The Burden of Proof and the "Supernatural" Gift of Faith

My claim whether I like it or not is not asking to be taken on faith.  It is asking to be taken on evidence.  So if a believer says there is a God it is up to the believer to focus on showing there probably is.  If they are not doing that then they are cheating.  The same rule applies if you claim, "Atheism is true."

Religion says that it is based on God telling us about himself and what he has done and what we must do to please him.  If you want to serve God in worship it has to be the way he says and because he says it.  Otherwise it is about you.  Suppose altruism, doing something entirely for the other is real and happens and is relevant.  If it happens too rarely it may be irrelevant and we should assume all of us are egoists.  Anyway, there is an altruism in a person serving hypothetically a lesser person - this is hypothetical - I am not denying equality.  Such altruism tests itself and has the best chance of being genuine.  Altruism towards the superior say the monarchy or government that looks after you is suspect.  If you are giving your heart to a God who cannot be hurt and who has it all, why are you not giving it to the person who smells terrible and who eats out of the gutter?  Why are you not willing to give that person admission into your own bedroom if you had to?  If faith is supernatural as in letting incredible love flood in, it does not look like it.   

Christianity teaches that faith is a gift from God.
 
It teaches that it is needed to form a relationship with God for you cannot have a relationship with God unless he reveals that his religion is true to you and it defines religion as a relationship with the true God that includes forming a Church in his name and honour.
 
Faith is an epistemology - it is a gift from God to help us know things. He reveals things to us in and through faith.
 
This idea is important.
 
If faith is based on your ideas and prejudices and opinions, then it is about what you think of God. That is not the same as it being about God. God is not what you think of him. God is God. Belief in God can become your God just like anything can. Belief becomes your God unless God gives you the belief and helps you to embrace it. Faith is not the source of your relationship with God if it is your creation.
 
Believers in God say that not all faith in God or anything is a gift. It depends on how open you are to God. He gives faith in himself and in what he has revealed as a gift to those who want it. Believers make a difference between natural faith and supernatural faith. Natural is just human faith and supernatural is not of natural causes though God may use natural things to sow and nurture it.
 
Human beings are prone to adore what they think others are and what they think God is. To honour a person as you perceive them is not the same as honouring the person. The person is not what you think of them. If you claim to believe in God, you have to prove that it is the real one you try to adore and mean to adore. The burden of proof is on you. You will never prove it for Mormons claim God is a polygamously married man who does not live in your heart while Catholics claim that he is spirit and lives in the hearts of those who love him and both claim their perception of God is a gift of faith that comes from God! They perceive their faith as a gift of revelation from God. But that is in their heads too for if it were really from God they would not disagree on core issues about what God is and about if he is human or not.
 
If you assert your faith is supernatural the burden of proof is on you.
 
If you assert your faith is therefore true the burden of proof is on you.
 
The atheist does not claim a supernatural power gives him his atheism. The believer in God and the gift of faith takes on more burdens of proof than the unbeliever.
 
Unbelief is the most rational because the less you have that calls for a burden of proof the better.
 
If you take the burden of proof then keep the supernatural out of the equation. It makes the burden too heavy. It makes it impossible. You can never prove that God is putting the faith you have in you because it is the truth.
 
Your beliefs cannot really be kept private in the sense that they influence how you think and behave and communicate something to others. You are not an island. Thus a person who actually never proclaims their beliefs actually does in some way. It is other people's business then if your faith is regarded by you as supernatural and if that is true.

The Burden and Miracles

We all know that dead people don't rise again in 3 days. Christians say that Jesus rose in 3 days. It is up to them to show that he did or probably did. It is unfair and unloving of them to ask us to prove that he didn't. It is unfair of them to ask us to believe it without giving us any evidence.
 
It is unfair for Catholic schools to tell impressionable children that Jesus rose. It is wrong because it is taking advantage. It is wrong because they are entitled to proof or strong evidence and it is being denied them. No matter what the Church says, it is trying to manipulate children into thinking they believe. The result is that at some level they will know they do not. They will get fearful and feral if somebody threatens their "faith". Thus we have sectarianism, religiosity and bigotry. If Catholics for example thought their faith was the best faith and the most convincing they would not try to segregate their children from other religions. They cannot expect us to take them seriously as believers.