standard of evidence

[Rational AKD]

It's not just lack of evidence, but evidence to the contrary.

alright, you'll have to explain what the "evidence to the contrary" is. I really hope you don't mean the lack of evidence is evidence to the contrary, because you were the one who said it's irrational for you to believe in Christianity due to lack of evidence to the contrary. surely believing God doesn't exist can't by justified simply by lack of evidence.

And again, why are you not committing a fallacy by not believing in Zeus?

because Christianity has much more explanatory power than Greek mythology, and accepting Christianity as a belief means I can't accept Greek mythology as well because the two are not compatible. i'm not committing the fallacy because lack of evidence isn't my reason for believing they are false.

Well then, show me a claim and its negation where both have equal plausibility.

what I was speaking of was the proposition "God exists" and "God doesn't exist." just about all atheists here would agree that the negating proposition here is more rational, yet I haven't seen a single reason why that is so. all they've been doing is saying the first is an "extraordinary claim" and requires extraordinary evidence. but as I've stated, this is purely subjective. it may seem to some that a God existing is an extraordinary claim, but to others the proposition that God doesn't exist is even more extraordinary as a claim. there is no way you can objectively determine how extraordinary a claim is. the closest they've come to answering this is saying it's all about believability, but the problem is this is also subjective. the claim "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" just doesn't work and i'm not bringing up radical or even controversial stuff. most philosophers recognize the fallacy of this statement. David Hume may have been a great advocate of this statement, but to be honest he wasn't a good philosopher at all. an almost complete refutation of all his works exists in a book by John Earman titled 'Hume's Abject Failure.'

And no, it's not your god claim since there is no way to determine the plausibility of the claim.

really? well, there are many pieces of evidence I use to rationalize theism, but I really don't want to get off topic here. i'll be really generous and grant you there is absolutely no evidence supporting the existence of God. what evidence do you have against it? and please, don't say i'm shifting burden of proof. that would only be the case if I was trying to prove God exists by saying you can't prove he doesn't. i'm not doing that, i'm giving you opportunity to rationalize a claim against a claim that is not substantiated at all. just one piece of evidence I can't refute would be good enough so it should be too hard right? but if you can't find a single piece of evidence to show God doesn't exist, then you can't say it's more rational. they would be equally plausible.

I think the problem that Irrational AKD is having is equating "I don't believe in X because there's no evidence for it" with "X is impossible because there's no evidence for it."

no i'm not. I've said to you over and over again disbelieving a claim due to lack of evidence is not irrational. but if you want to say the contrary claim, "God doesn't exist" is more rational than the claim "God exists" you must have reason to justify it as more rational. and no, you can't say lack of evidence for God makes the proposition "God doesn't exist" more rational. you must have separate reasons supporting your proposition. even if I said there is no evidence for God (this is hypothetical) I haven't seen a single atheist show a single shred of evidence supporting the non-existence of God. if there is none, than at minimum the two propositions are equally plausible and equally rational (though maybe not as rational as neutral skepticism).

but it's impossible for one to exist.

i'm a bit confused here. by one, do you mean God? if so, that seems like a very closed statement. if you've concluded it's impossible for God to exist, then there should be no evidence that could convince you otherwise. by the definition of impossible, it can't possibly be true. so I don't understand why you would explain how open you are to evidence then say God is impossible (unless I misinterpreted what you mean by one).

Saying "If there's no evidence, I don't believe" is not argument from ignorance.

indeed you are correct. but as I've said, no evidence for the proposition doesn't substantiate the negating proposition. yes, I understand you don't necessarily believe that proposition, but if that's the case you still can't conclude it is a more rational position. at least, not without extra reasoning.

you'll have to show that something I can observe, or infer from observations

empirical evidence is not the only evidence that can substantiate a proposition. inductive and deductive arguments also work.

YOU have to tell me what your evidence is

I will share them in time. right now, I don't want to stray off topic and have a huge tangent.

As for quantity-- ONE piece of evidence is sufficient.

finally, a reasonable answer relevant to one of my questions. thank you, I didn't think anyone would actually answer my question without dancing around and dodging the point.

Define God, and show me one thing that can be attributed to God and nothing else, and you've proven God.

that's fair. I just wish other people would have said something like this.

You can't prove any of those things-- but even if I find them highly plausible, my feelings about plausibility are not going to get you to take my claims seriously.

true, I can't prove any of those things don't exist. I would have to conclude that they all exist in at least one possible world, and thus have the possibility of existing in the actual world... somewhere. and when I say a possible world, i'm using a modal logic term just to let you know.

The reason YOU believe in God is not based on physical observations of the universe, presumably.

it's partially based on observations, but not completely. I kind of hinted to it in the OP of the thread. I am convinced by arguments I find to be valid, and those arguments have good empirical evidence supporting their premises. i'm not revealing what those arguments are here because I don't want to stray off topic, but if you stick around you will get to see them.