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We could take it a step further and say that since the one making the extraordinary claim that God exists is placing the burden of proof on us, we can say that since we have not had a verified experience that God exists, God does not exist.
The burden of proof is placed on those who claim others to be wrong.
TRANSPONDER has already claimed twice that I am wrong - so ideally the burden of proof exist on him to show us the verifiable, actual and tangible proof that God does not exist.
I have not asked him to present that proof because I know he doesn't have it.
I wanted to educate myself instead, with finding out what he thinks is the difference between faith and myth? A more easy question I guess.
The burden of proof is placed on those who claim others to be wrong.
No it isn't! If you claim that I stole your wallet the law demands that you prove your case. There is no onus whatsoever on me to prove that you are wrong and I didn't steal it.
The BoP rests with those that make the positive claim, i.e 'He stole my wallet.' The Bop does not rest with the negative claim. i.e 'You are wrong, I didn't steal your wallet.'
I think you need to understand what the 'Burden of Proof' means because at the moment, you clearly don't understand.
If you know the performance of both teams then you are not operating on 'faith'. You are (or should) speculate on which team will win based on their previous performance (the VERIFIABLE EVIDENCE [which you have already stated you are aware of]). Now let's say that team A has never, ever won a game but team B has won every game that they have played. To hope that team A will win is a faith based hope because you are hoping that something will be true even though there is, not only no evidence to support an expectation that team A will win, but there is verifiable evidence that they will lose.
If this is the case then why should both teams even play? Because team A has a losing, and team B has a winning history, its NOT, and I repeat, its NOT a tangible proof that that Team A will certainly lose and team B will certainly win if they are put against each other.
Again, if there was a tangible, actual and verifiable evidence then there is no point in playing the match.
There is ALWAYS a probability. Matter of fact, I believe that almost everything in nature is based on probability. We all have our wagers on certain probabilities that may vary from person to person.
Yes...because if you have any sense you will bet on the horse that has a proven record of winning races. That isn't 'faith', it is going with the verifiable evidence available. Betting on a horse to win a race when, in every race it has ever run, it has come last... would be an act of 'faith'.
Same as above, if there is a certain, verifiable and tangible evidence that a certain horse will win then there is absolutely no point in having this race. They should just award the medal to that horse.
But what happens in reality? Not only people place a wager on OTHER horses but there are some who can't figure out which horse will win so they don't place a bet, and there are others who don't care about horse race at all. This could be a good example to depict, believers of difference faiths, agnostics and atheists.
Same again. You base your decision on the verifiable evidence that the kid is academically competent, doesn't lose focus and is likely, due to those qualities, to graduate. Now if the verifiable evidence is that the kid is an utter dunce, has no academic abilities, spends every free minute of his day playing idiotic computer games and has absolutely no interest whatsoever in learning anything academic, THEN, spending $30,000 on his education would be an act of 'faith'.
Do you now see the difference between making decisions based on the available, verifiable evidence and making decisions on no evidence at all (faith).
Same as above, if there is a verifiable, certain, actual, and tangible evidence of a certain outcome then there is no point in going through the hassle of going through the event. Just because the kid was good academically, is NOT a verifiable, certain, actual, and tangible evidence that he will graduate. And vice a versa .... a dumb kid may just change his habits and shifts focus on academic excellence soon as he enters college - so because he was an utter dune in high school is NOT a verifiable, certain, actual, and tangible evidence that he can't do 4 years college degree. As stated above, there is always a probability in almost everything.
Basing your choice on something that has no verifiable evidence is not being intelligent or logical. Basing one's choices on 'faith' is not logical or reasonable. It's not even common sense...because 'Faith' is what you use when the evidence tells you what you don't want to be true. 'Faith' is the last refuge of those who have had their arguments defeated by logic and reason. 'Faith' is simply the practice of ignoring the supportable in favour of a desired belief.
But then look at it, Atheist group does not have a tangible, actual and verifiable evidence that God exists; however, they have chosen to believe that God does NOT exist. It's a free choice they have made based on their research, intelligence and logic.
No it isn't! If you claim that I stole your wallet the law demands that you prove your case. There is no onus whatsoever on me to prove that you are wrong and I didn't steal it.
The BoP rests with those that make the positive claim, i.e 'He stole my wallet.' The Bop does not rest with the negative claim. i.e 'You are wrong, I didn't steal your wallet.'
I think you need to understand what the 'Burden of Proof' means because at the moment, you clearly don't understand.
No. You are putting two entities AGAINST each other with a possible crime.
It does not relate to what we are discussing here. Faith on existence or not the existence of God. There is no crime committed here.
At I don't have a problem if you don't believe in God.
No it isn't! If you claim that I stole your wallet the law demands that you prove your case. There is no onus whatsoever on me to prove that you are wrong and I didn't steal it.
The BoP rests with those that make the positive claim, i.e 'He stole my wallet.' The Bop does not rest with the negative claim. i.e 'You are wrong, I didn't steal your wallet.'
I think you need to understand what the 'Burden of Proof' means because at the moment, you clearly don't understand.
Not only is the regressive argument an attempt to shift the burden....but it's also completely ignoring the difference between a mundane claim and an extraordinary claim.
And while the term "extraordinary" is sometimes overused....it really is the appropriate term for a claim which is "beyond the ordinary". Claiming that the reality we experience is the only reality we are aware of, even if that was what Transponder was claiming, is a rather mundane and self-evident claim. Nothing much to prove with such an assertion. Nothing extra-ordinary.
To use an example from history...it would have been quite an extraordinary claim in 2000 BCE to claim that the earth was round, or revolving around the giant bright circle in the sky. That would have required some extraordinary evidence to think otherwise at that time. Well....eventually we got it. But we didn't get that evidence by asserting it, believing it, or just having faith that some god would reveal it to us. We learned how to observe these things better and followed the evidence until we could deduce them to demonstrable explanations which would reliably predict other things, if true.
Yet when we look at the world, as understood by religions, we get no such predictive data from the assertions. We get a study in primitive morality and superstitions at best.
I don't have a problem if you don't believe in God.
But there's a difference between not believing in God and believing God doesn't exist. I don't like to use the latter. I don't believe God exists, or putting it another way, I don't think God exists.
We could take it a step further and say that since the one making the extraordinary claim that God exists is placing the burden of proof on us, we can say that since we have not had a verified experience that God exists, God does not exist.
That is a valid argument. Apologists will come up with excuses about Free will, but Paul's conversion (in Acts) is refutation of that. Jesusgod pushed conversion onto Paul unwilling and unbidden for no other reason than that Paul was needed.
Now, with Christianity on the Lam, somewhat, a conversion of Dawkins, Denning and a few others, will they or no, would turn the game around and is long overdue. There is no good excuse why not and the only conclusion is that God cares no more than if he wasn't there at all.
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