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@Fallaneze
No reason to believe = sufficient reason to reject a claim.
free will
Posts
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712
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@Fallaneze
I do not need a justification for not believing something beyond there being no sufficient evidence of it. Please explain how this is unreasonable."I don't believe you" is ambiguous. You aren't understanding the heavy semantics game the atheist experience hosts are playing.
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@secularmerlin
No it's not. No reason to believe = lack of justification for accepting the claim.
This lack of justification for accepting the claim does not give us sufficient reason to reject a claim to be untrue. That is a textbook argument from ignorance.
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@secularmerlin
Again, "not believing" is ambiguous. Lack of acceptance of a claim encompasses ignorance, disbelief, and non-cognitivism.
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@Fallaneze
Not accepting a claim IS rejecting it.
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@Fallaneze
It's perfectly simple. If you say "do you believe me" and say "no" then I have rejected your claim.
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@secularmerlin
So newborn babies reject the claim?
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@secularmerlin
That's still ambiguous. You can "not believe" someone while either (A) disbelieving or (B) not disbelieving.
"Not believing" = non-belief. Non-belief encompasses both mere non-belief and disbelief .
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@Fallaneze
I do not see how this logically follows from what I have said.So newborn babies reject the claim?
"Not believing" = non-belief. Non-belief encompasses both mere non-belief and disbelief .
Belief is dichotomous. You either believe or disbelieve. Unbelief, non belief and disbelief are all the same thing. Simply put all three terms mean not believing.
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@secularmerlin
"Not accepting a claim IS rejecting it." Newborns wouldn't accept the claim that God exists if someone were to proclaim it right in front of them. So you're saying these newborns are rejecting the claim?
That is a false dichotomy. Something is either X or not-X. The dichotomy is between belief and non-belief. Non-belief encompasses several different positions.
Those terms have different prefixes, specifically non- and dis-.
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@Fallaneze
"Not accepting a claim IS rejecting it." Newborns wouldn't accept the claim that God exists if someone were to proclaim it right in front of them. So you're saying these newborns are rejecting the claim?
Babies beliefs are impossible to determine. You must be able to understand a claim and communicate your rejection or there us no way to determine if the claim has been rejected. Babies, rocks and dogs cannot be said to accept or reject a claim and even if they do we have no way to know that is what is happening.
There us no reason to think a babie is evaluating ypur claim sufficiently to reject it so I reject any claim that they do.
Non-belief encompasses several different positions.
Let us assume that this is the case. I still do not need a reason to reject your claim beyond a failure on your part to meet your burden of proof and this does not saddle me with a burden of proof.
A failure on your part to prove your point does not and cannot obligate me to prove you wrong.
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@secularmerlin
Would newborns babies accept the claim that God exists? If no, then according to what you said about 'not accepting = rejection' should mean that babies reject the claim that God exists. There was no requirement in there about verbalizing your rejection, just simply not accepting the claim.
You do need a reason to reject my claim if you reject it to be untrue. You do not need a reason to reject my claim if by "reject" all you mean is mere non-acceptance.
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@Fallaneze
Allow me to qualify the statement then. You must have an understanding of the claim to accept or reject it.
What do you mean reject it to be untrue? How does this differ from simply rejecting your claim? Why tack "it to be untrue" on there at all? Are you implying some positive claim that I do not when I say I reject your claim (without the to be untrue tacked on)?
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@Fallaneze
If you define atheism as "the belief that no gods exist" then atheists would have a burden of proof.
If you define atheism as "a lack of belief in any gods" then atheists have no burden of proof.
Most theists attempt to define atheism using the first definition. Most self-described atheists, however, use the second definition.
The difference between the two definitions is that the first one makes an assertion, and the second one doesn't. The first definition asserts that all theistic claims are untrue. The second definition only says that there is insufficient evidence to accept theistic claims. It does not assert that theistic claims are untrue.
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@secularmerlin
Well it begs the question as to what you mean by "reject." If "rejecting" a claim doesn't mean the mere non-acceptance of a claim, what exactly does it mean?
I'm clarifying what the intended meaning of "reject" is since it's a semantics game that atheist experience is playing.
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@Stronn
That isn't necessarily true. "Lacking belief" encompasses several different positions, one of which is disbelief. So you can "lack belief" in God due to your disbelief in the claim, and technically this is a case of lacking belief where you'd have a burden of proof.
Well it begs the question as to what you mean by "reject." If "rejecting" a claim doesn't mean the mere non-acceptance of a claim, what exactly does it mean?
If you understand the claim and you do not accept it then you reject it by default. This is not tantamount to making a counter claim.
I'm clarifying what the intended meaning of "reject" is since it's a semantics game that atheist experience is playing.
Then you are the one playing semantics games by claiming a meaning to my words that I have already explained they do not have. When I say I reject ypyr claim I mean that I do not believe you. That I am in a state of unbelief. That I disbelieve the proposition.
Am I being unclear sonehow? Because if not then you are simply trying to shift the burden.
Well it begs the question as to what you mean by "reject." If "rejecting" a claim doesn't mean the mere non-acceptance of a claim, what exactly does it mean?
If you understand the claim and you do not accept it then you reject it by default. This is not tantamount to making a counter claim.
I'm clarifying what the intended meaning of "reject" is since it's a semantics game that atheist experience is playing.
Then you are the one playing semantics games by claiming a meaning to my words that I have already explained they do not have. When I say I reject your claim I mean that I do not believe you. That I am in a state of unbelief. That I disbelieve the proposition.
Am I being unclear sonehow? Because if not then you are simply trying to shift the burden.
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@secularmerlin
@Stronn
@Fallaneze
if I say 'the capital of Benin is Ouagadougou' then you might not believe me in two ways;
1 - you might think it is only possibly true
2 - you might know for sure its not true.
I have no idea which posters take which position, nor which posters would describe their position as 'not accepting' or as 'rejecting', as 'disbelief' or as 'non-belief'! English just isn't defined that precisely! There is no right or wrong answer to what words and terms are correct for each case nor what case the words refer to.
Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto
Let's call the whole thing off
(George and Ira Gershwin)
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@Fallaneze
Yes, lacking belief encompasses multiple positions. But in and of itself a lack of belief does not require a burden of proof. If the atheist is not asserting that the theistic claim is untrue, only that it lacks evidence, then there is no burden of proof.
I'll add that your contention that any assertion requires the same burden of proof as its negation is not always true. Claims that something exists are a good example. Disbelief should be the default position for any such claim. That is because there is an inherent asymmetry between the proof required to verify something exists and the proof required to verify it does not exist. If I claim X exists, all I have to do is show you X, or evidence of X. But if I claim X does not exist, I have to show you that in the entire universe nowhere is there an X.
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@Stronn
I agreed with your first paragraph.
The default position is mere non-belief, not disbelief. When proof isn't available we should base our belief or disbelief of the claim off of evidence, not simply default to disbelief. It is irrational to disbelieve an existence claim just because there's no evidence for or against it. The word "evidence" refers to information indicating whether something is true.
By 'burden of proof' I'm referring to an obligation to show that your view is true. Any time you disbelieve a claim, no matter how outrageous the claim is, you have a burden of proof. There's a reason you found the claim to be outrageous in the first place. The evidence against the claim seems much greater than the evidence that supports the claim.
"If I claim X exists, all I have to do is show you X, or evidence of X. But if I claim X does not exist, I have to show you that in the entire universe nowhere is there an X."
I agree with your first sentence but disagree with your second sentence. If you claim X does not exist, all you have to do is show evidence that X does not exist.
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@keithprosser
To make it short and sweet, you either believe the claim is untrue after hearing it or you don't believe it's untrue after hearing it. If you believe it's untrue, this is referred to as disbelieving it. If you don't believe the claim is untrue, but still don't believe it, then you neither believe nor disbelieve it. This is called mere non-belief.
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@Fallaneze
If you claim X does not exist, all you have to do is show evidence that X does not exist.
That is interesting. Let us say x = the fly8ng spaghetti monster. Can you show evidence that x does not exist? If not is it more rational to believe in x?
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@Fallaneze
Tell me in the case of "disbelief" your saying the person thinks they know that x is false correct?To make it short and sweet, you either believe the claim is untrue after hearing it or you don't believe it's untrue after hearing it. If you believe it's untrue, you disbelieve it. If you don't believe it's untrue, but still don't believe it, then you neither believe nor disbelieve it. This is called mere non-belief.
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@secularmerlin
Define "the flying spaghetti monster." Are you talking about a flying monster made of spaghetti or "The Flying Spaghetti Monster" which is different than the former?
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@secularmerlin
No, in the case of disbelief they just believe the claim is untrue after hearing it.
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@Fallaneze
Define "the flying spaghetti monster." Are you talking about a flying monster made of spaghetti or "The Flying Spaghetti Monster" which is different than the former?
Just a generic non-physical, timeless, eternal, maximally powerful, maximally knowledgeable, prime concious pasta monster. You know just hang in out... outside of time and space just... doin stuff.
Tell me in the case of "disbelief" your saying the person thinks they know that x is false correct?
No, in the case of disbelief they just believe the claim is untrue after hearing it.
You have already agreed that just believing something does not require a burden of proof only claims. How then does it make sense that disbelief would.
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@secularmerlin
I find it amazing that you say there is no evidence for free will when the fact that you are choosing to post on this forum is clearly evidence, whether or not it constitutes proof to you.
I think you really have to make an active effort to ignore reality to maintain that there is no evidence.
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@Fallaneze
Now all that is needed is to get everyone to adopt that convention - and use it properly every time!To make it short and sweet, you either believe the claim is untrue after hearing it or you don't believe it's untrue after hearing it. If you believe it's untrue, this is referred to as disbelieving it. If you don't believe the claim is untrue, but still don't believe it, then you neither believe nor disbelieve it. This is called mere non-belief.
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@keithprosser
Indeed.