Tag Archives: Burden of Proof

Polemics

How to respond to postmodernism, relativism, subjectivism, pluralism and skepticism

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Four articles from Paul Copan over at the UK site “BeThinking”. Each article responds to a different slogan that you might hear if you’re dealing with non-Christians on the street.

“That’s just your interpretation!”

Some of his possible responses:

  • Gently ask, ‘Do you mean that your interpretation should be preferred over mine? If so, I’d like to know why you have chosen your interpretation over mine. You must have a good reason.’
  • Remind your friend that you are willing to give reasons for your position and that you are not simply taking a particular viewpoint arbitrarily.
  • Try to discern if people toss out this slogan because they don’t like your interpretation. Remind them that there are many truths we have to accept even if we don’t like them.
  • ‘There are no facts, only interpretations’ is a statement that is presented as a fact. If it is just an interpretation, then there is no reason to take it seriously.

More responses are here.

“You Christians are intolerant!”

Some of his possible responses:

  • If you say that the Christian view is bad because it is exclusive, then you are also at that exact moment doing the very thing that you are saying is bad. You have to be exclusive to say that something is bad, since you exclude it from being good by calling it bad.
  • There is a difference, a clear difference between tolerance and truth. They are often confused. We should hold to what we believe with integrity but also support the rights of others to disagree with our viewpoint.
  • Sincerely believing something doesn’t make it true. You can be sincere, but sincerely wrong. If I get onto a plane and sincerely believe that it won’t crash then it does, then my sincerity is quite hopeless. It won’t change the facts. Our beliefs, regardless of how deeply they are held, have no effect on reality.

More responses are here.

“That’s true for you, but not for me!”

Some of his possible responses:

  • If my belief is only true for me, then why isn’t your belief only true for you? Aren’t you saying you want me to believe the same thing you do?
  • You say that no belief is true for everyone, but you want everyone to believe what you do.
  • You’re making universal claims that relativism is true and absolutism is false. You can’t in the same breath say, ‘Nothing is universally true’ and ‘My view is universally true.’ Relativism falsifies itself. It claims there is one position that is true – relativism!

More responses are here.

“If you were born in India, you’d be a Hindu!”

Some of his possible responses:

  • Just because there are many different religious answers and systems doesn’t automatically mean pluralism is correct.
  • If we are culturally conditioned regarding our religious beliefs, then why should the religious pluralist think his view is less arbitrary or conditioned than the exclusivist’s?
  • If the Christian needs to justify Christianity’s claims, the pluralist’s views need just as much substantiation.

More responses are here.

And a bonus: “How do you know you’re not wrong?“.

Being a Christian is fun because you get to think about things at the same deep level that you think about anything else in life. Christianity isn’t about rituals, community and feelings. It’s about truth.

In case you want to see this in action with yours truly, check this out.

Commentary

William Lane Craig vs Klemens Kappel: Does God Exist?

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UPDATE: I found the video on Youtube: (H/T Joona)

Apologetics 315 has the audio here.

Here’s a debate summary (not snarky) from William Lane Craig’s recent trip to Denmark.

Excerpt:

After this Prof. Kappel compared God to other mythical beings like Thor or Aphrodite in effort to show the absurdity of such reasoning. Afterwards he explained that we ought to give space to science and common sense that tells us that such creatures do not exist and even though there are areas that science cannot yet give account for, we ought to stay careful in filling them with God. He stated that hewill not respond to the arguments given by Prof. Craig for we should not give them so much credit, rather he will only give reasons to show why atheism is a better option. For it is most likely impossible to show somehow with arguments that God does not exist. Quote: “Not to persuade you, but to illustrate“.

[…]Then he showed the variety of religions still present, but also those which are extinct and built his case around doubting the relevance of any religion since there are so many, finishing with the question: “Why should we then consider atheism and theism equal?” Then he proposed that the burden of proof thus lies on the side of theism.

[…]Kappel answered with repeating the controversy behind Craig’s premises, putting them into a less certain light. In effort to give an alternative explanation to beginning of the universe he simply stated, that he does not find it irrational to believe that universe just did not have a cause.

My goodness, even I can list ten arguments for atheism… every Christian ought to know at least ten arguments for atheism from reading all the atheists we have to read to qualify as Christian apologists. It’s our job to know both sides, otherwise how could we even know why we believe what we believe?

The three things the Danish guy said are not good arguments:

  • I don’t have to think of any reasons and evidence to substantiate what I believe, but you do
  • If people disagree about a truth claim, then no one can know whether it’s true or not
  • The universe popped into being uncaused out of absolute nothing

It made me think about that recent post I wrote about how atheists seem to worry more about having autonomy to make themselves happy than they worry about changing their beliefs and values to fit reality. I don’t get the impression that they have been convinced into their view. It’s more like they start with wanting to make themselves happy and then believe whatever they have to believe in order to make sure that nothing blocks that pursuit of pleasure.

Anyway, I found that debate summary in Brian Auten’s Weekly Apologetics Bonus Links. There are many more goodies in there!

Please come back tonight, as the Friday Movie this week is one of my favorite movies. In fact, it’s a movie I use when courting, and I explain a little about how I am like the main character.

Commentary

Is absence of evidence for God evidence of his absence?

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From Christopher Copan Scott. (H/T The Poached Egg)

Excerpt:

There is a central question that must be answered in the philosophy of religion: Is absence of evidence, evidence of absence? The answer is that it all depends on what the thingin question is.

Examine these two scenarios:

Suppose in S1 (scenario one) Bob is invited on a challenge to find one golden ant, the only golden ant, and it happens to be somewhere in the 1.7 billion acres known as the Amazon Rainforest. If you were to find this one golden ant in 24 hours you would be rewarded with a large sum of money. Furthermore, suppose Bob the contestant is unsuccessful in this challenge and as a result complains to the organizers of the event saying that because he could not find the golden ant, it therefore does not exist. The problem with his complaint is that in S1, the absence of evidence for this one golden ant, gives little to no justification for you to conclude the non-existence of it.

Let us go on to S2. Here Bob is confronted with a similar challenge, instead he is not trying to find an ant but an elephant, and the environment is not the Amazon Rainforest, but his small office room. In S2, one’s assertion that the lack of evidence of the elephant in his office is evidence of absence of the elephant would be warranted.

This demonstrates that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence for the existence of a particular entity, if and only if it meets the following two conditions:

1)      If the postulated entity were to exist, we should expect to have some evidence of its existence.

2)      We have thoroughly examined the area which we would expect to find the entity.

Now what does this mean when it comes to the existence of God? This means that those who assert that the lack of evidence for the existence of God provides sufficient grounds to assert that this is evidence of absence must take the burden of proving (1) and (2).

This debate has been taken up in what is called the hiddenness of God. So at the least, in order to assert that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence for God one is required to provide justification for this claim.

For a longer treatment of the question of the hiddenness of God, please see a paper by philosopher Michael Murray, which I discuss in this post. This is an important philosophical problem that rarely comes up in the formal academic debates that we all love to watch with William Lane Craig. On a related note, it’s worth taking a look at the concept of burden of proof as it relates to the problems of evil and suffering. There are lots of links to lectures and essays in that post.