Your argument is still unclear to me. Do you not believe that some things are unable to be proven? (A while back I gave the example of the existence of a god who purposefully makes its existence unprovable.) And I still don't know why the inability to prove a thing to be true would somehow eliminate the possibility for it to be true.But all truth claims are not open-ended. For example it is true that the sun has risen in the morning, but it is not true that it must. An argument from the past is not an argument to the future. Yet the very thing you are saying is better supported or more likely to be true includes an eternally existing being that intervenes in the present and the future. Im sorry but that surely is a special plea?
Look, I am not arguing about whether the theist argument is more credible than the atheist. Obviously, I find the atheist argument more persuasive. I am only attempting to establish the reasonableness of the theist request for atheists to "prove their stance", in contrast to your contention that the request is made out of sophistry and a desire to cause mischief.cottage said:There seems to me to be an evident partiality in the way you award credibility, where numbers overrule rational analysis, highlighted by the way you think it reasonable to ask unbelievers to prove their case.
I find the request to be perfectly reasonable, and that is despite the fact that I also find the arguments for atheism to be much more rational.
In other words, you do not believe that we have mental predispositions towards how we determine what we believe. There is no such thing as a confirmation bias. It is simply by chance that we are much more likely to give consideration to a group of people making the same claim, as we are to a single person making a claim.cottage said:Some folk have an innate disposition to believe in mystical beings and I do not accept that those people weigh up the pros and cons before coming to that conclusion, even subconsciously, since faith-based belief doesnt require demonstration or even any degree of probability to be evident. The essence of faith is trust, not evidence. So what Im saying is the disposition is prior to any rationalizing that may follow, which of course will always be in favour of the belief.
Forgive me for finding your claim incredible.
No, it is an argument as to why it is reasonable for theists to desire atheists to make their case.cottage said:But is that an argument that makes faith-based beliefs in supernatural beings credible?