Debating An Atheist: The Burden of Proof

July 22, 2010 by Lisa Krempasky  
Filed under faith

One of the favorite tactics of atheists is to say their is no evidence of God. Of course we know there is a wealth of evidence that they refuse to acknowledge but those proofs will be dealt with at a later time. Let’s start a step earlier.

Why must the burden of proof be on believers to prove the existence of God? The burden of proof comes from presumptions. In criminal law a person is innocent until proven guilty. Why is the presumption that there is no God? There is no logical reason why that should be. It is equally as logical to start from the presumption that there is a God and force the atheist to prove there is not.

You cannot accept their premise. If an atheist is intellectually honest at all they must at least start from the premise that we do not know whether there is a God or not and argue each side from there, but to accept their false premise plays into their step upon step of illogical house of cards.

Carl Sagan a world famous scientist and religious skeptic said the “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”. He spoke of our impatience with ambiguity. For example the newest discovered star existed before it was discovered. Gravity existed before it was discovered. The western hemisphere existed before it was discovered. Further there IS a cure for cancer. People have been searching for it for millennia and the fact we have not yet found it does not mean it doesn’t exist.

But of course there IS plenty of evidence of the existence of God, just don’t accept the logic of the atheist.