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The Burden of Proof

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Angel said:
No, Howard, this is about the burden of proof in discourse. Much of IT discussion is marked by demands for proof. In many cases, if not in most, the demand for proof issues from parties who owe the proof themselves unawares. This occurs in discussions of every topic -- philosophy, politics, law, religion, etc. This confusion can have evil consequences , as in the media circus sparked by allegations of sexual misconduct. Sadly for all of us, the court of public opinion has overshadowed the court of law, and standards of discourse have lowered perilously to the point of vanishing. We see it here at DP in all forums where hot-button issues are the topics of discussion. It reflects a culture-wide general falling-off in standards of discourse and, relatedly, in critical thinking.
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Thanks for clarifying. I see what you're talking about now. I've been so hit-and-miss on the forums lately that I'm missing things I should be getting.

I am totally in agreement with your comment about the recent rash of sexual allegations. To me -- it's beyond belief the damage it does even if those allegations are never substantiated.
 
HowardBThiname said:
I am totally in agreement with your comment about the recent rash of sexual allegations. To me -- it's beyond belief the damage it does even if those allegations are never substantiated.
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Which is why the allegations are made in the first place, even if they are completely untrue. Because the accusers know that most people don't care about the truth, they care about how it makes them feel and the court of public opinion is just stupid. It doesn't matter if they're guilty, just being accused is enough to ruin the life of anyone who gets pointed at.
 
KevinKohler said:
If you make a claim, the burden of proof is on you.
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Skeptic Bob said:
More accurately the burden of proof falls on the person making the positive claim.

John says X is not true.
Bob says X is true.

The burden of proof generally would fall on Bob since he is making the positive claim.
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Skeptic Bob said:
It works on everything. That is the beauty of logic. :)
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How about the following:

X = God is a delusion.
X = Religion is fraud.

Following Kevin, Bob and the OP, the burden of proof in both cases is on the claimant of X.

And in David's example below, does X = "Zardoz exists" or does X = "Zardoz is imaginary"?
David hopes the latter is not the case.
David holds the latter case to be irrational.

devildavid said:
No, the make believe always comes first. If I point out the obvious, it is not my burden. I don't have to prove that every thing someone imagines is not real or true. That is turning the burden of proof upside down. If you can't define or demonstrate god then god is not real but imaginary. I can point out the sun but it would be ridiculous for anyone to disprove its existence. Whatever name you choose to give the sun there is a sun there for all to observe. Not the same with gods. Like they say in Missouri, show me.

For example, I claim that Zardoz is our one, true, angry, vengeful god who all must obey. Does this put a burden of proof on anyone who disagrees? I sure as hell hope not. That would be highly irrational.
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What do you think, thinkers?
 
Angel said:
No, no one has to prove that God exists. No one can prove that God exists. Belief in God is a private and personal matter of faith. You get all up in my face and allege delusion or fraud or hoax or make-believe, etc, then the burden of proof is on you.
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You don't understand. Saying the concept of god is make believe is not the equivalent to saying that you personally made up god. We are talking about concepts here, not personal beliefs. You are hung up on this personal belief thing as if it makes the concept exempt from scrutiny. If someone believes in something that is make believe, it does not mean that the concept can't be described as make believe. If you believe in the tooth fairy deeply and personally, it can still be pointed out that the tooth fairy is make believe. In fact, christian missionaries do that exact thing when they point out to others how their beliefs are mere superstitions, which are make believe, unlike their true belief in the one true god. The missionaries are not accusing the superstitious of making things up, but being in error in their beliefs.
 
AlbqOwl said:
If you say that the tooth fairy exists, the burden of proof is on you to defend/support your claim.

Likewise if you say that the tooth fairy does not exist, the burden of proof is on you to defend/support your claim.

Think the trial re the existence of Santa Claus in "The Miracle on 34th Street". It is not always simple to do, but the burden of proof remains just the same.

There is a caveat in the argument presented in the OP however.

If I declare that I was visited by the Tooth Fairy (or Santa Claus) last night, and there is no physical evidence available to support my declaration, there is no proof possible and it is unreasonable to require proof. It is entirely a fallacious argument to assert that because I cannot prove it, that it didn't happen. It is an entirely fallacious argument to assert that because something cannot be proved legally or scientifically that it does not exist.
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No one has to prove something make believe is make believe. There is no burden of proof for that.
 
The common concept of the christian god has at least one quality of the supernatural.
The Supernatural is by definition, outside reality..i.e. not real.
Any entity, including the god, that is said to have a supernatural quality, is therefore not real.

Burden of proof fulfilled.
 
Angel said:
How about the following:

X = God is a delusion.
X = Religion is fraud.

Following Kevin, Bob and the OP, the burden of proof in both cases is on the claimant of X.

And in David's example below, does X = "Zardoz exists" or does X = "Zardoz is imaginary"?
David hopes the latter is not the case.
David holds the latter case to be irrational.



What do you think, thinkers?
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Taken in isolation, yes the burden of proof is on X.

X = God is a delusion.
X = Religion is fraud.

However, in reality we must logically fall back on the Null Hypothesis. There is no god until there is demonstrated to be. Religion is neither a fraud nor a truth until demonstrated to be one or the other.

Now, you can cast aside logic and rely on faith if you wish...but don't then lay a claim to any form of logic like you have done with this thread.
 
Russell797 said:
Taken in isolation, yes the burden of proof is on X.

X = God is a delusion.
X = Religion is fraud.

However, in reality we must logically fall back on the Null Hypothesis. There is no god until there is demonstrated to be. Religion is neither a fraud nor a truth until demonstrated to be one or the other.

Now, you can cast aside logic and rely on faith if you wish...but don't then lay a claim to any form of logic like you have done with this thread.
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The existence of the universe, the existence of organic life, and the existence of Mind constitute evidence for rejecting the Null Hypothesis and replacing it with the God Hypothesis.
 
Angel said:
The existence of the universe, the existence of organic life, and the existence of Mind constitute evidence for rejecting the Null Hypothesis and replacing it with the God Hypothesis.
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Not really. And even if considered, you still need to define and explain this thing you call god. Null is self-evident and needs no explanation. What is god and why god?
 
Angel said:
Or you refuse to recognize as rational any discussion that challenges your unwitting belief system.
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First you have to establish that I have a belief system.
 
Angel said:
The existence of the universe, the existence of organic life, and the existence of Mind constitute evidence for rejecting the Null Hypothesis and replacing it with the God Hypothesis.
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Doesn't that go back to the "I exist, therefore God" argument? I don't think that's valid.
 
Angel said:
You've established that with every post about "reality."
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I don't have a belief system re:reality. It's just where I live. What is your definition of a belief system?
 
Angel said:
THE BURDEN OF PROOF

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Burden of proof (law)

Semper necessitas probandi incumbit ei qui agit

The burden of proof always lies with him who alleges.
https://openjurist.org/law-dictionary/semper-necessitas-probandi-incumbit-ei-qui-agit


Burden of proof (philosophy)

Onus probandi incumbit ei qui dicit, non ei qui negat

When two parties are in a discussion and one makes a claim that the other disputes,
the one who makes the claim typically has a burden of proof
to justify or substantiate that claim especially when it challenges a perceived status quo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy)



The burden of proof is on the one making the allegation

This is true in philosophy, in law, and in discourse generally

If you allege delusion, hoax, fraud, falsehood, etc.,

then the burden in the first instance falls on you to make the case

in support of your allegation



...​
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It is interesting. What does one do, when someone proposes a general rule? You can do a mathematical proof and hope there is no Black Swan lurking in the shadows. ;)

And how do you answer, when a statement of a generally understood albeit complicated principal that requires a solid knowledge of the principals of an academic discipline to understand is doubted? Does the above rule require an introduction to basic economic optimization?
 
Angel said:
The existence of the universe, the existence of organic life, and the existence of Mind constitute evidence for rejecting the Null Hypothesis and replacing it with the God Hypothesis.
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You are suggesting that certain observations are evidence for god....Ok, but the suggestion alone does not lend any credence to the likelihood. You have provided nothing which ties the universe, life or mind to god..

I could claim that the universe began with a big bang, because I detect that it is expanding in all directions at a rate according to a particular mathematical relationship.
I can conclude that organic life is a form of complex carbon chemistry, because I can determine what it is made of, decipherer the genetic code and the proteins it codes for. Some of those same chemicals are present in meteorites. I can tie the mind to the physical brain by conducting experiments which remove portions of the brain and watch aspects of the mind vanish..

We can not do the same with the God hypothesis....it's a dead end which we can not investigate.
 
devildavid said:
I don't have a belief system re:reality. It's just where I live. What is your definition of a belief system?
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A belief system is a set of beliefs about the world or some aspect of the world.
Your belief system is made up of common sense beliefs about the world and scientific beliefs about the nature of the world.
 
Angel said:
The existence of the universe, the existence of organic life, and the existence of Mind constitute evidence for rejecting the Null Hypothesis and replacing it with the God Hypothesis.
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No, they don't. It's simply you wishing that there were a god and attributing to this god things that have not been demonstrated to be relevant to it.

"I don't know" does not equated to "God did it".
 
Angel said:
A belief system is a set of beliefs about the world or some aspect of the world.
Your belief system is made up of common sense beliefs about the world and scientific beliefs about the nature of the world.
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Not beliefs, actual knowledge. You do know about this thing called knowledge, don't you? We use it to know how to separate fact from fiction. That's how we can be sure that gods are merely concepts and not actual physical things. All concepts do not have to have corresponding physical objects. Concepts only exist physically in our brains, and not all of them are manifested in the physical universe. Our imaginations do not impact reality, except for the activity taking place in our brain when we imagine.

There are no common sense beliefs or scientific beliefs. Science does not operate on belief. And common sense is not really easy to define. Let's just call it sense. Both of which are based on knowledge which we derive from facts.
 
Mr Person said:
More silly game playing.



God's existence cannot be proven or disproven. When someone dismisses serious belief in God's existence, they are not saying "God does not exist" yet that is what you are pretending they are all saying. They are instead dismissing the serious belief that something that cannot be proven or disproven in fact exists.

Belief despite lack of proof is literally what religious faith is, and it is that which is being dismissed.
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Dismissing someone’s belief is telling that person at least indirectly they are mistaken. That would require evidence.

Also, there are a good number here that day of themselves that they are atheists, which is to say they deny the existence of Gods. Of these some also ridicule believers.

This might not apply to you. But it does to a good many here.
 
devildavid said:
Not beliefs, actual knowledge. You do know about this thing called knowledge, don't you? We use it to know how to separate fact from fiction. That's how we can be sure that gods are merely concepts and not actual physical things. All concepts do not have to have corresponding physical objects. Concepts only exist physically in our brains, and not all of them are manifested in the physical universe. Our imaginations do not impact reality, except for the activity taking place in our brain when we imagine.

There are no common sense beliefs or scientific beliefs. Science does not operate on belief. And common sense is not really easy to define. Let's just call it sense. Both of which are based on knowledge which we derive from facts.
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I said you have a belief system, and I said that belief system was unrecognized by you as a belief system, and I said this unwitting belief system was evident in your posts, and here you go and confirm all three of my points in a single post.
And to respond to your snide question, yes I do know about this thing called knowledge. But you apparently don't. Let's continue this discussion when you do,
 
joG said:
Dismissing someone’s belief is telling that person at least indirectly they are mistaken. That would require evidence.

Also, there are a good number here that day of themselves that they are atheists, which is to say they deny the existence of Gods. Of these some also ridicule believers.

This might not apply to you. But it does to a good many here.
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Well, no, it does not necessarily tell the person that they are mistaken, indirectly or otherwise. Whether a dismissal does that depends entirely on what is being said in this "dismissal".


If I dismiss it, I am dismissing the belief in something that is known to be beyond proof or disproof. If a think cannot be proven true, I'm not going to believe it to be true. That is simply different than an assertion of falsehood. It's an assertion of lack of reason to accept the statement as true. It's not a Y/N situation.
 
Mr Person said:
Well, no, it does not necessarily tell the person that they are mistaken, indirectly or otherwise. Whether a dismissal does that depends entirely on what is being said in this "dismissal".


If I dismiss it, I am dismissing the belief in something that is known to be beyond proof or disproof. If a think cannot be proven true, I'm not going to believe it to be true. That is simply different than an assertion of falsehood. It's an assertion of lack of reason to accept the statement as true. It's not a Y/N situation.
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Your sophistry is not very convincing.
 
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