Thread by @EveKeneinan

My point here is a meta-critique of the argument form:

1 A positive existential claim C is made.
2 No evidence supporting C may be adduced.
3 It is rationally obligatory, given 1 & 2, that our epistemic attitude towards C be either lack of belief that C or belief that ~C.

https://twitter.com/EveKeneinan/status/1131103039979491328

You’ll see this commonly in the form

1 The claim is “There is God” G
2 There is no evidence for G [false, but let it stand]
3 ∴ it is rationally obligatory to lack a belief that G or hold that G is false.

That argument has the same logical FORM as

1 “There exists at least one being not created by God” B
2 There is no evidence for B
3 ∴ it is rationally obligatory to lack a belief that there is any being not created by God or to believe there are no beings not created by God.

The LOGICAL FORM of the argument is the same.

It if works in one case it should work in the other, because that is the nature of logic, viz. that it is content-indifferent.

One could accept the logical form, and differentiate on the CONTENT. That would require that one show there is no evidence for God but that there is a sufficiency of evidence that at least one being exists that has not been created by God.

What would such evidence look like?

Given the wealth of evidence for God, from two dozen or more cogent theistic arguments, to the experiences of billions, to etc., it seems unlikely to make out that there is “more” evidence for “there exists at least one being not created by God” than there is for “there is God.”