“What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”

Apparently, this adage goes by the name “Hitchens’s Razor”, after Christopher Hitchens, a well-known atheist-author, who used this guiding principle to dismiss baseless religious claims.

It’s a pithy aphorism, and although I wouldn’t say it’s always applicable (I can think of abuse allegations, for instance, which shouldn’t be dismissed right away without evidence), I find it a good rule-of-thumb to go by. It seems especially relevant now, in a world where people can make random claims without any evidence and make us rational folk feel like we’re obligated to try and disprove them every step of the way.