Reasonable Dissent

Misunderstanding the Burden of Proof

Over the course of my daily net-wandering, I came across this post, entitled “Proving God exists doesn’t work“.  I don’t want to pick apart this post in too much detail, but I think that it’s important to point out what is a common misconception about the burden of proof argument. First, let me detail a few refutations of this atheistic stance that I’ve come across:

• You can’t see germs/wind/mother’s love, but you believe in that, therefore, God.
• With proof, there is no need for faith, which is the strongest acceptance of God (or variations)
• God could prove it, but he wouldn’t do so
• God is unknowable, so proof is out of the question
• We have the bible. QED.

I’ll begin at the top. Aside from emotional arguments (mother’s love, etc.) we can see those things. It’s not a valid argument to pick a sense and an object that is undetectable by that sense and equate it to God. I can’t see the wind, but I can feel it. I can see the leaves moving in a breeze.  And when it comes to the appeal to emotion found by asking you to prove that your mother loved you, or some equally specious example, it is really nothing more than a sucker punch.  It’s like if you argue the point, you’re agreeing that your mother didn’t love you, because you can’t quantify/touch/see it. The mother was real, and the experiences that led you to believe that she deeply loved you were real.

The need for faith: This one is a dodge, pure and simple.  It basically says that this particular subject doesn’t apply to your argument, so drop it.

God can, but wont: He won’t? He used to prove himself all the time. What happened to the fun God that would create a son, send him down and perform miracles? Or talk out of a burning bush? Or…     It seems that God’s presence in the world decreases as our understanding of how things work increases. Not to mention this little mind puzzle: If people were to accept God, they would be saved. God loves all of us infinitely. He could easily prove himself to every person on the planet, but leave the free will of choosing to follow him still in their hands. But he doesn’t, so some souls suffer for eternity.

God is unknowable: Then why are we even talking about this? This seems to be a backed-into-a-corner argument. When there aren’t any more convincing answers, pull out the unknowable argument and we’re stuck. Not because there was a crushing argument, but because there’s no argument to make with this. It’s as if we had this conversation:

Him: I believe in God.

Me: I do not.

Him: Banana pudding.

Me: …

Bible is proof: No, it isn’t. This has been thrown around for a long time, but it still comes up for some reason. The key point here is that the bible is only an authority if you’ve already accepted it as an authority. The circular logic is sound, as long as you’re in the loop. But I am not, and you need to show me why to take it seriously before I will take it seriously.

I have digressed somewhat from my original intent, so I’m sorry. The point that I want to make is that saying that the burden of proof is on the person making the claim isn’t really about asking you for proof of God’s existence. It’s really about highlighting the disparity between how Christians think about everything else in their lives, and how they think about God. I’m not looking for airtight evidence that God exists; I’m asking you to consider that this subject is no different to me than any other. I can parade a list of fictional things that I don’t believe in because there is no evidence (God, the tooth fairy, Bigfoot, unicorns, vampires), and in all but one case you will probably agree with me, but you treat religious belief differently. And once that happens we’re not able to discuss it. We’ve accepted different premises, and our arguments will be meaningless to each other from now on.

Tags: atheism, burden of proof, Christianity, logical fallacies