this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2024
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My apologies, i assumed you were a believer of one faith or another. You know. On account that you’re all over this post defending it.
While you are correct to say that in a formal argument, there is no more (or less,) evidence for either position, we are in a not-formal setting.
Further it’s is entirely reasonable to say that the absolute lack of tangible evidence that such a being exists- despite billions of people looking for such a being today, suggests such a being does not exist.
That is, it is reasonable to say that the lack of evidence is, itself, evidence that a thing does not exist. It is not absolute proof- the universe doesn’t work that away- but it is evidence of non-existence.
That's not correct. However if we continually fail to find any evidence for its existence or any way it interacts or effects our reality, we can safely act as though it does not exist since it won't change things at all. There could be a divine being out there, but until we have evidence that it interacts with our reality in some way, we can put it aside and go on with our lives.
It does not change the truth of whether it actually exists somewhere or not.
This is amusing.
Lets use a different example. Clinical drug trials.
By your logic, we can never know if drugs are in fact safe, because we can't prove they'll never have ill effects. Can't prove a negative, after all. Which is logically incorrect. We can prove their safe by running clinical drug trials in controlled settings. You know how all that goes. You give rats or whatever drugs and see if they die. if they don't you see if they tolerate it well. when they do, you give it to humans, eventually, and see if they die, and if they tolerate it well.
You do this enough and you can say the drug is in fact safe. The absence of evidence that the drugs are harmful, is evidence that they are not harmful.
This is true because, presumably, it's extremely well and extensively studied. Rational people will look at the studies and agree: the drugs are reasonably safe to use under those guidelines.
the existence of god has been studied extensively. It follows then, the lack of tangible evidence is itself evidence of absence.
Not a theist, so I'm not defending the potential existence of "my god".
Lack of evidence, however, doesn't always mean something doesn't exist or hasn't happened. If John killed Jake and destroyed or hid the evidence, and based on that wasn't found guilty, that doesn't mean that he didn't do it. It simply means no substantial evidence has been found to prove it (yet).
If you want to take your example further, it's quite possible to find out years or decades later that drug is in fact harmful, it just took time for the side-effects to show, or rather we simply didn't have the right technology to come to that conclusion earlier. (Though far less likely for this scenario to happen with modern science.)
Also, the existence of science or established set of natural laws, and absence of supernatural does not rule out existence of an uninvolved or uncaring creator.
And isn’t that exactly what I’m saying about god’s existence?
That it isn’t definite or absolute proof, but it is evidence?