.....people love tearing it apart, as tesla said its in reality metaphysics.

http://www.conservapedia.com/Counterexamples_to_Relativity

 

No, most agnostics believe that god doesn't exist but they also believe they can't prove it. See anyone can pretend they actually know what agnostics believe. The problem is that reality isn't binary, it is a continuum.

To go back to the simple unicorn example. Everyone onows there are no unicorns but nobody can prove it. So unicorn deniers must be unicorn agnostics.

 

It really does not matter if most people believe God exists and they call themselves an atheist, its totally irrelevant when it comes to proving it out with formal logic.

agnostic denies nothing, thats the point.

 

Ok, I am getting a bit confused, you explain that the agnostic situation doesn't follow that rule but that rule is still refuted because of a valid counter-example. Can you revise the below statement so that it is correct and accounts for the agnostic situation and for the situation where someone has never even heard of God before?

'lack of belief something does EXIST is the same as belief something does not EXIST'.

 

Hmm.. never hearing of God is no knowledge what so ever, and once hearing about God make conclusion to belief or not to belief.

The agnostic neither affirms nor denies, neither believes nor disbelieves in either theist or atheist position. totally neutral.

 

Well, I have produced an explanation which can lead to it. If I recall correctly, you have agreed to basically all the steps in the logic here (although not in combination, as shown here):

The agnostic in the example is an agnostic
He does not accept "there is a god" as true.
He does not hold the belief that there is a god.
He has an absence of the belief that there is a god.
He has a disbelief in the existence of God.
He is an atheist.
He is both an atheist and an agnostic.

Your argument seems to rely on the idea that disbelief is a statement "there is a god" is the same as belief in the statement that "there is no god". However, the example above shows an agnostic for which one is true (he disbelieves the statement that there is a god) and one is not (he disbelieves the statement that there is no god) so the statement that they are the same cannot be correct.

I would like you to address my points instead of just proclaiming that they're not true. I have shown you what I think is every step of the logic. If you show me what parts you disagree with, I can address those further.

Disbelief is not a conclusion, it is the absence of belief, it is what is there when belief is not, regardless of what the person knows, or why he does not believe.

 

the agnostic relies upon the fact that since atheist position cannot be proven and the theist position cannot be proven that it is impossible to know which is right therefore abstains from judgment.

The position of an agnostic is based upon the inability to know, not belief or disbelief, which is why you cannot intersect it with either atheists or theists without using pseudologic.

 

A large number of these counterexamples are not valid or highly dubious. I'm sure we have misunderstandings about general relativity as well. I would say if we had a better understanding of general relativity, these issues would not appear. They are not exceptions to the rule, they are areas in which our understanding of the rules does not match reality.

 

Your whole rebuttal to my argument that there are two definitions of atheism: lack of belief in God, and belief God doesn't exist was that these are one and the same and that lack of belief in God's existence means that you don't believe God exists. However agnostics by your admission lack belief in God's existence but you claim that it is not true that they believe God doesn't exist and instead through separate reasoning come to the conclusion that they are neutral. This conflicts with the conclusion of your original argument that was supposed to refute me. So can you rephrase your original argument about those two definitions being the same in a way that agnostics is no problem for it?

 

the point is no rule is infallibe

 

The accepted understanding of agnostic has no valid intersection between itself and theism or atheism.

Agnosticism is the view that knowledge of whether or not God exists is unattainable, that we cannot be justified in believing either that God does exist or that he does not [exist]. There are two approaches to arguing for this view: first, it can be argued that knowledge of God’s existence is unattainable because no evidence could ever justify religious belief; second, it can be argued that knowledge of God’s existence[/nonexistence or either way] is unattainable because evidence of God’s existence is unattainable. One argument of each kind is considered here.


The Argument from Uncertainty

The argument from uncertainty takes the fact that we cannot achieve certainty as to whether God exists as justification for agnosticism. Whatever evidence there is for theism and for atheism is fallible, the argument suggests, and therefore ought to be rejected. Of course, we accept fallible evidence as sufficient justification for many of our beliefs, so this argument will only be persuasive if there is some reason to require better evidence when answering religious questions than we require in these other cases. One possible reason for so doing is the importance of being right concerning the existence of God.


The Argument from Incomprehensibility

An alternative approach to arguing for agnosticism is the argument from incomprehensibility. Theists have often been content to say that we are unable to comprehend God, that his being transcends our mundane experiences and that our concepts, which are derived from such experiences, cannot be used to describe him. If true, then this might be thought to count in favour of agnosticism; if we cannot comprehend God, then how can we reason with any confidence concerning his existence? http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/arguments-for-agnosticism/

 

A failure in the logic you have presented here is that you have presupposed, without reason and in conflict with the logic I have presented, what the "atheist position" is. I have shown you step by step how the agnostic relates to the atheist position, yet you have put the label "the atheist position" on something else.

The point of the entire argument is that it calls into question what you proclaim "the atheist position" to be, so you can't just unfoundedly impose the conclusion that you want. Rewrite the argument using terms of "belief that God exists" and "belief that God does not exist" instead.

 

Agnosticism is the view that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. ... Agnosticism is a doctrine or set of tenets rather than a religion. English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the word "agnostic" in 1869.

Agnosticism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with Gnosticism.

Agnosticism is the view that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable.[1][2][3]

According to the philosopher William L. Rowe, "agnosticism is the view that human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist".

Defining agnosticism

Agnosticism is of the essence of science, whether ancient or modern. It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe.

Consequently, agnosticism puts aside not only the greater part of popular theology, but also the greater part of anti-theology. On the whole, the "bosh" of heterodoxy is more offensive to me than that of orthodoxy, because heterodoxy professes to be guided by reason and science, and orthodoxy does not.[12]

its not my failure though, Wsmith explained in tedious detail how belief is analysed and formatted in formal logic. You gave me a set of arguments that are inconsistent and all over the place, frankly I have no desire to sort that out as I have been down that road before and it goes nowhere and wont go anywhere until you guys learn formal logic.

There is really nothing I can do when people simply ignore the laws of logic such as the excluded middle and noncontradiction.

Everyone is fully aware of what you guys are trying to do, you want to claim that you have no belief, that is false, you do have a belief. (Wsmith wrote the proofs out earlier)

Then you want to say that agnostic has no belief and marry the 2 together.

Its pseudologic however because agnostic dismisses both sides at the same time, without dismissing both sides at the same time---agnostic no longer applies.

Then while all that hocus pocus is going on atheists claim they dont have to prove anything because its impossible to prove a negative, which hopefully the atheists here now know better.

agnosticism therefore is a position where one cannot rationally disbelieve, lack belief, belief God does not exist, or belief God does exist, not even so much as 10% 5% 1% .0000001% for EITHER way.

 

None of this addresses the issue I brought up. I said you were misrepresenting the position that you call atheist, not the one you call agnostic.

In what sense are they inconsistent? If you have a problem with any step, I will sort it out for you.

Again, I understand where our paths differ, and they are not in the formal logic. If the discussion we've had was leading in that direction, I would go in that direction.

Actually, even xWSmithx pointed out that he and I were not in disagreement, you had simply applied your own logic, which I have challenged, to the problem.

I agree that the agnostic dismisses both sides, but I do not agree that one of those sides is "the atheist position".

 

ok then do me a favor and restate the atheist position that Wsmith and you agree.

Hmm that would put me in disagreement with Wsmiths post and I am not so fill me in where you see the problem?

 

Some but not all negatives can be proven. It is impossible to the best of my current level of knowledge to prove that a theological intangible (God) does not exist as absence of evidence is evidence of absence as opposed to irrefutable proof of nonexistence.

I agree. I have seen myself as a Deist for a number of years now but I have been kicking around the idea of moving to agnosticism as my position on God is one of ignorance rather than irrefutable claims to the positive or negative.

 

It applies to agnostics as well. The claim that we cannot know about gods is a belief about knowledge.

 

It's really quite simple, you cannot prove a negative or a positive because at some level, we are ignorant of the true nature of reality. This has been said in practically every cut and paste presented that pronounces we can prove a negative. The headline does not match what is actually said which is that we cannot prove a negative in as a much as we cannot prove a positive.

This is the strength of the tentative atheist position of lacking belief, and is why evangelical agnostics so desperately want to make it thiers.

 

Composition fallacy.
Straw man fallacy.

 

Or alternatively, listen to what the atheist is saying rather than trying to tell him what he believes or does not.

I lack belief, I had no reason to consider the validity of the assertion until it was made and making the assertion does not change that UNLESS you can provide evidence that gives me justification to believe.

 

Agnostics deny that we can have knowledge of gods.

 

Do you consider yourself an agnostic and not a theist or atheist?