Theism vs. Atheism ... will it ever be settled?

Let's focus on the absence of evidence alone, because this is very simple: You are making a positive claim. You have no good reasons for believing the claim is true. The reasonable choice is to abandon the claim. Is there any argument against this conclusion which isn't circular and/or based on either personal revelation or blind faith - or a mere rationalisation, like "so many people are believing in this" or "society would collapse if people stopped believing" etc.?

I think the limit is 4000 posts (200 pages) ... 

Textbook's responses usually deserve no response. 

By the way, for those saying that this thread is at risk of being closed for being too long, please... We can teach you a thing or two in the libertarian thread. 

 

However as the atheist experience illustrated on their show, the person who makes the positive claim is the person that has a job to do.

 

The story goes like this:

A: There's a unicorn in this shoebox.

 

B: I don't think so. Unicorns don't exist.

 

A: But I have one in this box.

 

B: I really don't think so.

 

A: Really there is.

 

B: I don't think a unicorn could fit in there.

 

A: It's a minature unicorn.

 

B: *looking in box* But I don't see anything.

 

A: It's an invisible minature unicorn.

 

B: *feeling* But my hand passes right through the space in the box.

 

A: It's an intangible invisible minature unicorn.

 

B: But I can't even hear it breathing.

 

A: It's an intangible invisible minature unicorn who generates soundwaves on a frequency outside the range of human hearing.

 

B: There is no unicorn in this box.

 

A: Prove it.

 

 

Just what exactly is B supposed to do here? There is nothing to prove. There is nothing to argue against. Nothing observed suggests that there is a unicorn in the box and a ridiculous series of inexplicably attained magical properties need to be attributed to the unicorn before its existence makes sense.

 

It's the same with god. The naysayers don't need proof that they have seen nothing which suggests he exists.

Because it's symptomatic of mental illness perhaps?

 

Here is the opposite of the unicorn story to further illustrate the point.

 

Mr PF: Elephants never spontaneously turn neon pink.

Ivan: Prove it.

 

For instances lets replace "I have a unicorn in this box" with "My wife loves me."

 

A: My wife loves me.

B: Prove it.

A: Ummmm.... gee... I just feel it.

B: Not good enough for me, I want evidence.

A: Well she buys me stuff.

B: Absolutely irrelevant. Nothing to do with emotion.

A: She does things for me.

B: Maybe she wants something out of you.

A: We have sex.

B: But you don't know how she feels, maybe she hates it. Some proof please.

A: Look, f**k you, I know alright.

B: No you don't. Someone who believes in god might say the same things and that's not good enough for proving god so why is it good enough here?


The escape route for A is that love is an emotional quality so if he feels it as an emotion, that's enough. God's meant to be a real-world entity so emotion isn't enough for him  However, what of the situation where someone genuinely feels loved, only to later discover that this person was actually playing them? They felt the same way as the person whose partner truely did love them, but it seems only the former was loved despite identical emotions in each case.

 

It's a tricky issue and for many T and Equality's answer is appealing. If someone needs to think something in order to make themselves happy, let them think it, don't demand they prove it.

 

Religion gets thumped by people like me though because thinking someone loves you doesn't cause the kind of problems belief in god does. Belief in love doesn't loan itself to organisation and social control the way belief in god does, which is why I'll accept someone's "unicorn in a box" when it's a personal thing like love, but not when it's an ideology that seeks the establishment of a system that controls people.