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Why do Atheists put the Burden of Proof on Theists?


Why do Atheist tend to Put the burden of Proof on Theists?

It shouldn’t be so given such beliefs existed long Before Atheism came on stage.... Therefore to debunk such beliefs ,,The burden of Proof should equally be on all who claim that such beliefs are wrong.

The burden of proof is frequently misunderstood by both theists and atheists. Conversations where it is brought up are often less than fruitful. As such, I thought I’d explain a few things.

Beliefs themselves don’t actually carry a burden of proof, not as the term is being used here.

Any belief position, even “lack of belief” requires justification to be rational, but this justification is more an internal justification... You don’t owe it to anyone else unless you’re trying to convince them to believe your belief too.

The difference is when you claim something is true or that it is a stronger form of belief (knowledge).


The second you make this claim the burden shifts from justifying as rational to proving it true.

That said, when you supply your arguments and evidence for said claim, it is up to us atheists to explain why we don’t accept the arguments and evidence, that is our burden and too many of us just stone walls with “not evidence” or “I have no burden you have to prove it” which is a bit of a poor show on our part.


Your Justification

One way to consider the justification is like a game badminton inside your head.

You serve an argument for a position, analyse it and hit back a response, consider it hit back a counter and so on. Points will be scored on either side, and whichever side has the most points is the one you’re justified to believe.

If the score is even, the most sensible state is to suspend judgement, not believing either way.

Of course, all of the points on either side should also be looked in to further, replayed through various lenses as over time these replayed points may land elsewhere. We can only really call ourselves a sceptic if we are willing to replay these points, especially if approached from a different angle.


Why would we justify this to ourselves?

We hold many beliefs, and the ones we hold from childhood sometimes only go as deep as “my dad said so” and we’ve never questioned them further.

Consider now if you would find that justification a rational one? And that’s the crux of justification, rationality. So what is rationality? This is a complicated question but in the most simplistic way rationality is, at least in part, reasoning using the rules of logic and probability theory, holding consistent and coherent beliefs, and having no strong credible evidence against your position.

Is “my dad said” rational for an adult?


So what then of a conversation?

Many folks see these conversations online akin to a game of darts, where their entire focus is attaining the highest score possible and lapping up the cheers from the crowd, but is this how we

really should approach conversation?


Well, simply having a belief doesn’t require any more than justification to yourself, so if your friend states “I believe in God” the response “prove it” is kind of ridiculous.

In fact, we don’t even act this way in conversation with claims.

Consider “I went to the beach at the weekend”

We don’t say “prove it!” do we?

I think we would, in general, ask about the experience, what the person did etc.

So if you want to have a conversation about someone’s belief, a better response would be “what convinced you God exists?”

If they don’t want to talk about it, they don’t owe you any justification, just let them get in with it.

Now, if they are staying they know God exists or are trying to get you to hold the same belief as them ,of course, they have a burden to bear.


The previous game of badminton I mentioned starts again, but becomes an external one.

You have to remember though; you’re playing a game of badminton. Grabbing the 'cock and tossing it to one side with each of their points (stonewalling phrases like “not evidence” “if you know it you can show it” etc) doesn’t allow for much conversation and, in fact, you're not fulfilling your burden.


Referring back to my previous comments on rationality, are these stone wall statements demonstrating strong reasoning? In a lot of cases they show a lack of understanding about what evidence and knowledge actually are but to go into those, right now would be far too big of a segue.


In the end, we shouldn’t see these conversations as games of darts to be won, but a game of badminton with a friend where we are trying to build the biggest rally possible, and let the ‘cock fall where it may.

Below are some links about the burden of proof aka epistemic justification.


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