To continue from where Art and I left off.
Nothing was said about God's existence until you brought it up. A negative claim is still a claim.
I said there's no evidence for god's existence, and therefore believing in it is nonsense. That's how it works. When it comes to assessing whether or not something exists, you don't need negative proof, you just need a lack of positive proof. It's why we don't take the idea of a teapot orbiting the sun somewhere between Jupiter and Saturn, or invisible pink unicorns running around seriously. The fact that god somehow deserves special privilege in your book in that in this one specific case, it's suddenly up to nonbelievers to prove that it's irrational and not the other way around is exactly the kind of bullshit that I mentioned in my earlier post.
Really now, by your logic, I could claim that I am King of the Space Fairies, a race of wizard goblins who live on Mars, and as long as you bring up how fucking stupid that is first, then suddenly magical space wizards is the default and it's now up to you to disprove it, rather than on me to prove it.
The difference is that I have actual evidence that you are not, in fact, King of the Space Fairies.
Oh? Who is, then? You?
No.
Fact is, plenty of rational people are theists, and plenty of irrational people are atheists. Neither side can seriously claim superiority when it comes to rationality.
Furthermore, not everybody is an atheist for rational reasons. There are many, many people who become atheists because of emotional reasons, because of some ideology, or just because religion doesn't speak to them.
I said atheism, as in the idea itself, is more rational than theism, not that an individual being atheist is necessarily proof that they're a rational person. Of course, whether individual atheists are overall rational people is irrelevant to that point, and to say otherwise is a textbook ad hom. It's on the same level as people who say "vegetarianism is bad because Hitler was a vegetarian".
That said, though, theism is, at the very least, strong evidence that someone is not rational. In much the same way as your example of an atheist who believes in ghosts or a non-theistic religion.
Okay, so you're a bigot. You might as well claim that bisexuality is strong evidence that somebody's a pervert. Moreover, dismissing literally billions of people as "irrational" simply because of their faith is itself irrational.
Furthermore, it's not ad hominem to question whether atheism is inherently more rational. I thought atheists were supposed to be skeptics.
He never said atheists were more rational. Merely that, atheism, as a concept, is more rational than theism. There is a difference.
Yes, and I'm questioning whether his premise is actually true. I'll get more into that later.
Yet again, we see you making a claim without any evidence to back it up. Like it or not, saying religion is nonsense is a claim. You're the one making the claims here, so you're the one who has to back them up.
Nope. "God exists" is not the default. Who mentions it first is irrelevant.
No, it isn't. You made a claim, you need to back it up. Simple as that. If you were merely doubting the existence of God, I wouldn't be pointing it out. But since you're making actual claims, I'm asking you to stand behind them, rather than retreating to your "I don't need to prove anything" motte.
Your constant claims that "atheists don't need to prove anything" when you keep making all these bold claims are a prime example of the same type of double standard you accuse theists of having. Just like how you keep talking about ad hominem while simultaneously implying I'm mentally defective. It seems to me that you're being hypocritical. Or are you just afraid of having to back up your claims?
Er, you (generally) can't prove negatives, UP. 'S why burden of proof is on positive claims. If I were to claim there aren't invisible, intangible elephants hiding in my closet, would I need to prove it, or would it be accepted at face value? What if I claimed there were? Do you see the difference in the two situations? (I swear I'm not trying to be snide or facetious, I honestly want to know. Also, sorry for the non-linky quote-bits, I just inserted ends and beginnings manually. Vita posting, and I didn't wanna type that whole line out twice. As fkr me screwing with your name, well, I'm bored, lazy, and its 1:30 in the fuckin morning here. Sorry.)
That's okay.
But anyway, the problem with your analogy is that it's based on circular reasoning. See, you presume that it's not the case, so you're presuming what you set out to prove.
Go on then, let's hear it.
We've sent rovers and the like to Mars, and have thus far found zero evidence that the Martian environment can support any life above the microscopic level.
What Svata said. I was talking about the idea itself. Blind faith in a magical sky fairy based on a loose anthology of bronze age myths is inherently less rational than not having blind faith in a magical sky fairy based on a loose anthology of bronze age myths. Other beliefs and behaviour of people who believe in either is irrelevant.
Is it really so irrational? There are some reasons to believe there's actual evidence in favor of God's existence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophic_burden_of_proof
When two parties are in a discussion and one affirms a claim that the other disputes, the one who affirms has a burden of proof to justify or substantiate that claim. An argument from ignorance occurs when either a proposition is assumed to be true because it has not yet been proved false or a proposition is assumed to be false because it has not yet been proved true.
A negative claim is a colloquialism for an affirmed claim that asserts the non-existence or exclusion of something. There are many proofs that substantiate negative claims in mathematics, science, and economics including Arrow's impossibility theorem.
A negative claim may exist as a counter point to a previous claim. A proof of impossibility or an evidence of absence argument are typical methods to fulfil the burden of proof for a negative claim.
I strongly recommend you read up on how burden of proof works. Arguing about things you clearly don't understand isn't exactly the best way to help your case. Come back when you understand why burden of proof is on the positive claim, rather than who brought it up first.
Also, if you're offended with me pointing out that something you believe in is irrational, again, that's your problem. Christians acting like they're entitled to validation from everyone else is exactly the kind of bullshit I was talking about.
*Smiles evilly* You just painted a giant target on your back, and you probably don't even realize it. To quote your own source:
An argument from ignorance occurs when either a proposition is assumed to be true because it has not yet been proved false or a proposition is assumed to be false because it has not yet been proved true.
You're assuming God doesn't exist simply because nobody's proven He exists. Your own citation is undermining your point, arguing at cross purposes with you.
And as for your other one:
A negative claim may exist as a counter point to a previous claim. A proof of impossibility or an evidence of absence argument are typical methods to fulfil the burden of proof for a negative claim.
You have yet to use either of these methods. Instead, you're taking absence of evidence to be the same as evidence of absence, which is a
massive fallacy. Maybe you should have read these sources more thoroughly before using them to back you up.