Question

I have heard that agnosticism seems to be the only position with respect to god that doesn’t have a burden of proof. What I find troubling about this is most people do not as a practical matter think they have no knowledge on whether 10,000 mermaids are surrounding them right now. They simply don’t believe it.

Why isn’t this the case for god? A further problem is in this. Let us suppose that there are many nonexistent entities. Presumably, there are an infinite number of them.

Isn’t it more rational to simply assume that an entity without evidence doesn’t exist rather than give them a small chance of existing. For starters, it is impossible to distinguish between an entity with no evidence and a nonexistent one. Secondly, this wouldn’t necessarily make you dogmatic. You can simply assume X doesn’t exist but change your mind if evidence came forth for X.

Should one do this for god if one finds no evidence?

Answer 1

Agnosticism avoids the burden of proof by neither affirming nor denying the existence of God, unlike positive claims which carry this burden. Although absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, the question of the existence of God often involves faith or disputed evidence rather than empirically verifiable proof. Thus, views on God's existence vary based on individual interpretations of available evidence or belief systems.

Step-by-step explanation:

Your question touches on the complex topic of agnosticism and belief in the existence of entities, such as God, which cannot be directly proven or disproven to exist. Coming from a philosophical standpoint, the burden of proof indeed generally lies with those making a positive claim. When it comes to the existence of a deity, a strict agnostic adopts a position of neither believing nor disbelieving, often due to the acknowledgment that absolute knowledge on the topic is currently unattainable. This ties in with the principle that ‘absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’ which suggests that just because evidence for something has not been found, it does not necessarily confirm its nonexistence.

As for the assumption that any entity without evidence does not exist, while this may simplify reasoning, it also opens up the risk of dismissing possibilities prematurely. Changing one's belief based on new evidence is a hallmark of a rational approach. However, the argument for the existence of God often relies on faith or personal experience rather than empirical evidence, making it a unique case compared to more mundane claims like the existence of mermaids. Philosophers like Pascal have argued that the very nature of God is beyond human understanding, suggesting that faith is a legitimate basis for belief in the absence of concrete evidence.

In logic and reasoning, it’s true that one can never prove a general negative claim, and so the existence of God is a special case in which assertions rest on different forms of evidence, such as personal experience or historical texts, that are often disputed or open to interpretation. Therefore, individuals may choose to be agnostic, atheist, or theist based on their personal beliefs and the evidence they find salient or convincing.