Cheerful Charlie

Yes. The presumption of Atheism is a term used by Antony Flew some 30y ears ago in title of an essay which became a book of that name of collected essays by Flew. It is basically weak or negative atheism. (Flew coined the terms positive and negative atheism for what is generally known now as strong and weak atheism).

Basically, theism is making a claim, God exists. It is theism's burden of evidence to show why we should say that God does exist, that is show evidence for God's existence.

The presumption of atheism means that until evidence is presented to show God does exist, we must presume that God is not proven. Atheism is the default position, it is where we start until God is proven to exist by showing evidence that shows God does in fact exist.

"The presumption of atheism" thus has a history behind that phrase, and a definition as it were. We can show no reason there must be a God and the Universe can be shown to do very well without that concept in a scientific sense, we don't need God to explain anything.

And Flew's observations still hold up. We look out and we see the Universe all around us. We don't see God or any signs of God around us. God is thus superflous and irrelevant and we can safely presume atheism as a basic
premise of the nature of the Universe.

After millenia of debate and discussion, theology cannot show us a single bit of evidence a god exists. And not through lack of effort.

Flew's challenge still stands.

CC

Timetospend

The vast majority is sufficient. Paul's comments specifically target "those who suppress the truth."

Agreed on the billions believing something does not make it true.

First, your contention that most believe only because they are indoctrinated would be basically difficult to prove. For example, there are exceptions, such as perhaps yourself.

Second, your statement is necessarily limited.
And who indoctrinated the parents? Perhaps the grandparents.
And who inoctrinated the grandparents? Perhaps the great-grandparents.
Eventually you will get to the end of the list...and why did they believe?

Sorry but I have not a clue of what you mean here. It sounds like a shot, more than an argument, but I could be wrong.

It would appear that we are done as I see little else requiring a response...not met as a shot only that additional comments by me will not add any value to me or to you.

Keep looking!

Thanks for your time,

Timetospend

I do not think that I stated "everyone believes in God." If so, I would like to strike that from the record. I did write that aspects of God can be clearly seen. Since atheists, by definition, disagree with such a statement, perhaps you do as well.

I agree with the Apostle Paul and would not call him a liar.

If you differ with him, then I will still side with him.

If this offends you (and I can see why it might), you have my apologies as I am not trying to offend. As I mentioned to DiamondH in an earlier post, the Apostle Paul's response to you if he could do so would likely be much more negative. For this thread, I was building off Rom 1:18ff if you do not believe me and want to check it out.

Thanks,

PS. I believe that this will be my last post in this thread, but will check back in a couple of days just in case that there is something else that needs to be added.

Ben K

I am a man.

I do not know that a god or gods exist.

q.e.d.

Gawen

"Those who suppress the truth" is not the same as those who have not seen or found the truth.

I can agree with the first sentence, however, the evidence is there to make a start in the case. As for the second sentence, I grew up in a Presbyterian setting, sang in the choir from age 6-17, went on youth outings and all the trappings.

Not so very long ago non-belief was met with hideous executions, exile, sanctions, Inquisitions, Crusades, taxes and plain (at the time) good ol' Christian barbaric charity. When you take a 1000 years to beat in into the people, they'll eventually believe anything.


You speak of creation. I spoke of the Bible Gods pillars that keep the Earth from falling down. When we find the pillars, I will have to actually adjust my thinking on creation.

So any additional comments made by me are no longer welcome?

For?

Not a problem. Anytime.

kennethamy

Of course, just as the presumption of innocence in the law does not imply that the accused is innocent, so the presumption of atheism does not imply that atheism is true. In the law, it means that the State, the accusers must "go forward" and present the evidence of guilt to defeat the presumption. Otherwise, the accused walks. But that, of course, does not show that accused is innocent. Similarly, if believers are unable to defeat the presumption of atheism, then atheism "walks". But that does not show that atheism is true.

Cheerful Charlie

Uhmmmmmm, no. We have a universe we observe exists. We do not see any sign of existence of a a God, directly or indirectly. The theists tell us there is a God. but without evidence there is such, the default is not agnosticism, but atheism. THE DEFAULT IS NOT THAT ATHEISM MUST DISPROVE GOD. The default is that theism must prove God as they are the ones making the positive claim, "there is a God". MAKING A CLAIM DOES NOT SHIFT THE BURDEN OF EVIDENCE. This is Flew's point.

Like stating unicorns may exist, we can ignore that if there is no good evidence for unicorns. If making a claim, unicorms MAY exist or stronger claims, unicorn's exist means lacking evidence of that we still have to become at least agnostic about unicorns, well that is nonsense. Its absurd. Unicorns, God, fairies, Cthulhu, J,R, "Bob" Dobbs, lack of evidence is not a problem for those who are not believers. If somebody tellls me I cannot rule out all possibility of "Bob's" actual existence, or Cthulhu's, I still have no obligations to take either seriously. Not Cthulhu anyway.

This is what Flew means when he uses the phrase, presumption of atheism. Lack of evidence does not mean we have to take a claim seriously in any way. Nor can any logical principle mean we have to take it seriously.

Atheist IS true until defeated by facts demonstrate it is wrong. we are not talking legel definitions.

This is a strong statement and did make a stir in theological/philosophical circles when Flew wrote this.

It strongly puts the onus, the burden of proof on theology in a rather strong way. It rather raises the stakes in the theology-atheology debate.
Flew also puckishly coined the word atheologist for people like himself that argued these issues from the atheist perspective.

CC

kennethamy

[QUOTE=Cheerful Charlie;4726655]You must mean that atheism should be considered to be true until evidence shows it is wrong, not that it is true until there is evidence that shows that it is wrong. Nothing can be true and then shown that it was false at a subsequent time. For that would imply that it was both true and false at the same time, and, as I am sure you realize, that is a contradiction. If evidence shows that something is false, then it was never true at any time. It isn't, for instance, that the world was flat until evidence showed it was round. It is that the world was never flat, but it was thought to be flat, until evidence showed it was round.

If the presumption of atheism puts the burden of proof on theism (which it does) than that must mean that theism is taken seriously. How can you ask theists to prove what is not a serious proposition. In any case, a proposition need not be taken seriously, and may still be true. The proposition that the earth is round was not taken seriously, but it turned out to be true.

"Presumption" seems to mean in "presumption of atheism" exactly what it means in "presumption of innocence". In the former, it means that the burden of proof is on theism, and in the latter, it means that the burden of proof is on those who hold the accused guilty. So that just as the State has to defeat the claim that the accused is innocent, so the theist has to defeat the atheist's claim that there is no God. Why do you think it is different?

SophistiCat

This isn't about offense. I am just trying to establish weltschmerz's position. When someone prejudges that you are not telling the truth about a matter that is essential to the discussion, then, obviously, no productive discussion is possible. But perhaps weltschmerz meant something different, or perhaps he just didn't think this through (in which case he shouldn't have started the discussion). In any case, I am still waiting for him to clarify his position.

weltschmerz

Hello,

My position is that atheists do willfully suppress knowledge of God. This amounts to not telling the truth even though they know that God exists. This is noted in the crucial concept of self-deception of which I believe is going on in the psychological state of the non-believer. I have no doubt that atheists do not like to hear this and are offended by it. But be that as it may, I think it is a fair claim to make if I have good reasons for making my claim, which takes me to the point of my opening post:

The presumption of atheism, I find, is a position that has no merit and has little to no warrant. It essentially begs the question against the theist by assuming at the outset what has not been established: A presumption of atheism in such a manner that takes for granted one's epistemology.

Thanks,

~ Alexander