Mohammed1212 Wrote:In other words: Is the lack of evidence itself is an evidence?
It can be, in circumstances where you would expect evidence if the claim were true.
- If someone tells you that you're at the center of a terrible earthquake, and you don't feel any shaking, you will reasonably believe that the claim is false.
- If someone tells you that there is a herd of mile-tall free-roaming elephants in Kansas, you will believe that the claim is false. You will believe this based entirely on the lack of evidence. And you will be rational to believe this.
- If someone claims that the Christians have a good argument for the existence of Jehovah, you will rationally believe the claim to be false because they wouldn't have been using terrible arguments for all these years if they'd had a good one.
Quote:Okay but is it logically valid to say that God does NOT exist based on the lack of evidence? Or should we say that God could exist but believing in him is irrational without evidence?
That depends how weird gods are. Let's have a scale of weirdness:
A. Mundane Claims: If someone says, "I have twenty-seven cents in my pocket," you're usually going to accept that as true without further evidence.
B. Stretches: "I have twenty thousand dollars in my pocket." This could be true, in some sense. But it doesn't happen enough that we'll accept it as true just because you say so. We'll need evidence.
C. Implausible Claims: "I have a hundred billion dollars in my pocket." It's not that it can't be true, and it's not that we wouldn't have an open mind if the evidence were thrust before us. But the claim is weird enough for rational people to presume that it is false.
D. Wacko Claims: "I've been to Mars twenty-seven times. On Mars, I found the body of Abraham Lincoln, and I brought him back to life." This claim is presumptively false. It goes against much that we know. It is just possibly logically true, but most reasonable people will assume it's false. A few people may get around to looking at your evidence if they like you a lot and want to humor you, but there's nothing irrational about just assuming that the claim is false.
F. Impossible Claims: "I have a round square and a married bachelor in my pocket." Logical contradictions are false. They cannot be true. We know they are false without even looking at the evidence. We have no interest in evidence, because no evidence can possibly support a contradiction. This category includes gods that are omnipotent but can't defeat iron chariots, gods that can be seen but can't be seen, gods that are all-just or all-loving but who torture people in Hellfire forever, gods who are all-knowing but can't find the kids in the garden.
So there's our scale of weirdness. Now the question becomes, what does it take to be a god. Can you be a god by having twenty-seven cents in your pocket? No, anybody can do that. Many people can supersize fries. These are just normal people, not gods.
How about Superman? He can go faster than a speeding bullet. He can leap tall buildings at a single bound. He can fly. He can squeeze charcoal into diamonds. He is invulnerable. These are wacko claims, right? If Superman existed, and if he could really do those things, would that make him a god? Maybe so. The claim that he is a god would be plausible, because he has wacko powers.
I think it's fair to say that if you aren't wacko or impossible, you aren't a god. You're just a normal person who can jump over firehydrants in a single bound, who runs faster than a speeding cat, or who is invulnerable to Nerf weapons.
Now here's the thing: Rational people know that impossible things are false. Rational people assume that wacko things are false. And, in order to be a god, you have to be either impossible or wacko.
Therefore, rational people believe that gods are false. We don't need evidence to make this presumption.
