Atheism Has No Burden of Proof

The Burden of ProofThe BoP can have different interpretations in our society. As this is a philosophical debate we are clearly discussing the philosophic BoP which Wikipedia defines:"The philosophical burden of proof or onus (probandi) is the obligation on a party in an epistemic dispute to provide sufficient warrant for their position"[1]By accepting this non-controversial definition the obvious point to address becomes that of what saddles a person with this burden. Some might claim that the party which is defending the more unreasonable position has the burden, however application of this idea forces one to beg the question for until one can establish whether the BoP has been satisfied, one cannot determine the reasonableness of a position. That is why it is overwhelmingly accepted that the BoP necessarily falls onto the side which is making the claim, and when placed into practice it becomes obvious why this is so. If I were to claim that magical ferries exist then there would be nothing to stop encyclopedias from being forced by obligation to list my claim as fact other than someone proving it wrong. Of course that's simply not how it works. It does not matter if the claim has not been proven false, if I or anyone making a claim expects others to accept it as true then I must provide sufficient evidence to justify it. This applies to all claims. Some would say that simple claims do not require a burden of proof, however this is false. The fact is that simple claims are often rationally supported by nothing more than the claim being made. For example if I state that I went shopping yesterday, then my say so alone gives one sufficient rational justification to accept that my claim is true thus my burden is satisfactorily upheld.Dictionary DefinitionsI will again refer to Wikipedia:"Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Most inclusively, atheism is the absence of belief that any deities exist. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists" [2]I use Wikipedia here because it highlights the fact that there is no clear accepted definition of Atheism. There are plenty of dictionaries that define atheism as an assertion or claim, but there are also plenty that do not. According to the BoP argument above, the definition is one that must be answered in order to uphold the resolution. And to answer it we must determine what one should reasonably accept as the definition by discussing the implications of the proposed definitions. The following argument will do just that.Properly Applying the Burden1. Theism and Atheism Address BeliefA statement of whether one is a theist or an atheist is a statement about what they believe regarding the existence of God. That is evident by the definitions.2. Reality vs Belief about Reality I think we all understand that there are only 2 options regarding the existence of God; He either exists or he does not. However since theism and atheism address belief, the way we categorize one's belief about this question must be thought of differently. One can believe God exists, believe that there is no God, or not hold a belief either way. Because of this fact there are now 3 potential categories, which poses a problem considering that there are only two options in reality regarding the question.3. The Two Prongs of a DilemmaThe problem posed in point 2 often leads to unproductive discussion by confusing what any argument for or against a proposition accomplishes. This problem is so because it makes the grand mistake of trying to address two prongs of a dilemma simultaneously. To expand allow me to use a court room example:A defendant on trial for murder is either guilty or innocent of the crime. Those are the only two options in reality. So imagine a courtroom where we have one side defending the guilty prong and the other side defending the innocent prong. Imagine that the guilty side shows evidence of the defendant's finger prints on the murder weapon, and the innocent side shows evidence of the defendant being out of state that the time of the murder. The guilty side responds by proving that the video footage of the defendant is not actually the defendant, so he was not necessarily out of state. The innocent side shows that the finger prints on the murder weapon were not that of the defendant. So in short, both sides refuted the other side's case. What is the outcome of this exchange?There is no meaningful outcome because we're back where we started, with neither side substantiating their burden. The problem here is that each prong is an assertion on its own, which means that both sides had the burden of proof. So in the act of each side arguing their positions, they are actually having two different debates at the same time. This is how addressing two prongs simultaneously leads to confusion as to what each argument means and which side it should apply to. It is an extremely unproductive way of trying to rationally address an issue.4. Categorizing the PositionsTo fix this problem we focus on one prong at a time. Courtrooms do this by focusing on the prong of guilt which necessarily gives the prosecution the burden of proof. "God exists" is one prong of the God dilemma. "God does not exist" is the other prong. Since there is no dispute as to the definition of theism, we must look at which prong theism addresses in order to know which one atheism addresses. Theism is a belief in God, thus someone who holds no belief either way is not a theist. The proposition "God does not exist" is therefore not the prong theism addresses because a theist and the person who holds no belief would both reject this proposition resulting in the two sharing the same position on that prong, which is a logical contradiction. They can't share the same position while being on different sides of it. The prong "God exists" is therefore the correct proposition that theism and atheism address.This forces us to categorize the person who has no belief either way as an atheist, because that is the contrasting position on the proposition theism addresses. And since there is no dispute that the person who believes God does not exist fits into the atheist category, we now have a commonality by which we can define the position. That commonality if the lack of belief in a God.5. Not Believing Proposition A =/= Believing proposition BSince the lack of belief in God is the only commonality between the latter two I just discussed, we can easily conclude that someone saying that they do not believe in God is not the same thing as saying that they believe God does not exist. And since the person who does not believe in God is therefore not necessarily making any assertion, that position does not have a burden of proof.AgnosticismA common argument against the resolution is that the person who holds no belief either way is an agnostic not an atheist, which therefore places only people who believe God does not exist in the atheist category. This is first off a failure to understand what point 3 I just emphasized regarding the importance of dealing with one prong at a time. But it is also more importantly a misunderstanding of what agnosticism actually is. I will again refer to Wikipedia:"Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims - especially claims about the existence or non-existence of God, as well as other religious and metaphysical claims - are unknown or unknowable" [3]As the definition makes clear, agnosticism does not address one's belief about the actual proposition in question. It instead address the question as to whether the claim itself is knowable. The term is not mutually exclusive with theism or atheism. One can believe God exists but also believe that the claim "God exists" is not a knowable claim (agnostic theist). One can also not believe in God while believing that God claims are not knowable (agnostic atheist). Therefore agnosticism does not address the actual proposition that theism and atheism address.Atheists Define AtheismIf you were just starting out in politics and wanted to understand what the Democratic Party stands for from their point of view, would you go seek that information from a Republican? Clearly not because we understand that when labeling a set of beliefs, the people who understand the beliefs are generally the ones who hold them. It is completely asinine to try to define someone else's position, which is exactly what theists do when trying to define atheism. And this is exactly what is happening and why there is so much confusion about this definition. The vast majority of people who label themselves atheists ascribe to my definition. It is the job of the people who do not hold the position to understand what the label means for the same reason that we do not allow the Democratic Party to layout the official core principles of the Republican Party.I've said enough for now. The resolution is affirmed.[1] http://en.wikipedia.org...[2] http://en.wikipedia.org...[3] http://en.wikipedia.org...