mirage

Actually, it is.

This is a direct implication from Bayes' theorem for all Gods credited with any possibility of affecting observations.

Depending on the particular God concept, and depending on your subjective prior likelihood of there being Gods (which is always higher than it should be because of people habitually thinking in terms of agency and because of their cultural conditioning and because of poor application of Occam's razor) it is not cast iron evidence.

But it is nonetheless evidence sufficient to nudge you one side of perfect neutrality.

But I'm sure that is just "torturing logic" and you already know all about this, understand my argument and understand why it is wrong, even though you are apparently ignorant of the basics of epistemology.

Alf

The point is that if there really were a god he WOULD have left a mark somewhere and if he didn't then we might as well live our lives as he doesn't exist. Such an inept god who are unable to leave marks in the universe is not worthy of worship anyway.

Now, you may say that it's not that he is UNABLE, it just so happens that he hasn't left any mark. Well, this is a difference that makes no difference.

Alternatively, you may say he HAS left marks but they are not visible to the unbeliever. How convenient! This is a remarkable difference between USEFUL science and USELESS theology. Scientific proofs has the power to convince those who disagree while religious dogma can only be shown to those who already believe.

Now, you might also say that "but, but, but, if he DOES exist and you say he might not exist and so we go on living our lives as if he doesn't exist, but he still exist so you would be wrong". Again, this is a difference that makes no difference. Of course, if he tomorrow were suddenly to leave a mark - for example appearing on earth and proclaiming he is god and indeed being able to prove to us that he is the genuine article. Then we'd be wrong, but then we'd also be able to see what is bunk and what is real of all the religious claims - no more religious wars and quarrels. Everybody would be a winner! Of course, he has has a couple of thousand years to do so and haven't done it yet so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for this to happen any time soon.

Now, some theist will say that this is bull.

1. We cannot command god, God is sovereign ruler of the universe. He does what he pleases and doesn't do things on our command and wishes.

Ok, so god could prevent religious wars and other suffering but chooses not to. He is evil. In other words, he cannot be the good god christians believe in, so that god does not exist.

2. God would like to appear on earth and prove his existence but no matter what proof you show to the sceptic they would never accept it. The die-hard atheist would never acknowledge that this is god no matter what god did to attempt to prove himself.

This is utter bunk. For one thing, what do they know what atheists might do or not do. True, some atheists might not be convinced but I am sure many would. Yet, God chooses not to. Also, if god is so utterly unable to perform any form of proof then he is far from powerful and omni-impotent rather than omnipotent. In other words, christians who tries this line are essentially denying their own god.

3. If you call John on the phone and nobody answers. Then you do not conclude that John does not exist. You may simply infer that he is for whatever reason unable or unwilling to take the phone. SImilarly, just because God does not appear it does not imply that God does not exist.

Again, utter bunk. Unlike God, John is not omnipotent and omnipresent so he might be out or taking a shower or busy. God, being omnipotent and omnipresent, will always be there ready to "take the phone" so to speak. So the lack of answer and the lack of evidence in this case IS proof that this alleged god does not exist.

Note, the 3 "reasons" or "rebuttal attempts" above are not made up by me, they are actual arguments I have seen on christian web sites discussing this issue. Unfortunately, it is a while ago and I no longer have any link to them but some of the arguments were from a christian web site that discussed a debate between a local atheist and their pastor from a church where the atheist submitted as proof that there is no god that he asked god to show himself and the christians tried to explain that the silly atheist would have to understand that god is under no obligation to obey the atheist's request and gave reasons above for this.

So yeah, absense of evidence IS evidence of absense.

Alf

mirage

I agree.

Well in a nutshell, if the chance of there being an observation of something that rules out "no god" is greater than zero, then the chance of all observations being consistent with naturalism, if God exists, is less than 1.

The chance of all observations being consistent with naturalism (which I take here to mean "no gods" ) if no Gods exist is 1.

Plug that into Bayes and hey presto. Just like any other hypothesis comparison. You can make your estimated chance of seeing any difference with your God as low as you like, but as long as it isn't zero, then you have weak evidence in favour of atheism.

All this "you can't prove a negative" stuff is bollocks. Negatives aren't epistemically any different in principle to positives. The negatives we often talk about tend to be harder to assemble strong evidence for, but you can still produce evidence.

MrWhy

If the preceeding argument is viewed from from current time and debate it seems correct. If viewed from a long historical frame of reference it looks different to me.

Somewhere in early human history someone first suggested that gods were responsible for all the mysterious things that were going on. Everyone looked up from the fire and grunted in agreement. At that time they did not provide evidence of the proposed god(s), and through today they still have not supplied any concrete evidence. I see this as a simple solution to the burden of proof issue. I doubt that we evolved believing in gods, and then later someone suggested there were none. It was the other way around. We started off just dumb, fat, and happy about the whole idea. Well, maybe not so happy. OK, probably not so fat either. For example; If today I suggested there is a massive computer running the universe and it's programmed by a vast population of supernatural programmers, you would be 100% atheistic about that hypothesis. Unless I included some evidence. What is logically wrong with that position?

mirage

Nothing. That comes with the whole Occam's razor argument. A giant cosmic strawberry is not considered likely in the absence of evidence. Neither is any specific random proposition. Yet for some reason a cosmic person is considered a perfectly reasonable thing to wonder about.

I just threw this thread up mainly because the other one was closed (temporarily, I now realise) and because it is a further argument that doesn't' rely on our estimates of prior probability at all. And because people are always harping on about evidence without considering exactly what constitutes it.

Minnesota Joe

Good points, mirage. I think it is arguments like this that also solve the old philosophical problems surrounding Evil Demons, brains in vats, the Matrix, etc. And something is needed to solve these problems, because we can't conceivably believe every logically possible proposition or even every proposition permitted by the evidence.

I wonder how the phrase "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" became part of the scientific skeptic's creed and, ultimately, the public mindset in the first place. Do we have Carl Sagan and SETI to thank for that? (I think I agree with PLP here...the phrase should read, "absence of evidence isn't deductive proof of absence").

Common_Cents

I think the absence of evidence is at least proof of God's disinterest in worship. Especially if you look at the God of the Bible who seems to require compliments every second. If that was the case an egotist of that caliber wouldn't remain quiet. Surely everything would reek of God if the fellow wanted our worship.

The absence of evidence also logically leads to the absence of belief. Theists who give God leeway in this respect are loathe to do it for other gods of other religions and for anything else in their lives. It seems only the god of their personal choice deserves belief without evidence of any kind. To a christian Mahdi is ridiculous but Jesus makes perfect sense. Personal taste rules the day.

Tuvar Ane Ingolenen

Isn't it sometimes stated as 'Absense of proof in not proof of absence'. Easier to agree with IMO.
And, yes, I think absense of evidence is evidence of absense. Not necessarily strong or compelling evidence, but evidence nontheless.

TomboyMom

Originally Posted by Frank Apisa
Not only is it evidence, for most of us empiricists here, it's the strongest and most convincing evidence. The hyper-simple argument goes:
If there were a God, there would be some evidence of its existence.
There is no such evidence.
Therefore there is no God.

The theist would have to take issue with the premise, which I for one would like to hear--why there would be a God but no evidence of same. To test us?

fast

There is no evidence that little Johnny came to school today; therefore, little Johnny didn't come to school today.

Would this be a correct interpretation of what's being said on this thread?

Don't attack! I'm no theist...just trying to figure it all out, without considering anything to do with sufficiency.