[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[Silver]

Do you put as much effort into asking for evidence that magical garden gnomes do not exist as you do for god? If you are not being consistent, stop being so obtuse.

Furthermore, your weak apologist argument in favor of god's existence is doing you no favors. It is quite reasonable to state with certainty that absence of evidence for god's existence currently verifies his non-existence as stating that the absence of evidence for magical garden gnomes means they do not exist.

[Belacqua]

Furthermore, your weak apologist argument in favor of god's existence is doing you no favors. 

I have made no argument in favor of god's existence. If I appear to have done so, please quote back to me the place in which I did so.

I am examining the form of your several arguments, none of which I think is well made. 

It is quite reasonable to state with certainty that absence of evidence for god's existence currently verifies his non-existence as stating that the absence of evidence for magical garden gnomes means they do not exist.

Well, I don't think that the absence of evidence "verifies his non-existence" with certainty.

Does the absence of evidence for extraterrestrial life verify its non-existence?

[Silver]

From a logical perspective, absence of empirical evidence of the existence of extraterrestrials means it is perfectly reasonable to state that extraterrestrials do not exist. Only when the evidence of existence is available can we state for certain that extraterrestrials are real.

[Acrobat]

Do you put as much effort into asking for evidence that magical garden gnomes do not exist as you do for god? If you are not being consistent, stop being so obtuse.

Furthermore, your weak apologist argument in favor of god's existence is doing you no favors. It is quite reasonable to state with certainty that absence of evidence for god's existence currently verifies his non-existence as stating that the absence of evidence for magical garden gnomes means they do not exist.

Magic garden gnomes don't exist, because they're a product of people's imagination, fictional beings in story tales told to children, etc.. Or in other words, such aspects is underlying evidence here that leads us to the conclusion that they don't exist. 

No, I have no evidence one way or the other that you're married, or whether you're grandmother is alive. As I result I can't conclude one way or the other.

If you don't have evidence one way or the other regarding God's existence , than you can't conclude one way or the other.

[Silver]

If you don't have evidence one way or the other regarding God's existence , than you can't conclude one way or the other.

You just contradicted yourself; for by applying the same logic to god that you did to magical garden gnomes, one arrives at the same conclusion of non-existence.

[Acrobat]

If you don't have evidence one way or the other regarding God's existence , than you can't conclude one way or the other.

You just contradicted yourself; for by applying the same logic to god that you did to magical garden gnomes, one arrives at the same conclusion of non-existence.

Sure but the claim gnomes are imaginary, and don't exist as result, is a positive claim, requiring evidence, just like  saying the holocaust didn't happen is. 

The point was, your suggestion that you had no burden of proof, is just dishonest.

[Silver]

The point was, your suggestion that you had no burden of proof, is just dishonest.

Incorrect.

I can claim all day and all year round that magical garden gnomes do not exist. It is a fact to which only obtuse apologists cannot accept. If it is understood that something does not exist despite the illogical and frankly overused where is the evidence of non-existence spiel, then the same course of reason can be applied to all things that clearly do not exist.

The burden of proof only ever makes sense for positive claims of existence, for which the individual must then support the argument due to the fact that there is no evidence for existence.

[Belacqua]

From a logical perspective, absence of empirical evidence of the existence of extraterrestrials means it is perfectly reasonable to state that extraterrestrials do not exist. 

Not at all. 

Absence of empirical evidence only indicates that we don't know.

[Silver]

Absence of empirical evidence only indicates that we don't know.

Poppycock.

We do know that things don't exist for which we have zero empirical evidence one way or the other. I am not going to illogically state I don't know if magical garden gnomes exist. Rather, I am going to reasonably state, I know magical garden gnomes don't exist. The same logic can be applied to extraterrestrials and god.

[Belacqua]

For a very long time, evolution occurred in the world, and no one knew it was happening.

First, because there was no creature capable of knowing it. Then, because no one figured it out -- no one knew what sort of evidence to look for.

So if someone in about the 17th century had claimed the existence of evolution, it would have been easy to "prove" that evolution doesn't occur (according to Fierce's standards), by pointing out that there was no evidence. Such a "proof" would have been incorrect. The lack of evidence at that time was not proof that evolution doesn't happen.

Likewise, the lack of evidence now for extraterrestrial life in no way constitutes proof that it doesn't exist.

In fact, as we know now, the evidence for evolution was all around, but no one knew that fossils, etc., constituted evidence. So there may be evidence all around us that extraterrestrial life exists, too, but we just haven't figured it out yet.

The point is that our not having evidence proves nothing either way.

---

Rather, I am going to reasonably state, I know magical garden gnomes don't exist. The same logic can be applied to extraterrestrials and god.

I think we are reasonable to conclude that magical garden gnomes don't exist. For one thing, the descriptions we have of them don't fit in to what we know of the world. 

Not so with extraterrestrials, whose existence in no way contradicts our current knowledge of the world.