Response to a claim that the burden falls on atheists

Since I had a problem posting a comment in the blog (http://www.choosinghats.com/2011/11/extraordinary-claims-the-atheists-burden-of-proof-revisited/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=extraordinary-claims-the-atheists-burden-of-proof-revisited&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter) itself, I post it here.

Defectiveabit,

Let me get this right. You refer to weak atheism (the "I lack a belief that a God exists" as opposed to "I have a belief that God doesn't exist) as agnosticism. That's fine, given a specific definition of agnosticism (there are a number).

I agree with you that a strong atheist position ("God does not exist") in itself attracts (at first glance) the burden of proof. This is because of the old maxim that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".

That said, that burden is only superficial indeed. There are in fact exceptions to "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". Namely, in a situation where, if a claim WERE TRUE, one WOULD EXPECT evidence to be available, lack of such evidence entitles us to conlude that the claim is not true.

Is there a giraffe in my kitchen? I look around, I see no evidence of a giraffe (absence of evidence). Equally, I don't see any evidence of a non-giraffe. At the same time, we know that if a giraffe were present in my kitchen, we would expect clear evidence of it, for instance, it would be seen. It would be smelled, it could be studied in a number of ways. This is an example of a situation where absence of evidence IS evidence of absence.

The same goes for God. If a God who intervenes in human affairs existed, we would have clear evidence of it. We would see clear statistical data that prayers are answered, for example. We would see clear evidence of miracles, confirmed by objective observers and with the use of scientific method. And yet, no such evidence is known. What follows is that it's quite rational to say that God (one that intervenes in human affairs) probably doesn't exist.

When it comes to the Biblibcal God, there is even better evidence that He doesn't exist: The Bible itself. The Bible contradicts itself, knowledge, logic and morality. In other words, it has ALL THE MARKS of a myth: bunk.

The claim that agnosticism is self-contradictory is also incorrect and I will address that in the post that you linked.

Regards

@allocutus