Despite the fact that Burden of Proof is one of the simplest concepts in philosophy, a Christian Apologist on a religion discussion board insists on using analogies to refute the concept of burden of proof. Although Burden of Proof is a philosophic concept, he creates analogies based on factual and falsifiable evidence. But even then, his analogies only illustrate how weak his claim for God is.
His first attempt was to compare the claim that Mongolia exists with the claim that God exists. This backfired when he was asked to present evidence for God that was as strong as the evidence for Mongolia, as described here.
His next attempt was based on a natural disaster scenario. The analogy turns out to be a superb example of why belief in a claim requires faith if it is not verified. The apologist begins his analogy thus:
If I happen to state that a flood, or a fire, or an invasion, or a scourge or pestilence of some sort is about to descend on a community, everyone in that community is invested in determining the reality of the situation.
Long winded but I know what he means. Most people wouldn't abandon their homes if a Religious Apologist announced a flood was coming (some would!) Anyway, he continues...
It would be foolish in the extreme to say "where's your proof?" and do nothing if one does not believe that I am presenting a good argument for such a case.
Actually, if someone told me we were about to be flooded but had no facts to refer to, my question would be: “How do you know?” and we would take it from there.
If the person making the claim said “It's been pouring with rain for 24 hours, the river level is rising at 12 inches per hour and the Met Office have issued a red alert” then that person would have an extremely strong and convincing argument and as a bonus, I would have lots of tangible information that I could easily check for myself.
The Apologist has completely failed to notice that weakness and improbability of his argument for God is being demonstrated by his own analogy for two reasons: He has no evidence that can compare to that of an imminent flood, and his claim is impossible to test.
He then comes up with perhaps the best analogy I've ever seen to demonstrate the importance of verification and the problem with faith. This time, he is dialling 911 to report a fire...
If someone--for example--places a call to emergency services reporting a fire, the first--and proper--reaction is to treat the report as true!
The analogy gets off to a bad start because the first reaction should be to capture specific and verifiable information about the location of the fire.
If the person making the report is on the line or can otherwise be traced, of course that person would be questioned--extensively.
No they wouldn't. That would be a waste of valuable time, unless of course the caller was providing vague and ambiguous information.
Still, the immediate concern is to independently verify whether the claim is true or false--and the proper reaction would be for emergency resources to direct their attention to that end.
Contradicts the previous paragraphs, and rather long winded, but getting closer. The proper reaction is to first ensure the claim is specific enough to be verified, and then to verify it.
So, an excellent analogy to demonstrate the uselessness of Religious Apologist claims. The emergency services have to establish exactly where the incident is occurring, so the person making the claim has to make a falsifiable claim - a claim that can be tested. If it can't be tested; if the caller is being vague; contradictory or evasive, or just providing inductive arguments that may be right or may be wrong, the responders don't know where to go. Once they have specific information, they can test the claim by sending someone to the location.
If the responders hung up on a call because it intuitively seemed to be a hoax, they would be using faith - they would be believing a hypothesis that is untested. Someone might die. That's the problem with faith.
So yet again, the apologist's own analogy illustrates the weakness in his argument for God - it can't be tested because there is no tangible, verifiable information in the claim. The claim might be true, but there's no way of knowing.
And then he adds this postscript...
Once a claim is made, the person making the claim becomes all but irrelevant. Others examine the claim--or the insights contained therein--from all sorts of perspectives--independently of the person making the claim. Your fallacy is that you make whatever the claimant said the basis of determining all truth(s) on the matter, and that is false and empty reasoning.
Throw away your philosophy text books everyone! According to the Apologist, the burden of proof does not rest with the person making the claim - it lies with everyone else!
So, when Stephen Hawking suggests that M-Theory explains the creation of the universe, the burden of proof rests with the Religious Apologists who don't believe it and presumably everyoneexcept Stephen Hawking, who is "all but irrelevant"!
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