Disclaimer: As has been brought to light recently, making assertions requires accepting a burden of proof. At least if one wants others to accept their claims as true in a logical sense. If you're not making a logical argument for the existence of god (but one based on faith alone) then please know that I am not addressing you with this post.
Theists make all sorts of claims about the nature of god and the universe without ever providing support for these ideas. Attributes of god such as omniscience, omnipotence, transcendence, and eternality are frequently asserted with no evidence whatsoever to back them up. Not all religions assert the same set of attributes, but the above seem to be the usual claims put forth by the currently most prevalent religions of the world.
So, you have these attributes that are commonly assigned to god that would normally require a burden of proof if one were making an argument in a logical way. In response, non-theists here will sometimes point out (as I recently did) that these attributes are inconsistent with everything we've learned about the universe so far. Laws and principles such as Heisenberg Uncertainty and Thermodynamics seem to indicate that these attributes are impossible in this reality.
Which brings me to my point. When one of these arguments is presented, a frequent rebuttal by theists involves a "burden of proof" challenge. Statements are made such as, "you can't prove that an infinite being couldn't 'transcend' this universe" or "you can't prove that there aren't other 'ways of knowing' that would allow for omniscience". In this way, it is asserted that we non-theists now have a burden of proof to show that these attributes are definitively impossible with regard to some vast, unenumerated, and undefined set of possibilities and that unless we are ourselves omniscient on the topic then we can't logically disprove omniscience itself (ironic).
But for the sake of intellectual honesty, theists should remember that their initial arguments were not based on logic, but on faith. In a logical argument, each of these attributes would have come with a burden of proof of its own to show that they were possible in this reality. This burden of proof has never been met because most theists don't start with a logical argument (and those that do have always failed).
But some here seem to want to shift both the mode of argument and the burden of proof at the same time. They start with an argument based on faith and argue that it does not require proof, but when non-theists begin to show evidence that actively disproves their claims we are suddenly saddled with burden to disprove an undefined and infinite set of possibilities in which theists argue their god could occur.
Well, the only reason the set of possibilities is infinite and undefined is because theists have never accepted their own burden of proof in the first place. You never proved omnipotence, omniscience or transcendence were actually possible. You took it on faith and never gave support for your assertions. You left it vague and undefined and took no responsibility for clarifying it. But when we start to chip away at it, we suddenly have the responsibility that you previously shirked to understand it fully.
You can’t have it both ways, if you want to challenge someone based on a “burden of proof” for which you believe they are responsible then you must own your own as well. No one has an obligation to defend against an argument that you won’t define. To do so is to rely on your own failure in accepting your burden of proof to obfuscate the issue. In short, intellectual dishonesty.
The theistic burden of proof
Theists make all sorts of claims about the nature of god and the universe without ever providing support for these ideas. Attributes of god such as omniscience, omnipotence, transcendence, and eternality are frequently asserted with no evidence whatsoever to back them up. Not all religions assert the same set of attributes, but the above seem to be the usual claims put forth by the currently most prevalent religions of the world.
So, you have these attributes that are commonly assigned to god that would normally require a burden of proof if one were making an argument in a logical way. In response, non-theists here will sometimes point out (as I recently did) that these attributes are inconsistent with everything we've learned about the universe so far. Laws and principles such as Heisenberg Uncertainty and Thermodynamics seem to indicate that these attributes are impossible in this reality.
Which brings me to my point. When one of these arguments is presented, a frequent rebuttal by theists involves a "burden of proof" challenge. Statements are made such as, "you can't prove that an infinite being couldn't 'transcend' this universe" or "you can't prove that there aren't other 'ways of knowing' that would allow for omniscience". In this way, it is asserted that we non-theists now have a burden of proof to show that these attributes are definitively impossible with regard to some vast, unenumerated, and undefined set of possibilities and that unless we are ourselves omniscient on the topic then we can't logically disprove omniscience itself (ironic).
But for the sake of intellectual honesty, theists should remember that their initial arguments were not based on logic, but on faith. In a logical argument, each of these attributes would have come with a burden of proof of its own to show that they were possible in this reality. This burden of proof has never been met because most theists don't start with a logical argument (and those that do have always failed).
But some here seem to want to shift both the mode of argument and the burden of proof at the same time. They start with an argument based on faith and argue that it does not require proof, but when non-theists begin to show evidence that actively disproves their claims we are suddenly saddled with burden to disprove an undefined and infinite set of possibilities in which theists argue their god could occur.
Well, the only reason the set of possibilities is infinite and undefined is because theists have never accepted their own burden of proof in the first place. You never proved omnipotence, omniscience or transcendence were actually possible. You took it on faith and never gave support for your assertions. You left it vague and undefined and took no responsibility for clarifying it. But when we start to chip away at it, we suddenly have the responsibility that you previously shirked to understand it fully.
You can’t have it both ways, if you want to challenge someone based on a “burden of proof” for which you believe they are responsible then you must own your own as well. No one has an obligation to defend against an argument that you won’t define. To do so is to rely on your own failure in accepting your burden of proof to obfuscate the issue. In short, intellectual dishonesty.
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