Agnostic.com

The Burden of Proof

By redbai 3 years ago

The “burden of proof” is defined as who is responsible to provide evidence to back up what they say. Some may disagree with that definition, and they are of course free to have their own opinion on the matter. However, I find it necessary in speaking of deities to have definitions to work with and that will do for the purpose of this article.

I am an atheist that was raised in a Catholic home. However, I never really believed any of the religious stuff I was being taught. Starting from a young age, little things happened that made me question more than accept the dogma of which I was being presented. When I was about 10 or 11, my grandfather told me to ask a nun where Cain found a wife, and if from the “land of Nod” where did those people of Nod come from if Adam and Eve were the original people and Cain and Able their only children? I expected the nun to have an answer, instead of ended up being sent to the head nun about the nature of my questions. Another example was a result of my missing confessing to the priest one Saturday so that I might accept the “body and blood of Christ” as our family did every Sunday. I was playing basketball and forgot. I was afraid to take the “Holy Eucharist” the next day for surely the Priest knew I had not confessed my sins and would not allow it so told my mom what I had done before reaching the church. After mumbling a creole curse that sent shivers up my spine and grins on my brothers faces, my mom gave me a prayer that I could say that that would relieve me of having to tell the priests about my sins and still accept the host. And guess what IT WORKED! Guess who stopped telling the priests his “sins”.

I had at least 2 brothers who had come to atheism on their own and a paternal line of ancestors that apparently not only had their own questions but expressed positive feedback when questions were asked. My mom only had one requirement; become confirmed in the church and I could pretty much do whatever I wanted with god.

I say that to point out that I never really had to justify my non-belief. If anything, it was encouraged or ignored. My lack of belief was never contentious as I was never the type to bring up the subject realizing at a young age that theists who did not personally know me seemed sensitive and sometimes hostile, when their beliefs were challenged. But by and large, the people I loved and cared about did not care that I did not believe, and I did not care if they did. At most a new acquaintance might be incredulous about the fact but it never became a problem with interacting with anyone that mattered in my life.

Then came the internet.

In the beginning, I was fascinated with newsgroups that gave me access to other atheists all over the world. The idea that there were people out there actually demanding evidence for the existence of gods and no one being able to provide any was amazing! My own objections were born on the personal belief that none of it made any logical sense and a personal sense of the lack of any real answers any religion offered. No definition of a god ever did made sense or added to my life experience. I had read many religious books looking for something to change that, from translations of the Egyptian Book of the Dead to the Dead Sea Scrolls. But to me it was all nothing but ceremonial superstitions.

I was relieved to discover that I had not missed some crucial fact or document in my personal studies that made belief in a god make sense, it was incredibly gratifying. Everywhere I looked, the more it seemed obvious that no one could provide real evidence of gods, no matter how smart, scholarly or knowledgeable. This remarkable epiphany seemed to have only one response; there was no evidence to disprove a god.

Of course I had heard this before and dismissed it as the self-serving rationalizations of someone refusing to accept something didn’t exist. I went through something similar dropping the supernatural stuff like magic, vampires, fairies and unicorns that I found credible as a child. But personal research demonstrated there was as much evidence for these supernatural creations as there was for gods. Rational thinking adults have no issue with those fictional beings not existing, so why should the non-existence of gods, given the same lack of evidence, be questioned? Special pleading was obvious, but to my surprise, even non-believers were equivocating between agnostic and atheist because of this lack of a non-existence argument. A straw man argument that boiled down to while a defined god might be disproven, that does not prove that gods could not exist. Thus, not being able to disprove the possibility of any god somehow gives credibility to a personally defined god. Ignoring the hypocrisy that no rationally thinking adult seriously makes that argument about magic, vampires, fairies and unicorns.

To me the argument seems nothing but theistic self-serving bullshit. The claim by an atheist that there are no gods has no burden of proof as any atheist making such a claim is speaking of defined gods which cannot be demonstrated to be real, not ambiguous ideas of superbeings living elsewhere in the universe that we know nothing about. There is no reason at all to assume that an atheist who claims that there are no gods is referring to a god that is not defined or gracing another part of the universe with its presence, as atheists have no such definition of a god so why would they be referencing it. Which means that an atheist making such a claim must be referencing already defined gods when saying they do not exist?

This faux-burden of proof seems to be a concession from those who have had to justify their atheism when they once lived among those who strongly believed in gods. It is easier and more socially acceptable to redefine atheism to a non-belief than a non-existence because the concept of non-belief makes it easier to have the dialog with a believer than someone who simply denies the existence of their magical deity. Less chance of it getting confrontational while using syntax the theists identify with like “belief” and “non-belief”. In the context of a theistic community if the budding atheist does not at least admit in the possibility of a god (i.e. cannot be disproven so is possible) then there is no dialog to have with a theist as the dialog starts and ends with where is the evidence of your god? Arguing against an undefined god is a waste of time and energy and totally ignores the actual context and meaning of gods and their relationship with humanity and the world.

Regardless religious apologists came up with the assertion that the inability to disprove a claim is an argument supportive of the claim. The argument allows, in a defense of their community, demands of a burden of proof from someone attempting to assert something everyone in the community believes is true to be false. It is a form of Argumentum ad populum. The logical fallacy is justified because someone living among them is making claims deemed dangerous to community norms and such chaos/danger must be challenged. But since there is no evidence to support the communal belief except “faith” it can only be challenged with logical fallacies. So, using special pleading, gods are “obviously” different than vampires, fairies and unicorns and thus have different burdens in relation to proving their reality.

This belief that they are protecting the community falsely creates the impression of a “justifiable burden” for the same reason that everyone believes in gods in the first place. They were raised to believe certain things are true and that those truths should not be challenged else the community is endangered. Those “truths” about the relevance of a god in creating a positive community and the impression of “danger/chaos” if god is removed are ingrained in the social programming of a theistic community. This programming may facilitate someone raised in such a community into more easily accepting justifications of special pleading related to that community’s god because the atheist empathizes with their fear from having been through the same programming.

So the idea that there is a burden of proof in relation to the phrase, “There are no gods” by an atheist is false and pretty much nothing but the result of the residue of social programming tied to communal security. A belief that for the protection of the community, some aspects of logic can be put aside, i.e. special pleading for gods. An argument that those who are raised in such communities give credibility simply because of the desire to respect/include some of that community in which they were raised. It is nothing but special pleading which is more acceptable because of familiarity to the source.

Having not experienced that religious social programming unchallenged all my life, the idea that I need to disprove something of which there is no evidence to support is ridiculous on its face. But as I said, over the last 30 years the internet made the world a smaller place and I have been given perspectives that never occurred to me before. But, prior to the internet, the only people who ever asked me to prove Santa Claus was not real were children, now I get the same request about gods from adults and it sounds as rational as a child wanting proof Santa is not living at the North Pole.

Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of this website or its members.

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