We started with a couple of arguments from popular Christian apologists with an evasive approach to the burden of proof in part 1.

Reevaluating the strategy

Returning to apologist Greg Koukl’s “Professor’s Ploy” in part 1, note that he wasn’t making a claim of parity. He wasn’t saying, “My God hypothesis is in the running just as much as a naturalistic explanation, and I demand a seat in this debate as an equal.” That would be bold enough. No, he was going further by taking the role of the Socratic questioner, assuming that he was right and guiding the student (the professor, in his example) through a pre-planned series of questions to a predetermined conclusion.

To the extent that Koukl’s goal is to help inexperienced Christians ease into the intimidating world of public speaking and debate with antagonistic strangers, that’s fine. He encourages them to ask questions to learn, to admit when a topic is new to them, and to ask permission to respond to the atheist after some research. However, his tactics go too far when he ignores that the atheist is defending the default hypothesis (naturalism) and that the Christian is making the extraordinary claim, which must be defended. Attack has its place, but that’s subordinate to making and defending the Christian claim. And, of course, his goal isn’t to follow the evidence, it’s to support a predetermined conclusion.

(In case it’s not obvious, I do want to follow the evidence. Atheism is my provisional conclusion, but evidence could change that. If atheism is incorrect, I want to find the evidence that shows this.)

We’ve seen the same contempt for honest debate with Koukl’s metaphor of arguments committing suicide by being self-defeating. Here’s an example: if I said, “I’m offended at Christians condemning homosexuals; in fact, I think it’s wrong to condemn anyone for anything,” he could reply, “Then you shouldn’t be condemning me.” Or if I said, “There are no absolutes,” he could reply, “You might want to reconsider your position because that certainly sounded like an absolute.” Many of these “suicides” are easily corrected, but Koukl has no interest in engaging with the valid points at the core of any opponent’s argument. He just wants a technicality with which to dismiss it. (More here.)

Clumsy reversal of the burden of proof: more examples

Here are two more quick examples that illustrate the wrong approach to the burden of proof. These have nothing to do with religion, so both Christians and atheists should be able to see the flawed thinking without distraction.

Beginning in the 1970s, psychic Uri Geller claimed to be able to perform a number of impressive feats, most famously bending spoons with his mind. While these were part of the standard repertoire of stage magicians, Geller claimed to be able to do them with paranormal powers given to him by aliens, not with stage magic.

Magician and psychic debunker James Randi publicly showed that he could duplicate all of Geller’s tricks. Geller admitted that but said that just because Randi could do his tricks with fakery (like any stage magician would) didn’t mean that Geller wasn’t doing it for real. Randi replied, “If Uri Geller bends spoons with divine powers, then he’s doing it the hard way.”

Let’s map this onto Christianity. It’s true that just because Christianity arose from a region in the world at the crossroads of cultures with religious dogma including supernatural births, dying-and-rising gods, and other miracles familiar to Christians, that doesn’t mean that Christianity’s stories about Jesus’s virgin birth and resurrection weren’t real. Just because Christianity looks like just another religion, and we toss all those other religions into the bin labeled Legend and Mythology, that doesn’t mean that Christianity isn’t the real deal.

We can’t prove that Christianity is just one more manmade religion, and we can’t prove that Uri Geller uses trickery to bend spoons, but in both cases, that’s the way to bet. (More on Uri Geller here.)

Here’s an example from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the inventor of the ruthlessly empirical detective Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle was fascinated with spiritualism, and he discussed this interest with illusionist Harry Houdini. Each was an expert in deception in his own way, but curiously, they were on opposite sides of the spiritualism question. Deaths of people close to Conan Doyle pushed him to see spiritualism as a legitimate way to contact the dead, while Houdini spent much of his life debunking the spiritualist Uri Gellers of his day. Houdini encouraged Conan Doyle to reject spiritualism, pointing out that all his stagecraft was deception.

After Houdini’s death in 1926, Conan Doyle wrote a book about spiritualism. Without Houdini to refute him, the book included a chapter summarizing Houdini’s feats. In it, Conan Doyle argued that Houdini used supernatural powers but lied about it. He said,

Can any reasonable man read such an account as this and then dismiss the possibility which I suggest as fantastic? It seems to me that the fantasy lies in refusing its serious consideration. . . . As matters stand, no one can say positively and finally that his powers were abnormal, but the reader will, I hope, agree with me that there is a case to be answered.

(More on Conan Doyle and Houdini here.)

Closing thoughts

The person making the extraordinary claim has the burden of proof. If I claim there’s a teapot orbiting the sun or that pixies and unicorns exist or that we’re living in the Matrix or that our world came into existence last Thursday, I would have the burden of proof.

There’s another definition of “burden of proof”—the obligation someone has to defend a statement they made—and that’s fair, but keep these two definitions separate. Don’t let this definition allow the person making the Christian claim to demand any sort of parity. There is no parity between the extraordinary claim (the theist’s position) and the default hypothesis (the atheist position). The theist is starting at a deficit—don’t let them forget that.

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Image from Mariam Shahab, CC license
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In part 1, we looked at a couple of arguments from popular Christian apologists with a deceptive view of the burden of proof.

Who knew atheists had that much to defend??

Here’s another trick Christian apologists like to play with the burden of proof. This is from Alan Shlemon:

While it’s true that atheists don’t have to prove the absence of God, they’re hardly off the hook when it comes to making sense of their position. If they don’t believe in God, their view entails at least three incredible assertions that require a lot of explaining.

Huh? You’d think that a Christian apologist would understand the definition of “atheist.” But let’s play along. Shlemon says that atheists must explain (1) how the universe came into existence by itself and how it came from nothing, (2) how free will can exist, and (3) where morals come from.

Bullshit.

Wow, how many ways is this wrong? First, atheists don’t claim these things. Ignoring the inept wording, if you’re saying that these are things for which modern society is trying to explain, sure. By why is this any particular burden on the person who has no god belief? Sigh . . . the old kindergarten try.

Second, I’m sure that Shlemon is bursting to share with us Christianity’s explanations for these topics. I agree that Christianity could have answers, but then so could Hinduism, Buddhism, and a thousand other mystical worldviews. Show me that Christianity is any more plausible than the others (which aren’t at all plausible), and you have an argument. Until then, you only make yourself look clueless.

Third, Science has no obligation to provide answers, and “We don’t know” is a perfectly reasonable answer. Science has nothing to be ashamed of and an immense body of work to be proud of. “Science has unanswered questions; therefore, God” is no argument. Christians may have answers, but their answers are based on nothing.

Fourth, Christianity needs to stop worrying about the speck in the eye of Science and focus instead on the beam in its own eye. There are a pile of silver-bullet arguments against Christianity that it needs to resolve, each of which are arguably enough to sink it.

And finally, I can’t let these challenges go without brief responses.

• What does “the universe came into existence by itself” mean? If you’re saying that things don’t come into existence without a cause, that’s probably not true. And show me that the consensus of cosmologists is that it came from nothing. (I respond to William Lane Craig’s Kalam cosmological argument here.) If you think that the universe couldn’t have come from nothing, justify Christianity’s claim that God did it.
• The only opinion I have about the free will argument is that it’s a big topic about which I’ve read very little. “God created free will!” might be a tempting response for the Christian, but it’s groundless.
• Morals come from evolution. (As an evolution denier, Shlemon is gleefully on the wrong side of the scientific consensus.) He is doubtless demanding to know where objective morality came from, to which I respond: first show us that objective morality exists. I see no reason to imagine that it does (more here, here, here, here).

As with the claim for unicorns, the skeptic has no burden of proof. That these puzzles have a natural explanation, like the countless things science has shown in the past, is the default. Religion has no track record for explaining reality.

Christian strategy exposed

Apologists admit quite a bit when they reveal this strategy. They want to attack because they can’t defend!

We see the same strategy with Creationism/ID. The Creationism argument is just a pile on of questions, challenges, and demands. Creationists don’t want to stand and defend their position because it’s not particularly defensible; they’d rather attack by mocking evolution and demanding answers to questions that have been answered a hundred times. The public often doesn’t know that, so this approach can be effective in a public debate, but it isn’t science. How do we know? Because if there were science behind it, Creationists would publish in scientific journals!

What does it say about their position that they must resort to rhetorical tricks? It’s like pleading the Fifth Amendment (that is, asserting your right to not incriminate yourself)—you’re admitting that your position is weak or embarrassing. If they had compelling evidence, they’d give it.

And when in this process do they plan on sharing the Good News? Koukl’s stratagem seems to be designed to remove the Christian from the opportunity (predicament?) of evangelizing. The burden of proof is (incredibly) a burden.

If your argument is weak, dancing around to avoid engaging head-on might be a good option, but a better one might be to admit that you’ve lost the argument. That might be the first step to putting together a worldview that is defensible.

Concluded with some final observations in part 4.

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Image from Lance Goyke, CC license
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In part 1, we looked at a couple of arguments from popular Christian apologists with a deceptive view of the burden of proof. Let’s look at two different definitions of “burden of proof.” As with the different definitions of “faith,” Christians cloud the issue for their benefit, perhaps knowingly. It helps to see these definitions and know when they’re being used.

Burden of proof definition #1

First, it can be the concept taken from a criminal trial. Here, we begin with a presumption of innocence for the accused. The prosecution can’t present merely an argument as compelling as that from the defense; they must overcome it to convince the jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

Returning to the Christians’ argument (see part 1), this beyond-a-reasonable-doubt burden is what the supernaturalist has. We start that debate with the assumption of a natural explanation because we have no good evidence of any supernatural causes of anything. Wallace would love to have parity for his God hypothesis, but it doesn’t work that way. Naturalism is the default, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Imagine someone thinking, “I have no idea for the answer to this problem. I’ll just put down . . . I dunno, 7. Well, that’s either right or wrong, so that gives me a 50/50 chance. I like those odds!” A child can be forgiven for that analysis, but we have higher standards for adults.

Take the Purple People of Pluto as an example of something that none of us have any particular interest in. Do we start with parity? Could anyone legitimately demand that you either prove that they don’t exist or adjust your reality to accept the Purple People of Pluto? Of course not. The default is no Pluto people (or unicorns or fairies or Bigfoot) and no supernatural. Any alternative argument that moves us off this default must be quite compelling.

Burden of proof definition #2

But apologists wants to ignore that definition. There is another, and that was what Koukl and Wallace were referring to. If I make a claim, I need to be prepared to defend it. This is where we enter the messy realm of rhetorical tricks and debate tactics, which was Koukl’s concern with his “Professor’s Ploy.”

Wallace is technically correct that if the atheist says, “There’s no God” (or the resurrection didn’t happen or the supernatural birth story came from other cultures or whatever), the Christian is within their rights to insist that the atheist defend that position. This is what Koukl was arguing. This puts the Christian in the role of attacker, trying to pick apart your argument, and Koukl likes that situation. You must defend a position and they don’t, assuming the Christian hasn’t yet declared a position (and Koukl is careful to advise that they avoid that).

A little debate advice

Speaking for myself, I usually don’t mind being in that position. I’m happy to argue that the evidence points to a conclusion. I never argue that I can prove anything; I simply claim that the preponderance of evidence points to the naturalist position, like claiming that the preponderance of evidence says that unicorns don’t exist.

The only debating point I want to make is for atheists to realize that they start with the high ground. They are arguing the default position. The burden of proof in any religious discussion is on the theist. If you want to give up that advantage and declare your own position that you must defend, that’s fine, but do it deliberately, not accidentally. In fact, if you inadvertently realize that you overstated your position (for example, saying “There is no God” rather than “I see no good evidence for God”) and your Christian antagonist is giving you the Koukl treatment by asking all the questions and demanding answers, you can always apologize for clumsily stating your position and restate it in a non-dogmatic fashion to return the burden of proof to the Christian.

See also: Extraordinary Claims and Extraordinary Evidence

I think I’ve found the secret behind the strategy. That’s in part 3.

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Image from Rob Oo, CC license
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