Today, we will talk about the argument from ignorance. How does this relate to this blogs (nominal, at least) topic? It's a common fallacy used by both theists and athiests - yes, I can and will take potshots at athiests if they are using faulty reasoning.

Wikipedia sums the argument from ignorance up thusly;

• If a proposition has not been disproven, then it cannot be considered false and must therefore be considered true. 
• If a proposition has not been proven, then it cannot be considered true and must therefore be considered false. 

Such arguments attempt to exploit the facts that (a) true things can never be disproven and (b) false things can never be proven. In other words, appeals to ignorance claim that the converse of these facts are also true (therein lies the fallacy).
To reiterate, these arguments ignore the fact, and difficulty, that some true things may never be proven, and some false things may never be disproved with absolute certainty.

The theistic use of the argument from ignorance generally falls under the first part - if a claim about the existence of a deity has not been disproven, then that deity exists. Note that usually proof is used to mean evidence, but can sometimes mean logical arguments such as I made in the first post - although mine were against the existence of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent deity instead of a specific god claim.


Not only is that argument fallacious, it could also apply equally to all major religions. After all, the existence of Allah is just as unfalsifiable as the existence of Yahweh, just as unfalsifiable as the existence of Zeus. But very few theists would claim that all three exist! So this argument, even if it was sound, could not be used by any religion without allowing other deities to exist.


The atheistic - or more correctly, anti-theistic - use of the argument falls under the second part. Here it is often used to "prove" the assertion that it is certain there are no deities - if none have been proven, none exist. This time, the claim is falsifiable - all that would need to be done is to prove the existence of a deity and the claim would be false. But, as always, the burden of proof is on the person making the claim, so it's up to them to prove the non-existence of unfalsifiable deities - an impossible task.

However, atheists in general can avoid this fallacy. Many atheists - myself included - don't assert that all deities are non-existent, but rather reject assertions that they do exist. Rejecting a claim is not the same as asserting the opposite. Since theists are making the claim, they have burden of proof. Since they have not fulfilled the burden of proof, we reject the claims. Simple as that.