From: kmr4@po.CWRU.edu (Keith M. Ryan)
Subject: Re: Burden of Proof
Organization: Case Western Reserve University
Lines: 41
NNTP-Posting-Host: b64635.student.cwru.edu

In article <1993Apr21.182030.888@batman.bmd.trw.com> jbrown@batman.bmd.trw.com writes:
>Actually, both are positive arguments.  ("Positive" may not be the best
>description here due to possible misunderstanding, but it's the term you
>used.)  Positive arguments/assertions can be both affirmative (i.e. God 
>exists) and negative (i.e. God does not exist).  Both carry an equal 
>burden of proof because they are both asserting that a certain idea
>is true.  The default condition, in the absence of a preponderance of
>evidence either way, is that the proposition or assertion is undecidable.
>And the person who takes the undecidable position and says that he/she
>simply disbelieves that the proposition is true, is the only one who
>holds no burden of proof.  This is why the so-called "weak atheist"
>position is virtually unassailable -- not because it stands on a firm
>foundation of logical argument, but because it's proponents simply
>disbelieve in the existence of God(s) and therefore they hold no burden
>of proof.  When you don't assert anything, you don't have to prove
>anything.  That's where weak atheism draws its strength.  But its
>strength is also its Achilles' heel.  Without assertions/axioms, one
>has no foundation upon which to build.  As a philosophy, it's virtually
>worthless.  IMO, of course.

	So, if I were to assert that there are no thousand year old 
invisible pink unicorns* residing in my walls, I need to support this with 
evidence? I think the _lack_ of evidence shall suffice.


	* Who happen to like listening to satanic messages found in playing 
Beethoven's 45th symphony backwards.
---

        "FBI officials said cult leader David Koresh may have 
         forced followers to remain as flames closed in. Koresh's 
         armed guard may have injected as many as 24 children with 
         poison to quiet them."

        -
        
        "And God saw everything he had made, and, behold, in was very 
         good."

         Genesis 1:31

