RicOlie_2 said:
Post Praetorian said:
If this may be the case, might a potential future in which God might be disbelieved by the majority then shift the burden of His proving back to the theist?
At what % of belief/disbelief might this burden change?
Certainly, it would shift back onto the theists if the generally accepted view changed. However, I'm not entirely clear on how the burden of proof is generally accepted to work when the majority is asserting a positive. I think the existence or non-existence of God is unprovable, nearly as much as it is impossible to prove or disprove whether or not we are living in an advanced race's computer simulation, excepting personal experiences demonstrating his existence to the person who has that experience.
As for a percentage, since I would say the burden of proof is not an precise rule, but rather more of a good guideline (much like Occam's Razor), a clear majority would not have the burden of proof, but the narrower the gap between the majority and minority becomes, the less clear the burden of proof becomes (probably defaulting to the positive claim, however).
Wikipedia says the following, but I'm having trouble figuring out if this supports what I asserted above, refutes it, or does neither:
Wikipedia said:
When the assertion to prove is a negative claim, the burden takes the form of a negative proof, proof of impossibility, or mere evidence of absence. If this negative assertion is in response to a claim made by another party in a debate, asserting the falsehood of the positive claim shifts the burden of proof from the party making the first claim to the one asserting its falsehood, as the position "I do not believe that X is true" is different from the explicit denial "I believe that X is false".
If it does not offend, might such a concept be probed yet further? Let us envision one who might have been raised within a large family who might ardently believe that Allah is God.
Let us further suppose that this family chooses to recreate within a community of Christians. Allow this same family to live within a community that is largely in agreement with their faith, but propose only that the father of the household must work a half-hour's drive away in a region whose population is of a majority atheistic.
Is Allah then to be assumed to be God whilst at the dinner table, but to be argued to be God whilst at the recreation center, only to be assumed to be God whilst at the local supermarket, but then argued even to exist at all during the working week?
Finally, if the father of this household might invite a colleague to dine with him at home and the two might enter into a discussion of God's existence whilst car-pooling home, must the burden of proof for God's existence be on the father to provide only half of the way home or the entire way so long as the conversation began at the office and not on the outskirts of town?