Absence of evidence

[mwtech]

I saw a video by the Amazing Atheist on YouTube and I think he brought up an interesting point. I won't link to the video on this forum because he certainly does not maintain a level of civility and etiquette that we appreciate on this forum, but he is easy to find on YouTube if you wish to do so.

On the issue of proving God's existence, many Christians take the approach of, "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Is that really a valid approach to take? Here is the example credited to the Amazing Atheist:

You have just returned home from running errands and your neighbors runs up to you and tells you that an elephant just ran through your house. You would expect to see some evidence of this. You might see huge footprints in the yard, you would see lots of broken appliances and a huge mess where the elephant walked through the living room, you would probably even find a pile of the elephant's excrement left behind. If you do not see any sign that the elephant has been in your house, it would be ridiculous to believe that it was actually there. In this case, the absence of evidence is very certainly evidence of absence.

Why should the case be any different when discussing something much, much bigger than an elephant? God is even more likely to leave behind noticeable evidence of his involvement in humanity and creation. When someone makes an unfalsifiable claim, like the universe being created by God, the burden of proof lies on the person making the assertion. And if there is an absence of evidence, there is reason to believe that God is absent as well.

[Jashwell]

Absence of expected results is evidence of the absence of the truth of the hypothesis predicting them.

Christianity, like many other faith based systems, does not make any reasonable and testable claims.

A hypothesis that makes no predictions is not falsifiable by absence of evidence. There is no evidence expected.

[Divine Insight]

From my perspective this argument that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence holds no water in Christianity, or any of the other Abrahamic religions.

It may hold some credibility in terms of a very abstract concept of "God" that is ill-defined.

However, in the Abrahamic, or biblical picture of God this is not the case. This God is defined quite extensively by these biblical tales. Therefore there are many things we can indeed use as "evidence" for or against this God.

IMHO, the evidence against the Biblical portrait of God is overwhelming. And this evidence comes directly from the biblical stories themselves.

The main evidence IMHO, is that this God is simply inconsistent with the character traits he's supposed to possess. The God portrayed in the Old Testament is neither intelligent enough, nor wise enough to be an all-wise intelligent supreme being. Some people may call this a personally subjective call, but as far as I'm concerned it's profound enough that this is all the evidence I need to clearly see that this God cannot exist verbatim as described by these religious doctrines.

I think also, in the case of Christianity there are things we can "test" and show that the God being depicted is clearly false and untrue.

For example, Jesus used a parable that Gdd feeds the birds yet the birds to not toil or reap, or gather food into barns. Actually this is totally false. Bird do indeed toil and reap, at great peril to their own lives often being killed and eaten themselves by other predators. So this leaves us no choice but to recognize that either Jesus didn't have clue what he was talking about or he was an outright liar. Either of these conclusions are not fitting of a God.

Jesus also supposedly promised that he would do whatever we ask of him to glorify his father in heaven. Yet we have overwhelming evidence that he doesn't answer the prayers of many Christians who ask for very reasonable, righteous, and unselfish things in his name all the time. And Mother Teresa is clearly one of the most popular examples of this.

So again, we have an example of a supposedly righteous God telling outright lies. Either that or these rumors about Jesus are false and he never made these promises to begin with. In either case, the religion fails.

So for me, there is no question whatsoever that the God of the Bible has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt to not exist as described verbatim in the Bible.

Could we allow for twisted non-verbatim abstract interpretations of the Bible in an effort to "Save" this God? Sure. But then we wouldn't have saved the God that is described verbatim in the Bible. Instead we would have created an artificial God that is something quite different from what the Bible describes verbatim.

So I don't even see the point in going there. We may as well just make up a God on our own and forget about the Bible altogether if we are going to do that.

So yes, for me the God of the Bible has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be entirely false. And the evidence for this comes directly from the Bible itself, there isn't even any need to appeal to science or anything external to these tales. They are sufficient to shoot themselves in their own foot.

[mwtech]

Christianity, like many other faith based systems, does not make any reasonable and testable claims.

A hypothesis that makes no predictions is not falsifiable by absence of evidence. There is no evidence expected.

There are a few claims made by Christians (reasonable or not I don't know) that, if true, should produce observable evidence and be testable. For example, many Christians believe in the power of prayer. there are many many Christians I have spoken with who wholeheartedly believe that when Jesus said you could move mountains with prayer, he meant it literally. If this were true, we should be able to test this.
There are many who claim that they can heal people with the power of the Holy Spirit. This is testable. A scientific experiment could easily be set up with controls and all to eliminate the possibility of coincidence taking the credit. But is hasn't, because faith healing is almost surely not real.

[Jashwell]

Christianity, like many other faith based systems, does not make any reasonable and testable claims.

A hypothesis that makes no predictions is not falsifiable by absence of evidence. There is no evidence expected.

There are a few claims made by Christians (reasonable or not I don't know) that, if true, should produce observable evidence and be testable. For example, many Christians believe in the power of prayer. there are many many Christians I have spoken with who wholeheartedly believe that when Jesus said you could move mountains with prayer, he meant it literally. If this were true, we should be able to test this.
There are many who claim that they can heal people with the power of the Holy Spirit. This is testable. A scientific experiment could easily be set up with controls and all to eliminate the possibility of coincidence taking the credit. But is hasn't, because faith healing is almost surely not real.

On the other hand, it's exceptionally easy to attribute things to prayer.
There are no testable predictions of prayer, either. (under a yes/no/wait system, all eventualities are covered)

Even then, it's easy to ignore or find ways around prayer studies when they do make predictions. For instance, God might not answer prayers that would give away his existence or something like that.

And not all Christians believe that prayer has influence on the physical.

[Cephus]

Bad poll, it doesn't include an important option: "There is no evidence for God and therefore I don't believe."

[mwtech]

Bad poll, it doesn't include an important option: "There is no evidence for God and therefore I don't believe."

I apologize for that. I tried to go back and edit the post as soon as I originally posted it but it didn't change the poll. That would be the option that I would have voted for. Unfortunately I don't know how to fix it. But, I agree, that is the most important option in my eyes.

[Divine Insight]

Bad poll, it doesn't include an important option: "There is no evidence for God and therefore I don't believe."

That's also the most rational position as well.

[Wootah]

I saw a video by the Amazing Atheist on YouTube and I think he brought up an interesting point. I won't link to the video on this forum because he certainly does not maintain a level of civility and etiquette that we appreciate on this forum, but he is easy to find on YouTube if you wish to do so.

On the issue of proving God's existence, many Christians take the approach of, "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Is that really a valid approach to take? Here is the example credited to the Amazing Atheist:

You have just returned home from running errands and your neighbors runs up to you and tells you that an elephant just ran through your house. You would expect to see some evidence of this. You might see huge footprints in the yard, you would see lots of broken appliances and a huge mess where the elephant walked through the living room, you would probably even find a pile of the elephant's excrement left behind. If you do not see any sign that the elephant has been in your house, it would be ridiculous to believe that it was actually there. In this case, the absence of evidence is very certainly evidence of absence.

Why should the case be any different when discussing something much, much bigger than an elephant? God is even more likely to leave behind noticeable evidence of his involvement in humanity and creation. When someone makes an unfalsifiable claim, like the universe being created by God, the burden of proof lies on the person making the assertion. And if there is an absence of evidence, there is reason to believe that God is absent as well.

I would have to agree. The evidence for God is everywhere and I don't think Christians should argue otherwise.

Sometimes I think that when the Christian uses the argument, "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is because the Christian is trying to find some basic rationality in the non christian. If the non Christian disagrees with even that then what recourse to logic can aid?

[mwtech]

I would have to agree. The evidence for God is everywhere and I don't think Christians should argue otherwise.

Sometimes I think that when the Christian uses the argument, "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is because the Christian is trying to find some basic rationality in the non christian. If the non Christian disagrees with even that then what recourse to logic can aid?

What evidence might that be? I can hardly believe that evidence for God is everywhere because I have never seen any of it.
Also, are you trying to imply that non-believers lack even basic rationality? Because I would have to vehemently disagree so, and in a way that might make it obvious that I take offense to that.