Who's Afraid of the Burden of Proof?
As a general matter, I accept the idea that he who proposes -- X is true (and thus ought to believed) -- has the burden of proof. But I am not troubled by the idea that propositions of the form X is not true (and ought not to be believed ) -- also require support. Drawing a hard line against this is a mistake. You may not be able to demonstrate a negative proposition directly -- say, I did not commit a particular murder -- but you can demonstrate it indirectly by showing that a contradictory positive proposition is true -- I was somewhere else at the time . Proof that the earth is round is proof that the earth is not flat. Why can't I demonstrate that the supernatural God does not exist by showing that it is impossible? It seems to me that any negative proposition can be restated in a positive way. The negative claim God does not exist corresponds to the positive Spinoza-ish claim that the natural world is eternal, self-sufficient, the source of all explanations, and all