| This dialogue happens to me a lot: "I believe X" "You don't have enough evidence to prove it." "You don't have enough evidence to prove it's not true." "So you believe something is true without enough evidence?" "You still didn't prove it's not true." If you have no evidence of something, there is no reason to believe it. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Your take? |
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| Agreed. In b4 religious argument ensues. |
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| If I lived on a desert island I would not be able to get a hold of any evidence of a nebula out in space. I couldn't do it even if I knew it exists I wouldn't be able to convince my tribe of it even if they gave me 10 years to provide evidence I simply don't have the tools or the location necessary to get the evidence that does exist out of reach. Thats how I see it anyway as humanity we're barely out of our teens we're only just breaking out in the universe to explore and only just reached the moon let alone sending people out of our solar system or even galaxy. So when people say "Present real physical evidence of God" for example to me is like asking a 5 year old to explain how to build an atomic bomb. The kid could learn one day but for now, its just too far out of his ability and understanding. DragonTamer1 said: In b4 religious argument ensues. Ah fu- |
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DejWo said: Absence of evidence=/=evidence of abscence It is like an alibi. Alibi of evidence of your abscence(let's not speculate too much about this) from the crime,while not having an alibi proves nothing. But isn't believing something with having no evidence irrational? It's rational think "X is probably untrue" unless you have evidence pointing it's true. |
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| Even with lack of evidence, that doesn't mean you have "no reason" to believe something, so I'd disagree with that statement. It's a lot harder to "disprove" something than to prove something however. |
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TheBrainintheJar said: But isn't believing something with having no evidence irrational? It's rational think "X is probably untrue" unless you have evidence pointing it's true. Not all the time. Imagine if some soldier in ww2 france spotted Hitler taking a piss on an empty road. He runs back and tells everyone who goes "yeah right" he knows what he saw but has no evidence and as it turns out Hitler was touring that day and stepped out to take a whizz. So even it sounds unbelievable and there's no evidence doesn't mean it didn't happen. |
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SnugglyWhuggly said: Even with lack of evidence, that doesn't mean you have "no reason" to believe something, so I'd disagree with that statement. It's a lot harder to "disprove" something than to prove something however. I usually don't take note of SnugglyWhuggly, but he is right on this one. People tend to confuse "evidence" with "reason." You can have a reason to believe or accept something (regardless of if it is valid or not), without having evidence for it. |
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RedRoseFring said: SnugglyWhuggly said: Even with lack of evidence, that doesn't mean you have "no reason" to believe something, so I'd disagree with that statement. It's a lot harder to "disprove" something than to prove something however. I usually don't take note of SnugglyWhuggly, but he is right on this one. People tend to confuse "evidence" with "reason." You can have a reason to believe or accept something (regardless of if it is valid or not), without having evidence for it. At least get my gender right if you're going to berate me. :c |
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| Absence of evidence merely shows that something is in a state of existence and non existence both in duality. Evidence just providers the observer to collapse something into our reality from the chaos of possibility. |
absence ... evidence ... bolieve ...  |
| “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” - Christopher Hitchens. No evidence doesn't mean it isn't true but it also doesn't mean there is a rational reason for believing in it. Yahweh no more likely to be the creator of the universe than Spongebob or a magical flying unicorn is. If all three of these options are equally likely then why should you believe that Yahweh created the universe and yet are so quick to dismiss the other two? |
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| As expected from a typical jew |
| Twitter and it's consequences had been a disaster for the human race |
SnugglyWhuggly said: It's a lot harder to "disprove" something than to prove something however. isnt it the other way around? that its much easier to disprove something rather than prove it? there are far more hypothesis thats been disproved by the scientific method than prove more hypothesis for example as for the topic there is usually uncertainty, but with the internet and google its much more easy to get evidence or proof now than the old days, so there are more uncertainty back in the old days |
| They aren't the same, but there are logical grounds to believe that a given entity with no evidence for its existence does not exist. There is effectively a 0% chance of the Christian or Muslim God being real, given the infinite number of other possibilities. |
j0x said: SnugglyWhuggly said: It's a lot harder to "disprove" something than to prove something however. isnt it the other way around? that its much easier to disprove something rather than prove it? there are far more hypothesis thats been disproved by the scientific method than prove more hypothesis for example as for the topic there is usually uncertainty, but with the internet and google its much more easy to get evidence or proof now than the old days, so there are more uncertainty back in the old days Yeah, it's a lot easier to disprove something in most cases. You just have to come up with one counterexample. |
TheBrainintheJar said: DejWo said: Absence of evidence=/=evidence of abscence It is like an alibi. Alibi of evidence of your abscence(let's not speculate too much about this) from the crime,while not having an alibi proves nothing. But isn't believing something with having no evidence irrational? It's rational think "X is probably untrue" unless you have evidence pointing it's true. Prove that you exist without the belief that you exist People need to accept the fact that some things cannot be proven at all and that some things we don't have the current knowledge to prove them at the current time. But that doesn't mean they are not true |
ThRippJckNov 20, 2015 9:14 PM
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| Obligatory |
| My proof is that you have no proof. |
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Pacifica_Ocean said: TheBrainintheJar said: But isn't believing something with having no evidence irrational? It's rational think "X is probably untrue" unless you have evidence pointing it's true. Not all the time. Imagine if some soldier in ww2 france spotted Hitler taking a piss on an empty road. He runs back and tells everyone who goes "yeah right" he knows what he saw but has no evidence and as it turns out Hitler was touring that day and stepped out to take a whizz. So even it sounds unbelievable and there's no evidence doesn't mean it didn't happen. You're talking about the fallacy of Argument from Icreduality - "It doesn't make sense to me, therefore it's false." j0x said: SnugglyWhuggly said: It's a lot harder to "disprove" something than to prove something however. isnt it the other way around? that its much easier to disprove something rather than prove it? there are far more hypothesis thats been disproved by the scientific method than prove more hypothesis for example as for the topic there is usually uncertainty, but with the internet and google its much more easy to get evidence or proof now than the old days, so there are more uncertainty back in the old days It's harder to disprove things. It's easy to make a lot of claims that evidence for them will be hard to bring, or things that are hard to test. That's why we rely on absence of evidence. |
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SolidShadowNov 22, 2015 3:33 AM
Bernkastel said: TheBrainintheJar said: It's harder to disprove things. It's easy to make a lot of claims that evidence for them will be hard to bring, or things that are hard to test. That's why we rely on absence of evidence. It depends on what you're disproving. Something like disproving God, ghosts, etc, would be impossible because you would have to search the entire universe through every means possible. Something like disproving the association between Jelly Beans and Alzheimer on the other hand is just as easy as proving it. I agree. I should've emphasized that absence of evidence becomes evidence of absence in some circumstances. I'll know exactly when that happens when I'll explore this whole topic deeper. |
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Pacifica_Ocean said: If I lived on a desert island I would not be able to get a hold of any evidence of a nebula out in space. I couldn't do it even if I knew it exists I wouldn't be able to convince my tribe of it even if they gave me 10 years to provide evidence I simply don't have the tools or the location necessary to get the evidence that does exist out of reach. Right, and it would still be irrational for you to believe in nebulae even if they do in fact exist. The time to believe something is when there is evidence for it. This doesn't change just because in hindsight we can look back and say we used to be ignorant. Your tribe would be correct in dismissing you for it, because for every irrational claim you make that just happens to be right, you are far more likely to get 10,000 more wrong the next time, and your tribe would be foolish to go out on endless amounts of wild goose chases. |
kingcity20 said: Oh for the love of -_- nvm gotta love MAL |
Bernkastel said: TheBrainintheJar said: It's harder to disprove things. It's easy to make a lot of claims that evidence for them will be hard to bring, or things that are hard to test. That's why we rely on absence of evidence. It depends on what you're disproving. Something like disproving God, ghosts, etc, would be impossible because you would have to search the entire universe through every means possible. Something like disproving the association between Jelly Beans and Alzheimer on the other hand is just as easy as proving it. Disproving God is easily possible, and it's one of the first thing taught in any basic philosophy course. It's called the "problem of evil" argument and most people accept it. If God is perfectly good, why does he allow things like natural disasters to randomly kill people? http://www.iep.utm.edu/evil-log/ It's logically impossible for God to be all good if he lets evil stuff occur, so God doesn't exist. Disproving the existence of ghosts is also actually very easy, and it is also taught in basic philosophy courses. Most people think of ghosts as souls, and that's where the mind-body problem comes in: how can a soul which is not physical, interact with physical bodies? http://www.iep.utm.edu/descmind/ If it's logically impossible, then it's impossible for ghosts to exist, period. What is hard to disprove is the existence of things like: empirically invisible pink unicorns, teapots on Alpha Centauri, a galaxy made of candy, etc. TheBrainintheJar said: This dialogue happens to me a lot: "I believe X" "You don't have enough evidence to prove it." "You don't have enough evidence to prove it's not true." "So you believe something is true without enough evidence?" "You still didn't prove it's not true." If you have no evidence of something, there is no reason to believe it. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Your take? The line of reasoning you're referring to is called "Occam's razor." It's mainly used to eliminate superstitious things like God from scientific theories (because positing the existence of a God who is infinitely powerful, intelligent, good etc. adds an incredible amount of complexity to scientific theories). http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Occam's_razor But as the link states, Occam's razor is not a proof of God's nonexistence, but it gives us a reason to reject it. |
| Problem of evil doesn't work. Religious people just say "God works in mysterious ways". Sure, that might be a lame response, but the point is that they aren't convinced. There are also many conceptions of God(s) that don't involve it being all powerful, all knowing and benevolent. |
Altairius said: Problem of evil doesn't work. Religious people just say "God works in mysterious ways". Sure, that might be a lame response, but the point is that they aren't convinced. There are also many conceptions of God(s) that don't involve it being all powerful, all knowing and benevolent. I personally think it works. You can bring up the "moral paralysis" issue if someone brings up that argument, see here for more info: https://www.bowdoin.edu/faculty/s/ssehon/pdf/sehon-skeptical-theism.pdf Whether you think it works or not though, my answer is simply that it's possible because a lot of philosophers accept it. It's one thing to say it's possible and another thing to say it's wrong. And yes, you are right that it doesn't apply to some conceptions of God. According to Islam, Judaism and Christianity though, God is all good so it works. |
Gov said: Obligatory you're a saint, why don't these fools know about unkown unknowns? |
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SolidShadow said: What are you talking about? The results of the double slit readily observable to the human eye as well as any apparatus. An "observer" in quantum physics includes any measurement device.The double split experiment or the observers experiment. Which is real or proven? What the observer see or what is recorded by the electronic equipment. If they are both real then that would be a paradox. However, Werner Heisenberg said "separation of the observer from the phenomenon to be observed is no longer possible" Good question I'll admit I am too stupid really answer the question but I keep a open mind to just about everything. |
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Chiki said: If you know anything about philosophy, you'd see the holes in this argument like a spider web. You're presuming too much about the nature of good and evil, and ascribing nature itself as a moral agent. Your views have consequences I doubt you'd except. Such as that a person who doesn't spend every last bit of his consciousness preventing suffering by other people, he is at least a bit evil. A child in Namibia is starving, and it is your moral responsibility to prevent it.Disproving God is easily possible, and it's one of the first thing taught in any basic philosophy course. It's called the "problem of evil" argument and most people accept it. If God is perfectly good, why does he allow things like natural disasters to randomly kill people? http://www.iep.utm.edu/evil-log/ It's logically impossible for God to be all good if he lets evil stuff occur, so God doesn't exist. |
| My subjective reviews: katsureview.wordpress.com THE CHAT CLUB. |
Chiki said: Disproving God is easily possible, and it's one of the first thing taught in any basic philosophy course. It's called the "problem of evil" argument and most people accept it. If God is perfectly good, why does he allow things like natural disasters to randomly kill people? That is basic lol problem of evil, just what is evil? if God creates a natural disaster is it a disaster? or is it part of the planets purpose. To create, new group, new land on which life can form. Is it to flood a valley with water creating new rivers, inland oceans for which man can fish. Is it Gods fault for knowing that the planet must keep moving and changing and he trusts in us to understand when to move out of the way rather than save every single humans life at the cost of the planet stopping to function as it does. Does a father raising children who have already made mistakes take away the dangerous and scary things in the universe because humanity wants to be coddled? God is a father, one expecting great things from us as individuals and as a species and nothing like that comes without willingness to sacrifice, as a species we must understand that God wants whats best for all of us in the long run, all 8 billion and counting and people die for this, they die for life to carry on even if you can't see or understand the plan its 50 moves ahead of our comprehension. something we could only hope to understand if we viewed time in a single moment how everything will play out in each chain of seemingly random events. Thats because of your limited human views on good and evil. God is about saving humanity as its whole thats an entire planet of peoples. He has to be beyond the most simplistic view of good and evil and work on a higher level. What may seem evil to us at the time helps the planet and in the long run the survival of our race as a whole. While god works on a higher level its up to humanity to stop the smaller acts of evil and harm to our own. Thats our part and mission whilst God plays the big game. You think because God is beyond human values that he is not Good? hes not good because he doesn't give every single human a perfect life, no pain, no suffering? this isn't the garden of Eden anymore or heaven. This is life and its hard, the struggles prove our faith and willingness to overcome the cost to our entire species which was the original sins of man. Now you might believe that those who have given the sacrifice are rewarded but thats not for me to tell. All I know is for something like God our knowledge our understanding is a million moves behind what he see's for us and we have to trust those with far more vision knows what they're doing for the good of all mankind. Who better to trust? I do highly recommend you watch the time stamp here as it explains better than I could. 8:00 - 10:00 |
SpooksNov 21, 2015 8:43 PM
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Bernkastel said: The core of this problem is a semantic confusion that causes circular assertions for people like you to go back and forth on indefinitely, without reason, and without even approaching a solution. It might roll off the tongue to speak of evidence and absence, and absence and evidence--too smoothly, in fact, that no one pays any attention to the actual meanings of evidence and absence.TheBrainintheJar said: The absence of evidence NEVER becomes the evidence of absence.I agree. I should've emphasized that absence of evidence becomes evidence of absence in some circumstances. I'll know exactly when that happens when I'll explore this whole topic deeper. The first thing we must accept is that evidence is not proof in the formal sense. That is, unless we wish to relegate ourselves into reductio into absurdity, the common intent of the word evidence (i.e. scientific evidence) involves observation and induction. Deductive evidence, or proofs, demonstrate the equivalent of a claim in question, but evidence only suggests that we might believe in it. Therefore, evidence is not absolute or nonexistence, it is strong or weak. In this sense, absence of evidence is very easily evidence of absence, at various stages of weakness depending on how reasonable the claim. However, the entire argument of this thread and every other utterance of the phrase "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" fallaciously presumes a religious understanding of evidence as proof. It is true, and can be formally proven, that the absence of proof is not proof of absence. That is, just because we can't show that something exists doesn't mean that we know absolutely that is doesn't. We just have a reasonable expectation that it might not, depending on the claim. If we take evidence as proof, then the argument becomes nonsense in the empirical context no matter which way you dice it. |
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TheBrainintheJar said: This dialogue happens to me a lot: "I believe X" "You don't have enough evidence to prove it." "You don't have enough evidence to prove it's not true." "So you believe something is true without enough evidence?" "You still didn't prove it's not true." If you have no evidence of something, there is no reason to believe it. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Your take? My take is that the two bolded phrases are different and that conflating them is irrational. |
| Now you're wondering if there's white text in any of my other posts. Over there, I'm everywhere. I know that. |
Chiki said: If God is perfectly good, why does he allow the occurrence of the sequence of events which necessarily had to occur for me to exist with my current ideas and memories? You sound less like you're questioning God and more like you're resentful of the sacrifices that had to be made so that you could exist. Try not to feel so guilty about it. |
| Now you're wondering if there's white text in any of my other posts. Over there, I'm everywhere. I know that. |
| Problem of evil does not disprove god, nor does it prove it isn't omniscient. It just shows that if there is a god, his morality isn't aligned with ours, and given the number of moral codes that arise from cultural differences, I don't know why anyone would think that's the case. OT: No evidence = a soft no. I don't believe something without evidence is true but I'm not going to argue vehemently against it. I just expect the person who holds the opposite position to be able to provide evidence for their assertion. I just say "I don't know"... for now. |
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katsucats said: Chiki said: If you know anything about philosophy, you'd see the holes in this argument like a spider web. You're presuming too much about the nature of good and evil, and ascribing nature itself as a moral agent. Your views have consequences I doubt you'd except. Such as that a person who doesn't spend every last bit of his consciousness preventing suffering by other people, he is at least a bit evil. A child in Namibia is starving, and it is your moral responsibility to prevent it.Disproving God is easily possible, and it's one of the first thing taught in any basic philosophy course. It's called the "problem of evil" argument and most people accept it. If God is perfectly good, why does he allow things like natural disasters to randomly kill people? http://www.iep.utm.edu/evil-log/ It's logically impossible for God to be all good if he lets evil stuff occur, so God doesn't exist. The problem of evil is widely accepted by most philosophers (75% of philosophers are atheists). The case you bring up with a child in Namibia is important, but it has nothing to do with the problem of evil argument. You don't need to presume anything about the nature of good and evil to know that killing people randomly is wrong, etc. Obviously, it's wrong to not prevent Hurricane Katrina from killing a bunch of people if you can stop it, period. And that's all you need to know about evil for the problem of evil argument to go through. Bernkastel said: Chiki said: Disproving God is easily possible, and it's one of the first thing taught in any basic philosophy course. It's called the "problem of evil" argument and most people accept it. If God is perfectly good, why does he allow things like natural disasters to randomly kill people? http://www.iep.utm.edu/evil-log/ It's logically impossible for God to be all good if he lets evil stuff occur, so God doesn't exist. Disproving the existence of ghosts is also actually very easy, and it is also taught in basic philosophy courses. Most people think of ghosts as souls, and that's where the mind-body problem comes in: how can a soul which is not physical, interact with physical bodies? http://www.iep.utm.edu/descmind/ If it's logically impossible, then it's impossible for ghosts to exist, period. Seriously?... Do they only teach you basic level garbage with tons of assumptions in PhD phil classes? If I wrote that even for PHIL101 I'll probably fail. Just because an argument is "basic" doesn't mean it's wrong. In graduate level classes they cover it in much more detail, like this article: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/ I obviously can't go into detail because I don't want to confuse everyone, and make the debate too high level since I'm the only one at an advanced level here. Like I said, the problem of evil argument which you call "basic" is accepted by 75% of professional philosophers, who are atheists. It's been surveyed. |
Bernkastel said: Chiki said: Like I said, the problem of evil argument which you call "basic" is accepted by 75% of professional philosophers, who are atheists. It's been surveyed. If it's such an obvious disprove, I wonder why it only has a 75% acceptance rate among professionals? Facts within professional sphere usually have 100% acceptance rate, such as evolution - biology, laws of thermodynamics - physics, etc. Also you suck at statistics. Just because 75% of professional philosophers are atheists does not mean they ought accept the problem of evil as valid. If we account for the statistical variance that most philosophers are going to be atheists regardless, the variance in belief caused by that argument may as well be zero. Then go ahead and disprove it right here lol. It actually does, because it's the only argument for atheism, which asserts that God doesn't exist with certainty. There are no other arguments which disprove that God exists (you can reject God because it's not scientific, but that's only an argument for agnosticism). Unless you think philosophers are atheists just for fun and don't have reasons for having certain beliefs about God at all? Lol, I don't think so. Some more examples of it being accepted by great philosophers: One philosopher, William Rowe, who is an excellent philosopher (widely recognized as excellent by both atheists and theists), describes himself as a "friendly atheist." You can do a search for the term and find some interesting references on the web. What Rowe meant was not so much that he would (for example) gladly buy you a drink whether or not you are an atheist (on this matter, I can't say as I have never met him), but he means that while he thinks that atheism is true, he believes that atheism is not the only option for rational persons. He believes, for example, that while the problem of evil provides a person with a good reason for thinking atheism is true, a person can reasonably think that the existence and quantity of evil is compatible with believing in an all good God. - See more at: http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/24628#sthash.LhJMbdwR.dpuf |
| This fucking Chiki guy...... |
[i]"Yet each man kills the thing he loves, [/i]By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!'' ~Oscar |
Bernkastel said: Chiki said: It actually does, because it's the only argument for atheism, which asserts that God doesn't exist with certainty. There are no other arguments which disprove that God exists (you can reject God because it's not scientific, but that's only an argument for agnosticism). Unless you think philosophers are atheists just for fun and don't have reasons for having certain beliefs about God at all? Lol, I don't think so. How did you go from: Disproving God is easily possible, and it's one of the first thing taught in any basic philosophy course. It's called the "problem of evil" argument and most people accept it. To only argument for atheism, which asserts that God doesn't exist with certainty. I'm not interested in "God doesn't exist with certainty" because there are a million arguments that show that, including the absence of evidence. Your original claim was that this argument surely disproves God. Now explain how it disproves God, and why it is not universally accepted by philosophers. Lol why didn't you quote the next line? I already explained it. If God is perfectly good, why does he allow things like natural disasters to randomly kill people? http://www.iep.utm.edu/evil-log/ It's logically impossible for God to be all good if he lets evil stuff occur, so God doesn't exist. Let's try again. If God is all good, then why does he let natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina kill hundreds of people? Anyone who is good would prevent such disasters from happening if it was in their power to do so. Therefore God is evil, therefore God is not all good, therefore the concept of God is logically contradictory, therefore he doesn't exist. I'm curious to see how you disprove it. |
Bernkastel said: geniobastardo said: This fucking Chiki guy...... That's Olwen... You'll know who that is if you were active during the time I wasn't lol. Holy shit..... I had a feeling that this guy oughta be someone I already know.... fuck that dense nigga is back Time to evacuate forums. |
[i]"Yet each man kills the thing he loves, [/i]By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!'' ~Oscar |
Bernkastel said: Chiki said: Let's try again. If God is all good, then why does he let natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina kill hundreds of people? Anyone who is good would prevent such disasters from happening if it was in their power to do so. Therefore God is evil, therefore God is not all good, therefore the concept of God is logically contradictory, therefore he doesn't exist. I'm curious to see how you disprove it. There are a hundred ways to undermine that argument just thinking about it for 5 seconds. For example: 1. Katrina is not bad in the absolute sense, only to human observers. Human observers do not have the capacity to label God's judgement correctly. 2. Your favorite utilitarianism ethics (which God might follow) deems this natural disaster greater happiness. 3. Evil only has meaning relative to Good. If evil is to exist in an absolute sense it presupposes the existence of God, as there is no other source where we could learn absolute good. 4. Nihilistic/skeptical view on evil. Deny the validity or existence of evil. 5. God is not truly omnibenevolent. This is a human error in judgement. 6. God values autonomy and free will above other good things. Subsequently God does not intervene with consequences of human decisions. Etc, etc. I can go on forever. 1. A well-known counterargument with millions of replies. See https://www.bowdoin.edu/faculty/s/ssehon/pdf/sehon-skeptical-theism.pdf 2. No it doesn't lol. Utilitarianism can deem it to be unknown, though. 3. This is another well-known counterargument, with an obvious reply: why doesn't just a little bit of evil exist then? A little bit of evil would be enough for absolute good to stand out. But the amount of evil that exists in the world is far more than the minimum amount of evil possible (the Holocaust, Hurricane Katrina, etc.). So God doesn't exist. 4. I am personally an error theorist (though I would be a utilitarian if I were a moral realist). I don't believe that good or evil actually exist. But you can still use the problem of evil argument because the religious standpoint presupposes that ethics exists. If a God exists, then obviously ethics has to be true, so the problem of evil argument can work even if you're an error theorist. 5. Nope, all of the holy books straightforwardly say that God is omnibenevolent. Also it is widely accepted that God is all good by professional theists. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concepts-god/ Theists largely agree that a maximally great person would be omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, and all good. 6. Natural disasters have nothing to do with free will. |
Bernkastel said: katsucats said: The core of this problem is a semantic confusion that causes circular assertions for people like you to go back and forth on indefinitely, without reason, and without even approaching a solution. It might roll off the tongue to speak of evidence and absence, and absence and evidence--too smoothly, in fact, that no one pays any attention to the actual meanings of evidence and absence. The first thing we must accept is that evidence is not proof in the formal sense. That is, unless we wish to relegate ourselves into reductio into absurdity, the common intent of the word evidence (i.e. scientific evidence) involves observation and induction. Deductive evidence, or proofs, demonstrate the equivalent of a claim in question, but evidence only suggests that we might believe in it. Therefore, evidence is not absolute or nonexistence, it is strong or weak. In this sense, absence of evidence is very easily evidence of absence, at various stages of weakness depending on how reasonable the claim. However, the entire argument of this thread and every other utterance of the phrase "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" fallaciously presumes a religious understanding of evidence as proof. It is true, and can be formally proven, that the absence of proof is not proof of absence. That is, just because we can't show that something exists doesn't mean that we know absolutely that is doesn't. We just have a reasonable expectation that it might not, depending on the claim. If we take evidence as proof, then the argument becomes nonsense in the empirical context no matter which way you dice it. Did you seriously write 4 paragraphs to make the semantic distinction that evidence is technically never going to be "proof"?... Talk about being off topic lol. You also talked about scientific evidence (which is what evidence usually refers to anyway these days). There are in fact tiers of scientific evidence based on experimental design, e.g. meta-study being highest and expert opinion being very low, etc, but nobody will ever tell you evidence of absence is equivalent to the absence of evidence in a scientific context in the absolute sense. On a very basic level, the evidence of absence is an experiment that showed the contrary, while the absence of evidence is the lack of experiment. Your "logic" only applies in your own philosophical vacuum. While an absence of evidence does not allow us to act on anything, an evidence of absence gives us reason to deny and act antagonistically against whatever claim it was relative to our confidence in the quality of the evidence. The distinction between the two is conceptually massive. He has a point regarding the weak/strong thing. There is no evidence Jews were on Easter Island. Does that mean it's 100% certain they weren't there? No, but the absence of any signs of Jewry is strong evidence for the conclusion that Jews didn't visit Easter Island. |
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Bernkastel said: Etc, etc. I can go on forever. Not to mention the short shortsightedness of humans in general. He says God should stop Hurricanes for humanity. Does he actually have any understanding of what would happen if God just stopped all those "natural disasters" the earth works a very specific way if God were to throw all that out the window for humanity the planet would literally stop functioning. The pressures wouldn't be able to release, the planet would probably tear itself apart under the strain I mean literally hes saying God should stop all tectonic movement and all volcanic eruptions. If his whole "evil" philosophy argument is accepted by so many then why is it dense as fuck. So God not destroying the planet to save some humans and instead doom them all is whats basically denying God. The only thing it denies is that God isn't as thick as a brick wall. |
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Bernkastel said: Then that would make God not all powerful because an all powerful God could save everyone.... or they are just very bad at practical problem solving for whatever reason. You're also falling into the just world fallacy, subtly suggesting that disasters have a just cause for them for the greater good.2. Yes it does. If God was an omniscient utilitarian, he would totally kill 200 people with a tsunami if it saves 201 people in the future. I dont really care for this omnipresent, omnipotent, all loving (...etcetera... etcetera) concept of a god though. Its too narrow of a concept. |
| Saving everyone in the world from any harm or suffering or death is counter productive to humanity as a whole even if we don't see it now. Humans need to die, sometimes a lot of them for one reason or another that ends up benefiting humanity as a whole and sometimes its as simple as a numbers game. If God saved everyone all the time the planet would be over populated, nobody would endure hardship so theres no need to prove their worth or faith and basically humanity would laze around because all their wants and needs are taken care for all the time. God expects great things from us, to ascend God knows how far from where we have come and that takes pain and trials and exposing our weakness so we can improve upon ourselves. Just look at our research towards the singularity, would not have been possible if not for the hardship to attain it pushing us forward, each defeat strengthening our resolve. Adversity is the test and fire on which we all gain favour. If God is our father then he expects more from his children, if they can't handle adversity what does that say for us? that we're weak of will and soul. God is preparing his children for whats out there using both gentle encouragement and tough love when needed. If God were to coddle humanity we would become weak and decadent. The parent who teaching a child what they need to know and gives some tough life lessons; building a strong determined resolve in the face of challenges, ends up with the strong independent well rounded son. The parent who just does whatever their kid wants ends up with the fat spoilt brat. I'm reminded of this quote: Capt. Picard: I understand what you've done here, Q. But I think the lesson could have been learned without the loss of 18 members of my crew. Q: If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid. |
SpooksNov 22, 2015 4:01 AM
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| There's a lot of subjectivity involved with how to interpret evidence. Like there is "evidence" that people use to justify their belief in God, yet other people don't accept that same "evidence". Regarding "belief", that can just turn very semantic because there are different levels of belief, unless you are talking absolute belief. |
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Bernkastel said: Chiki said: 1. It's rude to make me read 50 pages to get an answer. How would you like it if I just linked a random book as all my rebuttals. TLDR pls, not in mood to read all that. 2. Yes it does. If God was an omniscient utilitarian, he would totally kill 200 people with a tsunami if it saves 201 people in the future. 3. This rebuttal is meaningless, because it depends on baseline. A pessimist will tell you the world is largely evil with a bit of good, while an optimist will tell you the world is largely good with a bit of evil. 4. Ethics does not need the concept of evil to function. What is not ethical is wrong. Wrong things are not necessarily evil. 5. Who cares? I can say God exists but the Holy Book is written by humans. 6. It is your free will to jump into a fire. By the same reasoning it is your free will to decide to live there, despite naturally occurring disasters. I think you're missing the point. I can go quote a bunch of rebuttals for your rebuttals in scholarly articles too. The point I made was that your argument is far from conclusive, and thus your original claim that you can conclusively disprove God is simply false. 1. Not a counterargument. But I can summarize the point for you: if one's answer is that God works in mysterious ways, then it follows by logical reasoning that we can never know what is right or wrong, ever. 2. Yeah, IF. Therefore it's unknown. LOL 3. So you didn't understand the response. Ok then. That's not what the response is saying: quite literally, God could have made it so that there was very little evil and a lot of good. But he didn't, there's quite a shitload of evil as we can see. Therefore, the counterargument that good is necessary for evil is wrong. 4. Just remove the word "evil" from the argument and it still works. If God is all good, he wouldn't allow wrong things like Hurricane Katrina to happen, but it does happen. Therefore, God is not all good if he allows very wrong things to happen. The argument goes through again. 5. That's not accepted by theists lol. When you argue with a theist, you go along with their assumptions and use their assumptions to prove them wrong. 6. Sorry, the replies are getting weaker and weaker. First, there's nothing you can do about natural disasters like earthquakes, which can happen anywhere at any time. Second, you presuppose that people actually KNOW that natural disasters are going to happen. Maybe the case with Katrina, but not the case in the past where we didn't have weather forecasters letting us know about natural disasters. You originally alleged that the problem of evil argument was a joke and can't be taken seriously. As it turns out, most philosophers think the problem of evil argument is sound, and I have proven that at least some of the world's best philosophers (such as William Rowe) think that the problem of evil argument is sound. Therefore, the problem of evil argument can be taken seriously and it can possibly be used to show that God doesn't exist. So you're unfortunately wrong no matter what way you look at it, and my job in this thread is done. Reading a few articles on Wikipedia and skimming a few books won't help you have an argument with someone who actually knows this stuff well lol. It's painfully apparent here. |
ChikiNov 22, 2015 6:06 AM
Bernkastel said: TheBrainintheJar said: He has a point regarding the weak/strong thing. There is no evidence Jews were on Easter Island. Does that mean it's 100% certain they weren't there? No, but the absence of any signs of Jewry is strong evidence for the conclusion that Jews didn't visit Easter Island. You're looking at this the wrong way around. The reason we don't believe Jews were on Easter Island is because we examined Easter Island and found no evidence of Jews. This is not an absence of evidence, this is inductive evidence of absence. If I got a box filled with balls and told you it contains colored balls, you would be unable to tell me what color is inside the box with certainty. This is the absence of evidence. However once you start pulling the balls out 1 by 1 and find that they are all blue, you can make the claim that there is evidence of absence of red balls. As you pull more and more blue balls at random, you will be more confident with your claim that there are no red balls. Pacifica_Ocean said: Not to mention the short shortsightedness of humans in general. He says God should stop Hurricanes for humanity. Does he actually have any understanding of what would happen if God just stopped all those "natural disasters" the earth works a very specific way if God were to throw all that out the window for humanity the planet would literally stop functioning. The pressures wouldn't be able to release, the planet would probably tear itself apart under the strain I mean literally hes saying God should stop all tectonic movement and all volcanic eruptions. If his whole "evil" philosophy argument is accepted by so many then why is it dense as fuck. So God not destroying the planet to save some humans and instead doom them all is whats basically denying God. The only thing it denies is that God isn't as thick as a brick wall. Pretty much. Idk why Olwen treats philosophy like science where there is a current best answer. The irony is 90% of what he says on these forums aren't the most popular opinions in philosophy to begin with. I think your distinction of 'inductive absence' and 'absence' are what I was looking for. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence once you made an attempt to prove something and found no reason to believe it, and left pretty much no way for new evidence to pour in. |
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