Alrighty then, today's topic will be the burden of proof. You may have noticed that I mentioned it in yesterday's post to do with the argument from ignorance. The burden of proof is a major component of many atheists reasoning when it comes to god claims. A common fallacy fallen into by theists in a debate is to try to shift the burden of proof.

When it comes to existential claims - ranging from "I own a cat" to "God exists" - the burden of proof is always on the person making the claim. However, the more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinary the evidence required. To look at the examples, the claim "I own a cat" is a relatively simple one to prove. Seeing a cat in the claimant's house with a collar on would satisfy most people, because the person owning a cat or not isn't something that has a great deal of importance.

But when it comes to the claim "God exists", the answer is much more important - indeed, the answer has implications for the fundamental nature of reality. Because of this, the standard of evidence is much, much higher. This means that presenting anecdotal evidence is meaningless - what one person thinks they have experienced is not enough. In fact, even if thousands of stories are presented is still not enough. We already know that human beings are fallible and prone to false assessments of reality - for many thousands of years, it was believed that the sun orbited the earth, which we know now is entirely false. Since anecdotal evidence is not sufficient, and there has never been any other actual evidence presented, theism has not met it's burden of proof.

A common response to this is "If you think there is no god, prove it!" This is merely a fallacious attempt to shift the burden of proof. Atheism is what is called the 'null hypothesis', the default position. This is because, as with every claim that something exists, the default position is to disbelieve the claim until sufficient evidence is provided. The null hypothesis can never be proven, it can only be either disproven or not disproven. Atheism still stands at 'not disproven', and until there is evidence, will stay there.