The prove it game

You can undermine any belief just by demanding proof. Then, when proof is provided, demand proof for the proof. And then proof for the proof for the proof. And then proof for the proof for the proof for the proof. And then proof for the proof for the proof for the proof for the proof. And so on ad infinitum. 

Some discussion of burdens of proof (based on a dialogue on Debunking Christianity)

The thread is here. 

That gets down to some very basic issues in epistemology. I did my doctoral work at a highly secular university philosophy program, but the epistemologists and probability theorist that I worked with, who certainly were not religious people, thought that classical foundationalism was a very problematic doctrine, and that the idea that a limited range of beliefs belonged in the "core" while other beliefs had to be proved by evidence, is in fact an unsupportable position. 
http://www.unc.edu/~theis/phil...

As a result, they were in general skeptical of the claim that one particular position as opposed to another had "THE burden of proof." To say that the burden of proof lies on one side or another that we know always, what beliefs can be accepted without proof and which ones need to be demonstrated, and that project doesn't look to be achievable. Descartes, for example, said that he would doubt everything and believe only what could be proved, and most people think his project didn't work. He started by doubting sense experience and then had to appeal the theological arguments to defend his belief in an external world. Hume's empiricism left him in a position where he had to "justify" the idea that the future will resemble the past simply by appealing to custom and habit. In other words, we really don't have justification for it. In other words, Hume avoids having to justify the belief that the future will resemble the past by claiming that belief this belief doesn't have the burden of proof.

From this one could conclude that you can show that just about any belief is unjustified simply by putting a heavy enough burden of proof on it. If you could only justifiably believe in the external world if you could prove that you aren't a brain in a vat, that might prove difficult.

So, for example, as I learned Bayesian theory, a popular theory was that prior probabilities were subjective, and that people who had different one could in theory eventually come to a consensus by adjusting their probabilities as evidence came in, but the idea of a "proper starting point" or "correct priors" was considered misguided. One of my teachers (again a religious nonbeliever) said that "you are justified in believing what you already believe, unless you have good reason to change your beliefs." I remember asking him about Descartes method of doubt, and in response he mentioned an ancient Greek skeptic who sat on the marketplace wagging his index finger because he couldn't believe anything. In other words, what I learned from the study of epistemology led me to the conclusion that fixing the burden of proof is pretty difficult, and that it is hard to discover a "proper" position for the burden of proof. There are relative burdens of proof that different individuals have for certain claims, but a "correct" location for the burden of proof seems to me difficult to justify.

So, for example, when I first encountered the Outsider Test for Faith, it looked to me as if it was another case of implying classical foundationalism, or perhaps, applying classical foundationalism to religious belief in a way that it is not applied to other types of beliefs, and some of my early responses to the OTF came from this perspective.

If you think the key to refuting religious belief is to inculcate a proper epistemology, which results in a proper location of the burden of proof, then I am likely to be pretty skeptical of that enterprise, and my skepticism comes not from my religion, but rather from widely held views in epistemology that I got from secular philosophy teachers. I'm not saying that these epistemologists couldn't be wrong, but it might take a little work to convince me that they are wrong. 

Pragmatics and the burden of proof

Cole: To put it another way, what we would need is evidence that is beyond reasonable doubt. Instead what we have is probable evidence for a probable conclusion for someone rising from the dead.

VR: We require evidence beyond a reasonable doubt in court cases because the harm done by a false positive (the conviction of an innocent person) is considered to do more harm than a false negative (letting an innocent person go free). It's a function of the pragmatics of the situation.

Why do we need beyond reasonable doubt for belief in God? Apparently my friend Kelly Clark can make do with less: he's a Christian. Even if we take Pascalian concerns out of the equation (afterlife outcomes), it looks as if there are numerous people for whom the pragmatics work the other way. For example,  they might found the idea of an atheist universe so depressing they don't want to go on, they might receive encouragement from adopting a theistic viewpoint. You might call such people weak, but what do weak people do?
On the face of things "the burden of proof" in these matters might reasonably differ from person to person.

Russell's Teapot

Russell's  teapot, along with the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is supposed to be very improbable in the absence of strong evidence that it does exist, and since we should consider the existence of a floating teapot to be highly improbable initially, we should reason in the same way for God. 

We do know that matter doesn't ordinarily arrange itself into the shape of a teapot unless there are persons around who want to heat and pour tea. How this is supposed to bear on the probability of something existing which , ex hypothesi, is not derived from natural processes, is something I don't understand. 

Rupert Sheldrake on Shermer and real skepticism

HT: Steve Hays. 

Letter to Scientific American November 2005 
Reply to Michael Shermer 
Do Skeptics Play Fair? 
by Rupert Sheldrake

In his attack on my work (“Rupert’s Resonance,” Scientific American, November), Michael Shermer asserted that “Skepticism is the default position because the burden of proof is on the believer, not the skeptic.” But who is the believer and who is the skeptic?

I am skeptical of people who believe they know what is possible and what is not. This belief leads to dogmatism, and to the dismissal of ideas and evidence that do not fit in. Genuine skepticism involves an attitude of open-minded enquiry into what we do not understand, and this is the approach I try to follow.

http://www.sheldrake.org/D&C/controversies/shermer.html

Keith Parsons replies to McInerny

Here is Parsons' reply to McInerny, as promised.

CARM on Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

God, the external world, and the burden of proof

Atheist: I'm not making a claim that something exists. You are. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim.

VR: I claim that the physical world exists. You deny it, and say that it is an illusion. Gosh, it looks like I've got the burden of proof. What am I going to do? Kick a stone?

Is belief in God properly basic, at least for some of us?

One way of looking at this issue is to try to determine who, in the question of God, has the burden of proof. A good many discussions in introductory philosophy classes presuppose that the theist has the burden of proof.

But is this correct? Are we better of just saying what my philosophy professor at ASU once said, that "you have the right to believe what you already believe, unless there is good evidence to support believing something different."

Does rationality involve neutralizing our prior convictions and starting from scratch? Why should we be expected to do that with respect to the question of God when we are not expected to do that with other beliefs. At least, when people have tried to this, not with respect to belief in God, but with beliefs generally (i. e. Descartes and classical empiricism), it has resulted in all sorts of beliefs (moral beliefs, the belief in an external world, the belief that the future will resemble the past, etc.) are unjustified, that most of us take to be justified.

Brandon on the Burden of Proof

Is there a burden of proof? Brandon seems to think there is no general burden of proof that could support, for example, the claim that atheism ought to be believed by default if there is no good proof (satisfactory to all parties) for theism.

God and the Burden of Proof

This is Johnny-Dee's post on the burden of proof. I think I disagree with Johnny on this, but I will comment later.

And this is Keith Parsons' reply

You can't accuse me of not linking to Keith Parsons.

Does the Burden of Proof Exist? A redated post

VICTOR
'And none of the extant theories (theft theory, hallucination theory, wrong tomb theory, evil twin theory, etc.) is satisfactory enough even for all the skeptics to agree on what might have happened, much less to persuade believers.'

CARR
Now there's a glorious switching of the burden of proof.

VR: That assumes that I am claiming that the absence of a good naturalistic theory proves the resurrection. I'm claiming a good deal less here. What I am claiming is that there is a substantial body of evidence which supports the claim that Christiaintiy had a supernatural origin, and that this body of evidence is not paralleled in religions like Islam or Mormonism. It's a body of evidence that, at the end of the day, one might decide is adequate or inadequate, but it is there. On my view it all depends on the individual, subjective, prior probabilities that you bring to the investigation of the miraculous (see the infidels paper I linked to below).

But this brings up a larger question. Is there such a thing as the burden of proof. I've got my doubts. OK, in court cases we want to avoid punishing innocent people and so we put the burden of proof on the prosecution. But in matters of ordinary belief-formation, is there a proper, objective, burden of proof?

Let's take belief in an objectively existing external world. The externalworldist says there has to be one. The aexternalworldist insists that the externalworldist prove that he is not a brain in a vat whose brain is being given the experience of perceiving the external world.