<p>"It's just as reasonable to say that the universe always existed. No creator necessary."</p>
<p>It is, but it just depends on which option people chose to believe in. </p>
<p>"I hate people who dont seem to understand that burden of proof lies with someone to prove that something exists, not that it doesnt exist. "</p>
<p>A lot of people probably do understand it. However, just because it's easier to prove that something doesn't exist doesn't mean they're going to take that side. Technically, the burden of proof lies on both sides. Perhaps it's just easier to believe in something not existing?</p>
<p>
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Technically, the burden of proof lies on both sides
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</p>
<p>No, that is not true. Have you ever wondered why you need to be proven guilty of a crime, instead of proven innocent? Because there is no ethical way to prove that something didn't happen. If I charged your right now with smoking pot at 2 am last morning, I have to prove that you did do it, you don't have to prove that you didn't do it. If you did, well you would almost certainly be carted off to jail!</p>
<p>There's no need to become antagonistically atheist. As long as religious people keep their beliefs private and stay out of policy-making, then they can believe anything they want.</p>
<p>"No, that is not true. Have you ever wondered why you need to be proven guilty of a crime, instead of proven innocent? "</p>
<p>In this case it does, because no one is being charged with anything. The existence of God is up in the air, and one side aims to prove that He doesn't exist and the other wants to prove that He does, at the same time, not one after the other. </p>
<p>If you charge me for a crime, you have to prove that I've done it, but afterwards I would have prove that I didn't do it (if I pleaded innocent). Then the burden of proof shifts. Now both sides have had to bear the burden of proof.</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>Using that logic though, the belief that the universe is a one enormous peach is equally valid because nobody can prove otherwise.</p>
<p>Only difference is that parents don't hit and indoctrinate their children on peachism.</p>
<p>^But they can prove that. We know what peaches are made of, and the universe isn't made of the same exact thing. We're not inside a peach, because we know what the inside of a peach looks like and this isn't it.</p>
<p>That was an odd sentence.</p>
<p>There's a leprechaun in my closet.</p>
<p>Can you disprove that?</p>
<p>I like how reading one "legitimate anecdote" about haunted houses is enough to convince the original poster of the existence of "spirits", but The Origin of Species and the tons of subsequent studies supporting it are still questionable at best.</p>
<p>Genius.</p>
<p>People have very vivid imaginations, even the unimaginative.</p>