Because some things are too outlandish to require any burden of proof to claim non-existence. "So unlikely as to be virtually certain to not exist."
All claims of deities thus far fall into this category, along with invisible dragons, gnomes, vampires, werewolves, Sasquatch, etc and so on.
Hm. But isn’t this establishing a false equivalence, isn’t this kind of begging the question?
Invisible dragons and gnomes and vampires and werewolves and sasquatches are outlandish and outré and ridiculous, therefore (or at least, if not quite “therefore”, then “in the same way”) deity-gods also are ridiculous. Isn’t that what the argument might look like, if framed in words?
But the one does not follow from the other! That bit, where you actually say in so many words that
“all claims of deities thus far fall into this category” -- while I personally agree with what you say -- we can’t simply assume that a priori, can we?
Yes, I believe we can, indeed, clearly show that deity-gods are non-existent and therefore ridiculous. But that takes a bit of work, that is something that needs to be actually done. I don’t know that we’d want to hand-wave away the necessity of that proof-of-sorts by taking for granted the equivalence you’re laying out in your post?
Yes, AFTER that work has been done, AFTER we’ve already proved to our satisfaction that deity-gods are ridiculous, then we can certainly lump them together with werevolves, etc, sure, absolutely. Once the burden of proof has already been met, then we can sit together and laugh together at that whole host of ridiculous non-existent creatures, including deity-gods. But you’re clearly suggesting that somehow that burden of proof itself stands obviated, a priori as it were, by the simple act of arbitrarily lumping deity-gods with werewolves and dragons in our mind. I’m afraid that doesn’t seem quite right.
In fact, what the heck, I'll go further. Werewolves and vampires and yetis and bigfoots don't interest me, personally, in the least, while the God question does. But if we look at that initial statement of yours, "Because some things are too outlandish to require any burden of proof to claim non-existence", then I'm afraid that doesn't sound quite right either! Not even when it comes to these fantastic beasts, these bigfoots and sasquatches.
I don't think hard atheism (or at least, not hard atheism but hard rejection) of bigfoot is valid either. Soft atheism, or soft rejection, absolutely. And what is more, that is enough to deal with the issue. And yes, if you study individual bigfoot claims and show them to be spurious, then yes, then you can be a hard a-bigfootist as well.
The word "god" refers to deities in a vast majority of the world.
Agreed. Thanks for pointing out, in that earlier post of yours, that this might well be a translation issue, at least in part.
Keeping that possibility in mind does help us better understand (some of) the disagreements around this issue. Like I'd said in
my post addressed to you.
It really seems like you're redefining certain types of
ontology as "god ideas".
No, not "redifining", merely reflecting the definition that the actual believers in those ideas happen to use.
And absolutely, what you'd said in that earlier post of yours, understanding the possible translation issue, that helps us understand these disagreements better. What you're saying here now, I tried to spell out my views on that in more detail in
that earlier post of mine addressed to you.
Is that a rhetorical question?
Absolutely. Nor woud they need to literally "ask" at all!
I can think of a lot of reasons to not grant "justifiable special pleading" status to gods.
Perhaps you've misunderstood my meaning. That "special pleading" is not so much to loosen up our standards for evaluating God, but for added precision in how we look at this, that's all.
And nor is this necessarily about God either. In general most people would not worry about bigfoot. But if for whateve reason you found yourself actually engaging with the bigfoot question, actually researching it, then surely that same precision you'd have to give to that question as well, in order to be reasonable?
No, no "special pleading" for saying there may be Gods. Only "special pleading" -- with good reasons -- for exercising greater precision. As to where that extra precision might lead, that is a separate issue.
But sure, you personally, or I personally, may not even give the god question, or any other question, even this added precision, for any number of reasons. Absolutely, that is up to us, individually. I was only going for the generic "I" and generic "you".
But at the end of the day, the primary one is that I'm kind of over that, and just don't want to.
I understand. That's a very valid stance, at the personal level.
It's usually pointless. People dead set on using "faith-based reasoning" usually cannot be reasoned with about this topic, so it's all an exercise in futility, anyway.
I'm not sure about this, myself, but you may be right.
It sounds counter-intuitive to me, that otherwise reasonable people wouldn't agree to reasonably think about this. I've seen theists sometimes speak very rationally about their faith, even recognizing that their faith is a subjective and personal belief and no more. When they recognize that, I'd say they are being reasonable, despite remaining theists.
But like I said, my interactions with actual theists on this, while not quite zero, hasn't really been very extensive either. So if your experience says it often does not work, then I will grant you that.
