SAY THERE'S A GOD? GOD IS A SET OF CLAIMS EACH ONE GIVING YOU A DUTY TO SUPPORT IT

There is a duty to back up any claim that something is true or probably true with evidence and deal with the evidence against and explain that.  This is called the burden of proof and applies in religion to those who say God exists and also those who say that it is true that God does not exist.

Believers claim there is a God and sometimes try to argue that it is not up to them to show they are right or probably right but up to the critic or unbeliever to show they are wrong.

They try to shift the burden of proof.  If they could do that, that is no excuse for them not helping the critic with the research.  But the fact remains that they are making the claim that there is a God.   The burden is theirs.  If the critic or unbeliever tells them they are wrong then they take on the burden of proof.  There are two sides then that have to assemble the evidence for their respective positions.

One tactic is that how they argue that God is a commonplace doctrine and because it so common giving evidence is unnecessary.  Give it anyway!  Plus do they not respect the pagans?  Didn't the pagans question their commonplace gods?  If they had not there would have been no learning and no Christianity.  It is just a tactic for getting critics to keep their thoughts away from the believers.

The believer who carries the burden of proof tends to make it too simplistic.  It is entirely more complex than the believer makes out.

All the unbeliever has to do is argue that there is no supernatural and that takes care of God in all the variations of God.

The believer has to argue for a particular type of God.

The simplest claim has a weaker burden of proof than a more complex one.  Occam's Razor suggests that.

You need more evidence that it is best to join two dots with a curvy line than you do for that it is best just to draw a straight line.

So believers then need to disprove anti-supernaturalism more than they have to prove that there is a God.  Or if you like they need to start with proving supernatural non-believers wrong.

They have the burden of proof first to refute them and then they have the burden of proof to say there is a God. 

Understand this, if you say there is a God then you have to dismantle the case against him first to make way for the case for his existence. Now present the pro-God case. 

The person claiming there is a God presupposes that God is vitally important.  They need to prove that too.  This helps avoid bias.

Can't show what version of morality God is about

The person saying there is a God will connect that God to morality so she has to show that morality expresses God.

With morality you have different definitions.

Morality is the greatest happiness of the greatest number

Morality is following a categorical imperative - an act is immoral if life can't function if everybody did it

Morality is written down for us in a holy book by God

Morality is the fixed rules that promote the best wellbeing of most people

Morality is just living out virtues such as temperance, chastity etc

That is only some of them.

You have a burden of proof to show why any of them is for or against God.  Getting it right amounts to getting the right God.

And if you get that far then there is a new problem.

Take big issues like abortion, capital punishment and euthanasia.  There is so much more to worry about but you see the point.

If God is say virtue then you know that wrongly thinking he blesses say abortion makes that virtue meaningless.

Atheist’s moral duty to take the burden of proof?

The person who says there is no God is told to accept he has a duty to prove or support this reasonably. He has to come up with atheism being beyond reasonable doubt. This totally contradicts the notion that you cannot have a serious belief in duty without belief in God who makes duties. Even God would agree that the sceptic must see he has a duty to find him if he is there and a duty to find his absence if he is not.

Now what has happened. We have proven there is no point in looking for God for morality is what matters and it is independent of whether there is a God or not. It is for moral reasons the unbeliever must discard God but challenge faith in him.

Implicit denial

"I believe there is no God" is not an island.  It is not a claim but it leads to atheistic claims.  It connects to other things. It says loads of things in a few words. It implies a lot. With science, you proclaim that chemistry and physics and everything will never need to ask if God could be at work. So even if saying it is not making a claim about God, it is making positive claims ("I claim so and so is true") by implication.

But as many implications arise if you simply say, "I believe there is no evidence for atheism." 

So either way one side cannot try to lay a burden of proof on the other.

Biggest burden?

If there is a burden of proof then whose is the biggest?  The atheist or the believer one?  

The reality is that if Christians say there is a God then their burden of proof also becomes burdens.

If you can understand how things work without God then you don't need God.  If a person says they understand home heating when they don't know that somebody lights the fire they are wrong. 

"There is a God" and "There is no God" have burdens and the former has the heaviest.  The believer has the biggest burden.

Hypothetically, if "There is no evidence for God" and "There is no evidence for atheism" could have burdens the former would need the most work.

Asserting any of these things is very loaded.  They have come with great complications and implications. 

The believers are the one over-complicating.  They take on too many burdens.

Worse, even without the burdens issue the godly are inherently carrying the worst load.  That is proven by how the godless can avoid having to give proof or evidence. If you live as if there is no God you are denying God.  You may say you only see no reason to believe and are not saying there is no God.  True.  You are making no claim.  But this is more than just a lack of belief. 

You can avoid the burden of proof while being a practical atheist and insist that religion delivers.  This will only apply when it claims to you that there is a God.
 
Positive claims implied by a non-claim have to be dealt with by themselves.  If you say there is no evidence for God one result is that you will claim that a miracle is false.  So you have a burden of proof for saying that but not for your lack of faith.

Living without God would seem to be more than a lack but making a positive claim that God does not matter.  But it is making that claim to yourself so you don't have to prove it to anybody else.  Believers see that God does not matter to you so they have their proof. 

God is not about a burden of proof but a burdens of proof

Burdens of proof if you claim there is a God:

I need to prove that spirit – that which is there but is made of no parts is possible

I need to prove that spirit is real.

God is spirit.  Proving that spirit is real is not the same as proving God but proof is necessary for spirit. If you claim the right to prove matter and energy are real then you lay claim to the duty to prove that spirit is real too.

What kind of spirit is another and separate question totally. Solid proof would be ideal from now on but proof as in getting beyond reasonable doubt would seem to do.

If spirit is a fact then does it mean there is a God?

I need to prove God is love.

I need to know he knows he is alive.

I need to prove he wants a relationship with me.

At this point we have six burdens of proof. Religion has a heavy burden and is lying when it sums up all these questions as God as if all you need to prove is God. It is not simple for God is a sum of many questions.  There are far more questions than what we have listed.

Take the problem of evil.  Each bit of suffering is so abhorrent and vile that even if we show evil fits God we have to try to make every INDIVIDUAL case fit too.  This is only out of respect for the person and because if you can justify the suffering of 99 people that does not mean in the slightest that you can justify that of person 100.  The latter could be the proof that God is evil or that we are right to take the risk of being wrong and just condemn him.

We conclude: The pro-God claim is always made too lightly.  The evidence is full of holes and omissions.  It is so much simpler to hold all that is, is from brute fact, that there is no divine plan.