Catholic church at it again. This time Holland.

[Seth]

Utter poppycock. We don't have to disprove the existence of an imaginary being.

Prove that God is an "imaginary being" first. This is at present an unsubstantiated assertion that can be dismissed without further consideration, according to your own rules.

Sorry, you missed a step, mayhap deliberately, by not proving any god or gods exist. It's ipso facto imaginary until you do.

So, muons and quarks were "ipso facto imaginary" until someone observed one? Oh wait, nobody's actually OBSERVED a quark, have they? They have indirectly observed a quark's effects, but have not actually PROVED that quarks exist. They theorized them mathematically and then observed the tracks of particles that behaved as predicted, but they haven't proven that those tracks were not caused by something other than a quark, because they can't actually see a quark and hold one up and say "See, here is a quark!"

Therefore, according to your argument, quarks are "ipso facto imaginary."

You made the positive claim that God is an "imaginary being." Now it's up to you to provide the critically robust proofs of this claim. I make no positive (or negative) claims about God at all, therefore I'm under no obligation to prove anything.

[Coito ergo sum]

Well, as long as you don't have any other evidence rebutting his recounting of the Trojan War, why should we not accept the evidence that is available as true until proven untrue?

Because we can't accept every writing as true until it's proven untrue.

Why not? Because it's extremely inconvenient for your anti-theistic dogma to do so, that's why not. However, your skepticism is not the metric by which truth is judged. People can judge the veracity and probative value of any writing they read without reference to your skepticism, you see. And the burden of proving their judgment wrong lies with those who make the positive claim that their judgment is wrong.

Because it is illogical to believe in multiple inconsistent things at the same time. Therefore, we don't believe them until there is reason to.

I'm not talking about "truth" - proof or evidence is not "truth". You keep confusing those concepts.

Taking it from the top, and repeating, again - We don't KNOW what is "true." For all we know, everything our eyes see and ears hear is deceptive, and there are 47 different universes, and each person has a penis sticking out of their forehead, and there are ghosts walking next to us rubbing the napes of our necks. We don't "know" that isn't "true!" Maybe it is true. There just isn't any reason to believe it.

We just don't believe it until there is reason to fucking believe it!

Yes - people are free to judge the veracity of anything they want, and I never said they couldn't. That doesn't make them RATIONAL or LOGICAL for doing so. Someone might take a rock and call it "evidence of the blue potato god." They are free to do that, but they aren't being rational or logical in doing so.

The burden of proving their judgment "wrong" is not on me. Theirs is the positive claim. Rejecting someone else's claim is not a positive claim. The burden remains on them one asserting the existence or nature of a phenomenon. I'm not doing that.

I don't know if there is a god or gods or deity or demigod or great vagina-goddess. Maybe there is. But, I don't believe in them.

It's an assertion.

It's a statement of observational fact. Feel free to prove that the observation was not made.

I'll reject that person's claim until it's proved. Just because a person wrote something down a long time ago doesn't make it believable. People say they saw their dead granparents' ghosts haunting them. I don't believe them because there is no evidence to support their assertions. If they write their statement in a diary and then die, I don't then consider their diary to be evidence of what otherwise would be an unsubstantiated claim. It's still an unsubstantiated claim.

By your logic, you have to accept MY statement that there is no god, because you can't "know" that I'm wrong and you certainly can't prove I'm wrong. Therefore, you believe my statement, right? If not, why don't you believe my statement?

Anyway -

(Hektor:)
'Zeus, and you other immortals, grant that this boy, who is my son,
may be as I am, pre-eminent among the Trojans,
great in strength, as am I, and rule strongly over Ilion;
and some day let them say of him: "He is better by far than his father",
as he comes in from the fighting; and let him kill his enemy
and bring home the blooded spoils, and delight the heart of his mother.' (6.476-481)

According to Seth, Zeus and the other immortals have been proven to exist, by a preponderance of the evidence.

Do you have any evidence that Zeus and the other immortals did not or do not exist, or are we to accept your argument from incredulity as an ipse dixit proof?

I'm not asserting anything. I just don't believe in Zeus based on the lack of evidence.

By your logic, you think that the preponderance of the evidence is that Zeus exists. Right? Or, will you dodge the question?

No, I'm saying that you cannot rationally make the claim that Zeus does NOT exist [/quote]

The only claim I'm making is that I don't believe he exists because of a lack of evidence. As I've said several times, it may be true that Zeus exists, or that after we die we go to Nirvana, where Nirvana plays a concert every third Tuesday, and Tuesday Weld fellates us lovingly. Maybe that's the truth, but I don't believe the Zeus thing or the Nirvana thing or the Tuesday Weld blowjob thing.

It would be irrational to believe in it absent proof.

because you have no evidence pointing to that conclusion. Absent any such evidence, the preponderance of the evidence points towards the existence of Zeus.

No, the preponderance of the evidence doesn't point to Zeus existing, for the same reason that the preponderance of the evidence didn't point to Robert having to give the money back. That's not a preponderance of the evidence. It's evidence of no probative value, and evidence of no probative value is not evidence of anything.

What you believe is, of course, something entirely different. You can say "I don't believe Zeus exists"

That's all I've ever said. It would be irrational to believe Zeus exists.

and I will not disagree with you because belief is an intensely personal thing. But you cannot state as a matter of fact that Zeus does not,

I have admitted conceptually that any state of affairs may exist. Zeus may exist. The Earth may be hollow. The universe may be an illusion. And, there may be a tooth fairy, and guardian angels. I don't believe in any of them, though, for the same reasons.

or did not exist because you have absolutely no evidence pointing to that conclusion. All you have is your incredulity.

Lack of belief in an asserted phenomenon is the only rational position when there is no evidence presented for that phenomenon. I do not need evidence.

I could use your logic to say that all you have for denying the assertion that "gods do not exist" is your own incredulity. Can you prove that "gods do not exist" is not a true statement? Of course you can't. Therefore the preponderance of the evidence is that gods do not exist.

Your logic is so nonsensical that the result is that the assertions gods do exist, or god does exist, as well as the assertion gods do not exist, all are proved by a preponderance of the evidence.

The ONLY evidence we have are the statements of the ancients that Zeus does, or did exist. That is where the preponderance of the evidence lies, whether you believe the evidence or not. Until you can disprove the evidence that exists, that's how things stand.

Working with that arguendo:

The ONLY evidence we have are that the statements of the ancients (like Lucretius) that the gods did not exist. That is where the preponderance of the evidence lies, whether you believe the evidence or not. Until you can disprove the evidence that exists, that's how things stand.

However, you are wrong that the "only" evidence we have are the statements of the ancients. We have other documents like Theodorus of Cyrene's work "On the Gods" and the writings of Robert G. Ingersoll, to name two, one from the Golden Age of Greece, and the other from the Golden Age of American freethought. We also have the writings of modern philosophers like Ayn Rand and folks like Christopher Hitchens.

According to you, all those writings are evidence. Therefore, it is completely false for you to say that the ONLY evidence we have are the statements of the ancients, whether Homer or the Bible.

Therefore, also arguendo, if you are claiming writings are evidence, then we have countervailing evidence.

[Coito ergo sum]

Utter poppycock. We don't have to disprove the existence of an imaginary being.

Prove that God is an "imaginary being" first. This is at present an unsubstantiated assertion that can be dismissed without further consideration, according to your own rules.

Sorry, you missed a step, mayhap deliberately, by not proving any god or gods exist. It's ipso facto imaginary until you do.

So, muons and quarks were "ipso facto imaginary" until someone observed one?

There was no reason to believe one existed until there was reason to believe they existed. And, they weren't proved to exist until observation of natural phenomena demonstrated their existence.

Oh wait, nobody's actually OBSERVED a quark, have they? They have indirectly observed a quark's effects, but have not actually PROVED that quarks exist.

Nobody has actually "observed" the Sun either. All we have are photons reaching our retina and interpreted by our brain. Those are merely "effects" of the sun.

The only thing we can "observe" of the universe is effects.

They theorized them mathematically and then observed the tracks of particles that behaved as predicted, but they haven't proven that those tracks were not caused by something other than a quark, because they can't actually see a quark and hold one up and say "See, here is a quark!"

However, you're advancing a red herring here, because nothing can ever be proved based on your test. Even if I pick up a rock from the ground and say "see, here is a rock!" I haven't proved that there is a rock there. I haven't proved that what seems to appear to be a rock isn't caused by something other than a rock, like a tangible hologram generated by a high-tech alien contraption.

Therefore, according to your argument, quarks are "ipso facto imaginary."

No, quarks are proven by scientific testing. Quark theory is certainly subject to being falsified. But, there is hard evidence of their existence. We don't rely on the bald assertions of ancient writers. We have tests.

[Coito ergo sum]

Moreover, if we can't come forward with countervailing evidence of Robert's innocence, then Seth thinks I have enough evidence to establish Robert's responsibility by a preponderance of the evidence. He is thus civilly liable for return of the money.

Not quite. First, it's a strawman argument to set this up as a court case involving theft, be it civil or criminal, because the burdens of proof are substantially higher in court and the admissibility of evidence is also a factor, but that's a factor in providing a fair trial, not a matter of the truth or falsity of the evidence.

The document may be a true copy of a statement made by Mark who saw Robert take the money. The fact that the document is a copy of a copy of a copy does not itself prove that the information contained on the document is not true.

Therefore, outside the courtroom, people are perfectly at liberty to look at the document as evidence and judge for themselves the truth of the claims made in it. And their judgments are no less rational or correct for not being supported by other evidence. But if someone wishes to impeach that document by providing evidence that it is not a true copy of the original or that Mark did not in fact produce the original, or that Mark was lying when he did produce the original, they are free to do so and thereby prove the document at the bar false. Until then, anyone who chooses to do so is entitled to rely upon the evidence before them and make their own judgment about the truth or falsity of the information contained therein.

Case closed, right Seth?

Not quite.

Umm...

You're the one who said that if we have a document like that, then the preponderance of the evidence is that the facts alleged are proved.

No, that's not what I said. You're concocting a strawman. All I said was that the preponderance of the evidence lies in that direction, and absent any countervailing evidence tending to disprove that evidence, it is not rational to come to a firm conclusion in opposition to the preponderance of the evidence.

That is what you said. But, you're changing that now.

1. The preponderance of the evidence doesn't lie in that direction, because there is no evidence in that direction.
2. However, if you call the Bible evidence, then you also have to call Lucretius, Theocydes, and Ingersoll's writings evidence, and you have no basis for concluding that they are less valuable than the Bible. Therefore, at most we have no preponderance.
3. If we have no preponderance of the evidence for a phenomenon, which we don't in either instance 1 or 2, then it is irrational to believe in that phenomenon.
4. Therefore, the statement "I do not believe in God" is the only rational conclusion.

However, I also point out that the ONLY evidence that is available other than your incredulity, which is not evidence, are first-person observational accounts of Jesus and various acts and phenomena taking place some 2000 years ago.

False. I have evidence for atheism in the form of Ingersoll's writings, Lucretius's writings, etc. If you call, arguendo, writings about phenomena to be evidence, then I have such evidence. You have no evidence that they are wrong. Therefore the preponderance of the evidence is, by your logic, in favor of atheism.

However, even if the atheist writings and god-believing writings are taken into account, at most we have no preponderance either way. In that case, reason requires reservation of judgment, in which case belief is reserved. Reserved belief means "I don't believe." I might believe later, but I don't believe now.

This evidence cannot simply be discounted entirely because you are incredulous at the prospect of divine miracles being done way back then. Your incredulity does not weigh at all in the balancing of the available evidence on the subject I'm afraid.

By that same token, I'm afraid that Lucretius, Ingersoll and Hitchens cannot be discounted entirely because you are incredulous at the prospect of atheism. Your incredulity does not weigh at all in the balancing of the available writings on the subject. Therefore, you have no basis to believe.

Therefore, the preponderance of the evidence available to us right now tends towards the existence of God and that the acts and phenomena associated with Jesus are true. Does that mean I believe that evidence? Not necessarily, but then again my credulity, or incredulity, weighs nothing in the examination of the evidence itself.

The preponderance of the writings only tends toward gods if you discount all the atheist writings arbitrarily. That is the essence of your argument. Arbitrary selection of evidence and arbitrary burden shifting to one side to disprove the other's affirmative claims.

Until you or someone else proves that the actions, events and phenomena claimed in the Bible did not or cannot have occurred, logic tells us that the weight of the actual evidence, such as it is, weighs in favor of those events and claims, however feather-light that weight may be.

Until you or someone else proves that the the assertions made by Lucretius, Ingersoll and Hitchens are not true, logic tells us that the weight of the actual evidence, weighs in favor of atheism, however, faith-light that weight may be. Moreover, if your feather-light writings are to be taken into consideration, then so are the writings in favor of atheism. Unless you have a proof that the Bible is more substantial than Lucretius or Ingersoll's writings, then at best we have no preponderance. When there is no preponderance of the evidence of a given phenomenon, then belief in that phenomenon is irrational.

[apophenia]

[amok]

I think we're getting sidetracked by the word "evidence." Seth is correct that biblical and other religious writings can be (and have been) used as evidence, as can personal testimony.

If we're using the courtroom analogy, much can be presented as "evidence" in the same vein, without it amounting to a hill of beans in the end. A document, let's say a will, for example, can be presented as evidence, and still be found irrelevant if further evidence shows it to be a forgery, or produced by coercion, or produced by someone who was incompetent. Same applies to testimony: it's accepted as evidence, but not "proof." It's judged both on the credibility of the proposed things witnessed, on the credibility of the person/people giving the testimony, and on further testimony that either refutes it or suggests an ulterior motive. Happens all the time, and of course mistakes are made, but it's a pretty sensible system, overall.

[amused]

Assertions are not evidence of anything. The assertions made by L. Ron Hubbard that form the basis for Scientology, and those made by Joseph Smith for Mormonism, have the exact same weight as those made in the Bible - none.

It's an accident of history that we live in a time when Christianity has a large following because it meets the psychological needs of people with that form of need. Given enough time, Jesus will join Zeus and all the other discarded deities.

[Coito ergo sum]

I think we're getting sidetracked by the word "evidence." Seth is correct that biblical and other religious writings can be (and have been) used as evidence, as can personal testimony.

Not scientific evidence.

If we're using the courtroom analogy, much can be presented as "evidence" in the same vein, without it amounting to a hill of beans in the end. A document, let's say a will, for example, can be presented as evidence, and still be found irrelevant if further evidence shows it to be a forgery, or produced by coercion, or produced by someone who was incompetent. Same applies to testimony: it's accepted as evidence, but not "proof." It's judged both on the credibility of the proposed things witnessed, on the credibility of the person/people giving the testimony, and on further testimony that either refutes it or suggests an ulterior motive. Happens all the time, and of course mistakes are made, but it's a pretty sensible system, overall.

The courtroom evidence line is an interesting mental exercise, but is inapplicable, since a mere writing is not scientific evidence.

[Coito ergo sum]

Assertions are not evidence of anything. The assertions made by L. Ron Hubbard that form the basis for Scientology, and those made by Joseph Smith for Mormonism, have the exact same weight as those made in the Bible - none.

It's an accident of history that we live in a time when Christianity has a large following because it meets the psychological needs of people with that form of need. Given enough time, Jesus will join Zeus and all the other discarded deities.

As an alternative phrasing, if we accept Seth's premise, arguendo, that writings are evidence, then we must credit L. Ron Hubbard as much as the Bible, as much as the Havamal, as much as Robert G. Ingersoll, as much as Lucretius, as much as Hitchens (now that he's dead), and therefore, accepting Seth's premise arguendo, we can not possibly have a "preponderance" of the evidence unless one is arbitrarily crediting one of those writings as having greater credibility. That is, taking the writings qua writings, looking at the four corners of the writings, they all have equal weight under Seth's logic (we can't possibly "know" that the most seemingly absurd or outrageous claim is not, in fact, true - even claims that are logically inconsistent or irrational).

Thus, the only way we can pick one writing or another as more persuasive is to look beyond the writings to the evidence that supports the claims made therein. Therefore, the writings become irrelevant themselves, and what matters is only the evidence (not including writings) for the claims made.

If the claim is "there is a god." That is contained in many writings, concerning many different gods. The countervailing claim "there isn't any evidence of gods other than the assertion of the claim" is in many writings, concerning every asserted god. If the writings are evidence in and of themselves, then there is no preponderance. The analysis then remains were it began: what is the evidence outside of the writings that the claims made in the writings are correct.

Since the answer to there is no evidence that there is a god, other than the mere assertion of it, then it is irrational to believe there is one. The disbelief in gods is, therefore, not based on and not even claimed to be based on "evidence," but rather is based simply on the lack of evidence of the positive assertion that there is a god or gods.

That ought to do it, I think.

[Svartalf]

So, about what earth what like 15000 years ago, should I believe Robert E Howard or Stephen Jay Gould?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

So, about what earth what like 15000 years ago, should I believe Robert E Howard or Stephen Jay Gould?

Neither. Ron Howard. Or Stephen King.

[Seth]

Because it is illogical to believe in multiple inconsistent things at the same time. Therefore, we don't believe them until there is reason to.

I'm not talking about "truth" - proof or evidence is not "truth". You keep confusing those concepts.

No, I don't. I'm talking about truth, and how evidence points towards or away from truth.

Taking it from the top, and repeating, again - We don't KNOW what is "true." For all we know, everything our eyes see and ears hear is deceptive, and there are 47 different universes, and each person has a penis sticking out of their forehead, and there are ghosts walking next to us rubbing the napes of our necks. We don't "know" that isn't "true!" Maybe it is true. There just isn't any reason to believe it.
We just don't believe it until there is reason to fucking believe it!

That's just belief. But belief has nothing to do with truth, as you well know.

Truth is an objective absolute. The existence of a thing is either true or not true. It's a binary choice. Either the thing exists or it does not exist. What you believe about the existence of that thing is utterly irrelevant as to the existence of the thing. Your non-belief in the thing does not cause the thing to cease to exist or to never have existed in the first place.

Yes - people are free to judge the veracity of anything they want, and I never said they couldn't. That doesn't make them RATIONAL or LOGICAL for doing so. Someone might take a rock and call it "evidence of the blue potato god." They are free to do that, but they aren't being rational or logical in doing so.

Strawman. Misidentifying the nature of an object that objectively exists is logical error. But rejecting the existence of an object that is claimed to exist without evidence of its nonexistence is also logical error.

The burden of proving their judgment "wrong" is not on me. Theirs is the positive claim. Rejecting someone else's claim is not a positive claim. The burden remains on them one asserting the existence or nature of a phenomenon. I'm not doing that.

Yes, rejecting someone's claim of the existence of an object claimed to exist is a positive claim that you have the burden of proving. And its an illogical and non-rational act. The rational and logical reaction to an unsubstantiated claim of the existence of an object is non-belief, which is to say the rational refusal to draw any conclusion because there is insufficient critically robust evidence available upon which to form such a conclusion.

In short, you cannot rationally and logically conclude that Darwin's finches do not exist merely because you do not have independent verification of the existence of Darwin's finches. You can at best say that Darwin's claim is not supported with sufficient evidence to permit you to draw a rational conclusion about the actual existence or non-existence of the finches.

To say "Darwin's finches do not exist because Darwin has not proven their existence to my satisfaction" is illogic and unreason.

I don't know if there is a god or gods or deity or demigod or great vagina-goddess. Maybe there is. But, I don't believe in them.

Right. YOU don't BELIEVE in them. That's a rational and logical claim to make. But you cannot rationally or logically extend that to the statement of a conclusion that they do not exist merely because you do not believe in them, any more than you can logically and rationally say that Darwin's finches do not exist because you do not believe in them. Your belief does not affect objective reality in the slightest, and that's my point.

It's an assertion.

It's a statement of observational fact. Feel free to prove that the observation was not made.

I'll reject that person's claim until it's proved.

You can refuse to believe anything you like, but that is not evidence that the objective truth-value of the claim is zero.

Just because a person wrote something down a long time ago doesn't make it believable.

Correct. But it also doesn't mean that the events written of did not happen. I farted in bed last night. Does the fact that you cannot hope to prove this one way or the other mean that the event did not or could not have occurred? Of course not. Your belief about my farting in bed does not change the truth-value of the claim.

People say they saw their dead granparents' ghosts haunting them. I don't believe them because there is no evidence to support their assertions. If they write their statement in a diary and then die, I don't then consider their diary to be evidence of what otherwise would be an unsubstantiated claim. It's still an unsubstantiated claim.

To YOU. But the fact that you don't have sufficient information upon which to draw a logical, rational conclusion about the existence of their dead grandparent's ghosts does not mean that those ghosts do not exist, it just means you don't believe it. The truth-value of the claim does not change depending on your skepticism. Only your belief changes.

By your logic, you have to accept MY statement that there is no god, because you can't "know" that I'm wrong and you certainly can't prove I'm wrong. Therefore, you believe my statement, right? If not, why don't you believe my statement?

I'm not asking you to accept any statement by anybody as true without verification. I am very simply saying that your belief about a claim does not change the nature of the objective truth associated with that claim, whatever that truth may actually be.

No, I'm saying that you cannot rationally make the claim that Zeus does NOT exist

The only claim I'm making is that I don't believe he exists because of a lack of evidence.

No, that's not the claim you have been making. You have been making the positive and absolute claim that God does not exist. Not that you "don't believe God exists," but that God does not exist. The two claims are substantially different. One is a rational and logical statement of your beliefs. The other is a positive claim about an objective truth: either God exists or God does not exist. You have been claiming that God does not exist. This is a positive assertion that you make without the smallest shred of objective, critically-robust evidence of the non-existence of God, and the burden of proving this claim is upon YOU, because you made the claim

Now you're trying to weasel around that burden by changing your claim to one of "non-belief." That's fine with me, you are free not to believe that the earth revolves around the sun, but the claims "I do not believe that the earth revolves around the sun," and "the earth does not revolve around the sun" are two entirely different claims. One is a rational claim based on the state of your knowledge and understanding of the objective truths about our solar system (or lack thereof) and the other is a positive claim about the nature of the universe and the solar system that you are obliged to present critically robust objective evidence to prove if it is to be a logical and rational claim.

As I've said several times, it may be true that Zeus exists, or that after we die we go to Nirvana, where Nirvana plays a concert every third Tuesday, and Tuesday Weld fellates us lovingly. Maybe that's the truth, but I don't believe the Zeus thing or the Nirvana thing or the Tuesday Weld blowjob thing.

It would be irrational to believe in it absent proof.

Beliefs do not have to be rational, as I'm sure you know. But that's not what you've been claiming until now. Only now are you beginning to temporize and use the word "belief" rather than couching your claims in absolute objective terms.

I take this as an admission that you were incorrect in stating your claims and that you now realize and accept the fact that you have no objective, rational evidence of the non-existence of God, you merely hold the belief that God does not exist and you rationalize this belief based on your ignorance of, or rejection of, the evidence of the existence of God.

[Seth]

So, about what earth what like 15000 years ago, should I believe Robert E Howard or Stephen Jay Gould?

You may believe whomever or whatever you like. The point is that your belief has absolutely no effect on the actual, objective truth of what the earth was like 15,000 years ago. You cannot make a positive claim that "the earth was like (insert theory about the nature of earth) 15,000 years ago" and not be expected to provide critically robust evidence supporting that positive claim. Nor can you make the positive claim "the earth was NOT like (insert theory here) 15,000 years ago" without ALSO providing critically robust evidence to support THAT positive claim.

Likewise, when you make the claim "God does not exist," you take upon yourself the burden of proving that positive claim. The fact that theists make the opposite positive claim, that God DOES exist does not relieve you of the burden of proving YOUR claim, nor can you use the fact that they have not proven theirs as proof that your claim is true. It doesn't work that way because the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In making the positive claim that God does not exist, you have taken up the challenge of proving that God is absent from the universe, which is a mighty task indeed.

But what someone else says about God is not a valid premise in your argument sustaining your thesis of God's non-existence. When you use theistic claims as a premise in such arguments, you are committing the Atheist's Fallacy.

So, we're back to my original claim, which is that science can rationally and logically say only one thing about the existence of God: "we don't know."

It's okay to admit that you know...

[Coito ergo sum]

Because it is illogical to believe in multiple inconsistent things at the same time. Therefore, we don't believe them until there is reason to.

I'm not talking about "truth" - proof or evidence is not "truth". You keep confusing those concepts.

No, I don't. I'm talking about truth, and how evidence points towards or away from truth.

Except that according to you, nobody is the arbiter of what direction the evidence points, and this is just a purely individualized analysis. Therefore, what you claim points in one direction, another person is equally justified in concluding the opposite. That's what you told me when you told me I'm not the arbiter of what is evidence and what its probative value is.

Taking it from the top, and repeating, again - We don't KNOW what is "true." For all we know, everything our eyes see and ears hear is deceptive, and there are 47 different universes, and each person has a penis sticking out of their forehead, and there are ghosts walking next to us rubbing the napes of our necks. We don't "know" that isn't "true!" Maybe it is true. There just isn't any reason to believe it.
We just don't believe it until there is reason to fucking believe it!

That's just belief. But belief has nothing to do with truth, as you well know.

That is, of course, what I just said.

Truth is an objective absolute.

Or, so you believe...do you have any proof that there isn't more than one truth? Or, are you declaring by fiat?

The existence of a thing is either true or not true. It's a binary choice. Either the thing exists or it does not exist. What you believe about the existence of that thing is utterly irrelevant as to the existence of the thing. Your non-belief in the thing does not cause the thing to cease to exist or to never have existed in the first place.

I never said that the existence of the thing is dependent on belief. What I said was, we don't believe something to be true unless there is reason to believe it to be true. That doesn't make it not true until we believe it, and it doesn't make true because we believe. It's a simple statement of logic. If there is no reason to believe something to be true, then there is no reason to believe it to be true. So, in that case, one ought not believe it to be true, unless one is happy believing in unreasonable beliefs. In that case, that is one's right. But, it doesn't make it less unreasonable.

[Coito ergo sum]

Yes - people are free to judge the veracity of anything they want, and I never said they couldn't. That doesn't make them RATIONAL or LOGICAL for doing so. Someone might take a rock and call it "evidence of the blue potato god." They are free to do that, but they aren't being rational or logical in doing so.

Strawman. Misidentifying the nature of an object that objectively exists is logical error. But rejecting the existence of an object that is claimed to exist without evidence of its nonexistence is also logical error.

I'm not talking about "rejecting the existence." I'm talking about withholding belief. It is not logical error to withhold belief where there is no reason or evidence to believe that something is true. It would be logical error to believe such a thing to be true.

The burden of proving their judgment "wrong" is not on me. Theirs is the positive claim. Rejecting someone else's claim is not a positive claim. The burden remains on them one asserting the existence or nature of a phenomenon. I'm not doing that.

Yes, rejecting someone's claim of the existence of an object claimed to exist is a positive claim that you have the burden of proving.

What you're missing is that rejecting someone's "claim" is not the same as rejecting the actual thing claimed. If I say that there is life on Europa, and you say, prove it, and I don't, then you are right in rejecting my CLAIM, because it is baseless (at present). You can't, of course, affirmatively state that it is proved that there is no life on Europa; however, the logical and rational thing to do with my CLAIM that there is is to reject it.

I don't know if there is a god or gods or deity or demigod or great vagina-goddess. Maybe there is. But, I don't believe in them.

Right. YOU don't BELIEVE in them.

That's all I've ever said. Why the stresses? I'm not telling anyone else what to believe. They're free to believe Tinkerbell fellates them every night, and maybe she does. I don't believe it, for the reason that I have no reason to believe it.

That's a rational and logical claim to make. But you cannot rationally or logically extend that to the statement of a conclusion that they do not exist merely because you do not believe in them,

I never said they don't exist merely because I don't believe in them. I said it's irrational to believe in them.

You're the one who keeps trying to drag this over to what "actually" exists. I've already told you that neither you nor I knows what actually exists. We only know what seems to exist based on our senses, which we have to trust behave consistently as far as they go, and as aided by machinery and implements.

any more than you can logically and rationally say that Darwin's finches do not exist because you do not believe in them. Your belief does not affect objective reality in the slightest, and that's my point.

I never said anything does or does not exist because of my belief.

You're pushing at an open door. I never said that objective reality was belief dependent.

However, just because belief does not determine reality doesn't mean that some beliefs are irrational. Those with no proof or reason or evidence are irrational. It's irrational to hold irrational beliefs. You're free to hold them, and they might well be true, though.