Is inference sound? Is the absence of proof enough to justify atheism?
Besides, for those who justify their atheism by the absence of proof, should not they refrain from raising objections against arguments for theism which rest upon mere speculation (for instance plenty of universes)?
Absence of ‘proof’? What ‘proof’ exactly do people stipulate is absent? The moment they can identify such ‘proof’, it ceases to be absent.
You know what I mean. Absence of proofs means that there is no flawless proof known or even possible.
Lots of people believe there are successful proofs for the existence of God (like people who have attempted to write such proofs) maybe more believe that at least such a thing is possible. Don’t confuse cultural agnosticism (disagreement between individuals) with agnosticism within the hearts of each individual.
Of course, there are plenty of “proofs” scattered in internet.
I said that from an atheist’s standpoint.
Absence of proof =/= Proof of absence, but Absence of Proof = Lack of credible evidence.
That is my take.
I’m afraid I don’t! There is a pool of evidence around us in the universe. This ‘evidence’ is all potentially convertible into ‘proof’, depending upon what you want to prove. The flaw in finding this ‘proof’ within the evidence available to us lies with us, and not with the evidence itself!
Slainte.
Theoretically the Burden of Proof rest upon someone makeing the positive claim.
For instance if I say “You’re sister is dead,” you would be right in asking for some evidence, especially if I am no special authority on your sister. (not a husband or anything.)
If I go on to say, “Prove that she’s not dead.” I not only would be being quite a prick but commiting the fallacy of argueing from ignorance.
Simillarly if you replace “You’re sister is dead,” with “There exist an omnipotent being,” the problem remains, although is less obvious.
Absence of proof is not enough, there has to be proof in favour, supporting it too, or the fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantium is committed, which means argument from ignorance.
Your contention also committs the fallacy of begging the question or assuming what you try to prove: Example from a book:
“A: “Moses was divinely inspired.”
B: “How do you know?”
A: “Because the Bible says He is.”
B: “But how do you know the Bible is reliable?”
A: “Because it was written by Moses, who is divine.””
No. It’s idiotic. Let’s say you are in a dark room and you can’t see shit around you; you ‘infer’ from this that nothing exists in the room.
But you could easily turn the light on and see all kinds of shit.
It’s the same thing.
Whoever said there was no proof? Define proof, a logical one, scientific? There’s a significant amount of both.
Well, the first question is does one consider atheism the lack of belief in God or the belief in a lack of God? If its the former than one can see how it is completely justified by the lack of evidence. When one enters a dark room he can speculate any contents he wants, but until he finds some evidence he would be a fool to belive any of his own speculations.
Now if its the later things are trickier. Most everyone on this board belives there is no such thing as what I like to call qGod: an omnipotent being that eternally rewards atheist and punishes theist. There is not nearly enough evidence to assert that there is or isn’t a qGod, but none-the-less most people belive there is none. Is this irrational? Perhapse a bit.
It seems the positions in order of rationality are:
Now it’s interesting to note that in a lot of ways 1 and 2 are going to be practically equivalent. Neither will be significantly impressed by afterlife threats. For 1 the treats of God and qGod, (not to mention the Gods of various religions) all cancel out. He realises that because of lack of avialable evidence he is unable to have any clue which if any are the right one, and has to hope any God-level being can understand his dillema.
Let me try something else here. This issue is highly interesting so if I seem to be inconsitent with my previous post, I’m probably just actually changeing my mind.
Let’s say someone ask me to back up my assertion, “There is no toaster on my kitchen counter.” What kind of evidence would I present? Probably something like the following:
I see no toaster when I look at my counter (with good lighting conditions.)
I feel no toaster when I grope about my counter.
Despite all my time in the kitchen I’ve never heard a toaster ding.
When I look at my eletric bill I see no useage unaccounted for.
None of these would be knock down, but they are all good inductive support for the original assetion.
Of course there is a disanalogy between the toaster and God. Everyone knows what the various consequences of haveing a toaster are. But what are the testable consequences of God? If there are some, the yes finding a lack of said consequences would be evidence for no God. If there are none, its hard to see how God is a meaningfull thesis for our lives.
So are their investigatable cosequences of God?
However, its possible that all of God’s good meaty consequences are hidden in the future. For instance afterlife and apocolypse. This would make the thesis of God more of a prediction than a description of our world. And in order for a rational person to heed a prediction it must have some evidence behind it. If some random person told me I will have a toaster tomarow, I would not be induced to buying bread, or belive the prediction.
Not if we employ your example’s framework. Neither toasters nor gods are well served by their rough equation to one another in an argumentative framework. So, of course, as you observe, we will easily run into problems as far as God is concerned.
My personal take on this is simple: I’m happy with Plantinga (and Swinburne) on how we can not rule out God…and from this basis, I think the most helpful basis for further investigation is historical inquiry…making a personal decision on what/which God/gods makes most sense given evidence/me as an individual.