Jack Kamm

Hi! I just registered on the Infidels forum and this is my first post here.

Anyways, I think that most of us here agree that lack of evidence is grounds for not believing in a god. My question is that if lack of evidence is grounds for believing there is no god.

Or, to rephrase it, is atheism the "default position" (as some have argued) or is atheism a claim that requires independent reasons beyond refutations of theism to believe it?

T. E. Lords

I don't think there is a definitive answer for that. It depends on who you ask. Personally I believe the burden of proof is on the person that believes. Whether it is in God, Big foot, Aliens or that such and such historical figure was a homosexual. The person who believes is required to provide proof to back up their conviction.

NonHomogenized

It seems that you agree that the default position is that there is not evidence to support the proposition "god exists". That is just as much an atheist position as someone saying "there is no god". Atheism is simply a lack of belief in god(s).
One may be an anti-theistic atheist, which includes the proposition "there are no gods", and requires support, but this is not necessary to be an atheist.
And then, it is possible to be an atheist who doesn't recognize that the string of letters g-o-d has any meaning...

All that one has to do to be an atheist is to not believe in gods. Therefore, it is the default position.

Jack Kamm

OK, based on how you defined atheism, I will agree that atheism is the default position.

I suppose I should rephrase my question though, because that's not really what I meant. My question is, "Does the proposition 'No gods exist' require evidence beyond a refutation of theistic arguments? Is absence of evidence evidence of absence?"

Personally, I'm not sure. On the one hand, I recognize that 'No gods exist' is just as much a claim/belief as 'A god exists,' and thus should require evidence. On the other hand, I, along with most people, believe that certain entities (such as unicorns or leprechauns) don't exist based on the fact that there is no evidence that supports their existance. Are such beliefs unfounded, or are there other reasons most people believe unicorns and leprechauns don't exist besides the lack of evidence?

I suppose one way of arguing it would be that one can imagine an infinite (or at least gigantic) number of beings that don't exist, but only a finite number of beings that do exist. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume a being doesn't exist unless there is reason to believe the opposite could be true. Any thoughts?

parkdalian

Welcome Jack!

Perhaps a rule-of-thumb for determining a default position would be consistency of peripheral beliefs such as prayer, afterlife, heaven and hell, Jesus as God etc. I'm tempted to post a poll (for atheists only) on those other beliefs as a joke but I'm sure the percentage of atheists believing in heaven and hell would approach zero percent. A similar poll of theists would have significant divisions of belief and non-belief in major concepts associated with theism. They don't have their shit together and they can't reach anything near a consensus, because the hard evidence is lacking for all theistic claims. Their belief burden is much higher because each of those peripheral beliefs exist independently of each other even though those beliefs are strongly associated with the theism that they have in common.

Pure skeptical atheism appears to be the default position where all associated theistic claims, as parameters, are simply set to zero.

Jobar

Hello Jack, and welcome to Infidels.

We've had several discussions like this recently; the consensus seems to be that lack of belief (i.e., weak atheism, and perhaps agnosticism) is not at all the same thing as disbelief (strong or positive atheism.) Simple absence of evidence is not sufficient cause for positive disbelief, but if one is intellectually honest they cannot believe in something for which there is no evidence.

For positive disbelief, we need to show that some theoretical entity (God, IOW) is by definition self-contradictory, or contradicts other very basic facts. We need precise definitions to decide this; as a consequence, getting theists to give us precise definitions of God is usually about as easy as bailing a boat with a fork.

Worldtraveller

Welcome to IIDB! You raise a good question, and one that pops up regularly in various types of discussions.
If you haven't already, browse on over to the science/skepticism threads for some very good arguments about the "Is absence of evidence evidence of absence" debate.

And, given my imagination, if everything I imagined were, or even could be real, this world would be a lot more fun!!

-Lane

fishbulb

That pretty much hits the nail right on the head.

Lack of evidence for a claim is not necessarily evidence that the claim is false, but it can be. The fact that a claim exists in the first place means that someone either found evidence on which to base that claim or that someone made the claim up (or perhaps misinterpreted something as being something that it wasn't). If one person found evidence to corroborate a claim, it is reasonable to expect that others should be able to find the same evidence and subject it to public and critical scrutiny. If no one can publically produce evidence of a claim, then we have to suspect that there never was evidence to begin with.

If there never was any evidence to support a claim, then the claim was either made up or else is a mistaken conclusion based on a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of some unrelated phenomena. In that case, we have to ask: what is the chance that a made-up or random claim just happens to be true?

Asha'man

I think you are looking at the question the wrong way. The question isn't "Do any gods exist?" The real question is "Is the concept of god fictional?"

I believe that all defined gods are fictional, inventions of ignorant and superstitious man. It is therefore an easy conclusion that the concept of gods is equally fictional, the invention of ignorant and superstitious man.

I'll invoke my Argument by Star Wars again:
I believe that the xian god is as fictional as Luke Skywalker.
I believe that the concept of gods is as fictional as the concept of Jedi Knights.

The burden of proof is still on the theist, because they must argue that the very concept of god is not fictional. Just like there is no need to prove that every possible Jedi Knight doesn't exist, you don't really need to prove that every possible god doesn't exist.

Spenser

Dan Barkers words, not mine...